Sunny greetings, dear reader!
If you are a writer working for a global company or if your company has the potential to go global one day, this is an interesting read for you.
No matter what kind of writer you are, if you create content that is seen by customers, there are certain guidelines to follow. Whether you are a technical writer, a UI copywriter, a marketing writer, a legal writer, or something in-between, or outside of that spectrum, you may have a company style guide and writing guidelines to adhere to, or you may have written your own set of rules to follow. You might even have a glossary. If you already follow all of these, you are off to a good start. Now, the only thing left for your content is to write with a global mindset. This means writing in a way that allows your content to be easily converted into other languages.
The “Writing with a global mindset” is a mini-series in 3 parts. The first two parts (part 1 and part 2) cover the fundamentals needed to write content that can be converted for an international audience. If you keep those fundamentals in mind while writing, your content shouldn’t be a blocker when it comes to localization and translation. You’ll also avoid common mistakes, which means you won’t need to correct your already published content. Instead, once written, you can lean back and concentrate on the new piece of content that requires your full attention.
In part three, I will talk about why it is important for the localization and translation process to implement those fundamentals. Without further ado, let’s dive right in.
As a writer, your daily bread and butter is to get the casing, spelling, punctuation, contractions, and terminology right, and to stay consistent. In addition, sentences should not be too complex, as you want to reach everyone. If you just nodded, you are already halfway there in thinking globally! Let me explain.
Casing
The casing can change the meaning of a word and it also gives clues as to where it is seen by the user. Think of title or button casings; they are usually different in English – well, yes, not on our blog – but in general.
For example:
Title: Add User
Button: Add user
Let’s assume we have a product called Check. As a product name, it needs to always be consistently used as “Check”. Product names are usually kept in English, but they are sometimes translated or even localized1. For this example, we will keep the product name “Check” in English. If you ever use lowercase “check” and the context is ambiguous, it will be interpreted as a verb or as a completely different noun, such as a bank check. You don’t really want this to happen for your product name!
Spelling
Different spellings of the same word are usually a consistency issue and can also give clues. For example, “adapter” and “adaptor” give regional clues (American English vs. British English).
How about “check up”, “checkup” and “check-up”? English is not my native language, but I have read that “check up” is the verb, “checkup” is the noun and “check-up” is an adjective.
With multiple source writers from different backgrounds and cultures contributing to a product and content, mix-ups (is it mix-up, mixup or mix up?) and inconsistencies can easily happen.
Now, imagine being a translator. If the source is not correct or consistent, how is the translator supposed to know the intended meaning?
Punctuation
Punctuation plays a very important role and is super underrated. When working on UI translations alongside my Japanese colleague, there was always the question where certain text would be seen by the final reader, as it makes a difference in translation style if text is used as a radio button label or part of something else.
Usually, companies have guidelines for coding and writing style for frontend components. For example, these guidelines may specify that radio button labels should not end with punctuation, and only a full stop should be used when the label consists of more than one sentence.
I know there is much more to consider when it comes to context, but punctuation can give valuable clues!
Contractions
They’re contractions that have a double meaning, such as “she’d”. Is it “she would” or “she had”? Please don’t use any ambiguous contractions. You can find a quick overview here.
Terminology
If your company decides on specific terms, those should be consistent throughout. I know as a writer we often have the tendency to not repeat words too much, but to look for alternatives to express the same thing in different ways. While this approach may work well for novels, blogs (just gave myself a free pass), or poems, when it comes to instructional content such as guides or support articles, it’s best to stick with established terminology.
When it comes to help documentation, readers typically aren’t reading your content for enjoyment (though some might). Instead, they’re looking for information to follow a certain process or solve an issue.
In addition, keep your sentence structure simple. This, of course, depends on the target audience for your content. However, if you’re writing help content, you want your readers to find a solution and follow instructions easily. You can use the Hemingway Editor, which helps you grade your content and supports you in simplifying it.
Hop on to Part 2 for more information!
- There is a difference between translating and localizing content. If you’re interested in learning more about the difference, take a look at our post GILT: g11n, i18n, l10n, t9n. ↩︎
Leave a Reply