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**Course fee includes exercises, learning aids, certificate of completion, and 90-day post-training support.

Summary of Simplified Technical English (STE)

Simplified Technical English (STE) or ASD-STE100 is a controlled language that is used to write technical manuals in such a way that they can be more easily understood by an international audience. STE helps to make translations cheaper and more accurate. Often a formal requirement for aircraft and defence maintenance documentation, STE can easily be adapted to all technical industries and beyond. Ms. Shumin Chen will teach participants how to correctly and effectively use STE in practice. She will also address some of the mistakes commonly found in technical writing and the frequently incorrect use of common STE writing rules.

Shumin gave us a an all-rounded presentation to Simplified Technical English. Personally, rule 1.3: To use only approved words with their approved meaning holds the key to successful controlled language implementation. Rules 3.4, 3.6, 4.1, 5.3, and 5.5 are also among my favourites. The approved verb TO MAKE SURE THAT can come in very handy for technical writers as well. The presentation of STE rules offers quite a detailed overview that includes not only language rules but good, old technical authoring principles in general. It has been very helpful for us to learn and understand the concept of STE. I have found Shumin to be very competent in STE and will definitely recommend her course! Eric, Head of Corporate Technical Documentation (CTD), Schindler Group.

STE Course Outline*

This 2-day Europe Online STE Workshop includes interactive training and exercises.

• Day 1: Classroom Training
  1. Practical overview of Simplified Technical English
  2. How STE helps both native & non-native speakers of English
  3. Benefits of adopting the STE international writing standard
  4. Writing rules and how to apply them in practice
  5. How to use the general vocabulary.
  6. Approved and non-approved words discussion and the rationale behind.

• Day 2: Application, Review, & Exercises
  1. How to deal with industry-specific terminology
  2. How to use STE for various documentation types
  3. How to implement STE with minimal disruption to on-going production and existing documentation
  4. Practical workshop session for applying STE rules to your own documents
  5. Review, edit, and discuss participants’ own documents to reinforce learning
  6. Classroom presentation of own documents.

* Shufrans also offers customised ASD-STE100 training solutions tailored to meet your specific requirements. These courses are normally provided at the customer’s premises.

The presentation on rules clarified a lot of things of which I was unaware. I have a much better understanding of how to format lists with colons, when to use obey vs. comply, and the differences between notes, cautions, and warnings. Moving forward, I will be able to utilize the ASD-STE rules more effectively to write better documents. Lauren Gelli, Senior Technical Writer, Aerotech Inc.

Who should attend this technical writing workshop?

• Compliance managers
• CIO, COO, CTO
• Customer support managers
• Documentation managers
• Editors
• Engineering managers
• Engineers and SMEs who create documentation
• Graphics specialists
• ILS managers
• Maintenance managers
• Operation managers
• Product managers
• Project managers
• Quality managers
• Software research engineers
• Technical illustrators
• Technical writers
• Translation managers
• Translators.

What technical writing outcomes to expect?

Our interactive training, exercises and workshop, will teach participants to standardise content to:

• Author more efficiently
• Communicate more effectively with a global audience
• Improve operational safety
• Reduce AOG / downtime
• Facilitate modular writing and reuse
• Facilitate teamwork
• Facilitate translation
• Maximise consistency
• Optimise product lifecycle support
• Reduce the cost of creating and maintaining technical publications.

ASD-STE100 Trainer’s qualifications

Ms. Shumin Chen, principal trainer & consultant at Shufrans TechDocs received her professional on-the-job training in the field of STE under the tutelage of Dr Frans Wijma, a linguist and documentation expert. Together as an experienced global team, they provided their combined knowledge and dedication to benefit customers worldwide. To date, they have provided training and consultancy services to over 200 companies. Shufrans TechDocs is the only company with such vast experience in providing certified STE training.

Shumin has supported various companies with their STE and other documentation needs, based on standards where possible. Although STE was developed for the aerospace industry, more specifically for aircraft maintenance documentation, she found that it made a lot of sense to apply the same principles to other industries and types of documents as well. Few -if any- changes to the specification are necessary to adapt STE to industrial sectors ranging from machinery to IT, automotive to medical equipment.

Summary

Alibaba Cloud, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group, is a cloud computing company. Alibaba Cloud provides cloud computing services to online businesses and Alibaba Group’s own e-commerce ecosystem. As the cloud computing arm and business unit of Alibaba Group, Alibaba Cloud provides a comprehensive suite of global cloud computing services to power both international customers’ online businesses and Alibaba Group’s own e-commerce ecosystem. Alibaba Cloud offers high-performance, elastic computing power in the cloud. Services are available on a pay-as-you-go basis and include data storage, relational databases, big-data processing, Anti-DDoS protection and content delivery networks (CDN).

Simplified Technical English (STE) is a controlled language that is used to create technical content and documentation that are more easily understood by an international audience. While it makes sense to try to describe complex processes using Simplified Technical English, the paradigm shift is not always an easy one and technical writers would require formal training in STE at least.

This article shares in more detail how the Alibaba Cloud Content & Globalisation team can potentially benefit from the use of a controlled language like STE to offer outstanding local technical service capabilities to their customers. 

Process pain points

Existing documents are usually translated from Mandarin Chinese. Unclear information in the source language will often obscure the meaning in the corresponding English translation. To improve the quality of translation in the English text, it is therefore necessary to rewrite the content in its entirety. This is because keeping the original sentence and paragraph structure while trying to apply sound STE writing principles will make the technical writer’s job in this case extremely difficult. A crucial point to keep in mind is to ensure that all necessary information in the original document is faithfully rewritten in STE.

When everyone is required to clarify what the original content means before writing as well as appreciate the actual working principles behind, we are definitely going to see quality improvements! Alibaba Cloud Writer’s post-training feedback.

 

Based on feedback from technical writers, while writing in Standard English offers them the flexibility to keep information vague but convincing, the original technical content is not always complete or accurate. Clearly, this has changed when technical writers favour the use of a controlled language like Simplified Technical English over Standard English. Restrictions on word usage, sentence structure, and sentence lengths have compelled writers to rewrite their documents and present information with clarity and much less ambiguity. This is based on the premise that technical writers already possess a firm understanding of their products and services. In this manner, they can do away with the original formulation in Chinese, then describe the use of their products and services in a user-friendly way with the help of STE.

The customer’s journey

As is the practice in many companies worldwide, documents were created at the development stage before reaching techdocs. Vague wording, style, and tone of voice from Standard English have gradually influenced the way technical writers communicate with their audience in the long run. Consequently, it becomes challenging to fully distill the meaning behind technical content unless the user spends more time in reading the documentation again. This is a situation that could have been mitigated if technical writers clarified the content with the original content writers from the outset and started writing in STE sentences.

How the STE specification drives cohesion and consistency within technical writing teams

Because of vocabulary and writing rules standardisation, technical writers become more consistent on a word level that starts with the simple fact that they are going to use the same word whenever they refer to the same thing. This is especially important for a diverse team where the levels of language proficiencies and and understanding for technology are not the same. Here, STE may be the key to balance.

We offer you more than just a training service

1. Are you a manager who constantly worries about the varying technical English proficiency levels of your staff?
2. If you are an engineer, are you having a difficult time explaining your concepts to your technical writing team?
3. If you work as a technical communicator, do you often struggle to convert complex ideas into brilliant content?

If you answered yes to any of the above, join us at the next certified Simplified Technical English workshop session in Shanghai, and be pleasantly surprised.

STE stands for Simplified Technical English. It offers native & non-native English speakers alike an efficient platform to improve your technical English language competency when writing for a global audience.

1. For technical writers: simplified wording and grammar will improve readability and safety compliance of your documentation and product respectively.
2. For engineers and programmers: Breeze through writing of test cases, technical documents, and business emails in a highly standardised and regulated manner. STE opens up effective communication channels, hence avoiding potential miscommunication issues at work while improving the overall professional impression that you portray.
3. For translators, translation PMs, and localisation engineers: With STE working for your team in the background, you can streamline your preparation of translation memory/terminology based on leaner documentation, lowered translation & localisation costs, and faster delivery.
4. For LSPs and technical writing services companies: Diversify your business portfolio with an in-depth knowledge of STE as an international controlled English language standard.

The Organisers

Shufrans Techdocs

Shufrans TechDocs is a full-service technical documentation provider and the global leader in ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English training and consultancy. Together with our partner network, we can help you implement a future-proof information management environment that lets you work more efficiently and accurately.

https://www.shufrans-techdocs.com/

TC互联

Talent of Content is a Shanghai-based technical communication platform that is designed especially for the technical writing community. Talent of Content (ToC) strives to provide technical communicators with a platform for their professional development, communication, and cooperation. Now, we extend our services to all content-related professionals.

Act fast and register now! We have limited seat availability.

15 (Sun) to 16 (Mon) July 2018

Shanghai • China

Registration fee: 2999 RMB/seat from 5999 RMB(Introductory offer)

This event is a collaborative effort brought to you by the dedicated teams at Shufrans Techdocs × TC互联. The first ever co-certified STE training program in China.

Programme Highlights

1. Highly efficient: We will cover all 400 pages of the ASD-STE100 Specification in 2 days’ training for immediate implementation.
2. Practicality: cross-industry cases sharing by trainers with excellent pragmatic approach
3. Follow-up: 3-month post-training consulting period follows immediately after the training to ensure a seamless transition into STE writing at work
4. Experienced trainer: Ms Shumin Chen, Co-founder & Head of ASD-STE100 training & implementation of Shufrans TechDocs. Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shuminchen/

Introductory offer 2999 RMB from 5999 RMB | Service Package includes:

1. 2-day classroom training
2. 90-day post-training support by Shufrans TechDocs
3. 90-day professional consulting by STE experts
4. Reduce your content development time and efforts
5. Significantly lowers post-processing (e.g. translation) cost
6. One-stop content quality solution
7. Overall quality improvement.

More case studies & industry samples：https://www.shufrans-techdocs.com/simplified-technical-english-case-study/

To learn more:

Not just a standard for maintenance documentation only

On 25 January 2017, Issue 7 of the ASD-STE100 was renamed ‘International specification for the preparation of maintenance technical documentation in a controlled language’. Now, given the success and adaptability of Simplified Technical English (STE) across industries, this long overdue name change is a very much welcomed move. Indeed, STE writing principles are very valid for all technical documentation purposes.

On 20 and 21 February 2017 Shufrans TechDocs & FOXIZ became the first companies worldwide to jointly offer a certified ASD-STE100 training workshop using Issue 7.

Naturally, a cake celebration was called for after writers worked so very hard on their STE rewriting assignments. 2017 coincides with my 11th year of using the ASD-STE100 Specification, although I had hoped for an earlier release date in 2016 to mark a decade of my technical writing career 😉

Followed this course last February and truly learned a lot. Shumin is very experienced and really knows what she is talking / teaching about. Recommended for all manual writers!

– Hans Harlé, Entecst Technical Communication

20% fewer rules in Issue 7!

Here are some of my observations: Seemingly overlapping writing rules were either removed or combined with others.  The results?  A 20% decrease in the number of writing rules from 65 to 53. Before you get the wrong idea, the message of STE did not change, it only crystallised. What transpired during those four years since the older issue in 2013 was a major overhaul where rules were succinctly rephrased and cleverly reorganised.

Every rule now includes a comprehensive description and explanation. Sentence examples were revised to facilitate a more progressive and concise understanding, coupled with an accurate use of this technical English writing standard.

A reduced learning curve

As a controlled language, STE writing rules and its core vocabulary (or general dictionary) of words work hand in hand to facilitate your authoring process. While the rules regulate the words and which parts of speech you can use, the dictionary provides you with a generous resource of technical words. This core vocabulary of around 930 approved words lets you write just about everything that you need for technical documentation, even for procedural information in general. However, this isn’t quite the end of my story yet.

Every dictionary entry is marked either as an approved or non-approved term. In the case of a non-approved word, one or more possible synonyms are provided to help the writer transition from Standard English to Simplified English. Approved synonyms and associated sentence examples will provide him with the ideas that will be difficult to think of all by himself. The revised layout and formatting in Issue 7 also makes it a lot easier to locate keywords and identify relevant examples speedily.

In recent versions of the ASD-STE100 specification issues 5, 6, and 7, we find that between 95 to 99% of the words in the STE general dictionary can be easily adapted even for technology companies, like the technical aspects of data protection solutions. And the concept of the STE specification is such that you can very easily adapt the specification to suit and cover your specific needs. It mainly entails additions to the dictionary which are customarily made, even for aerospace customers.

Enslaved to only 1,000 words or less? No way!

STE encompasses three main categories of words that technical writers can avail themselves of:

1. Approved words from the general dictionary
2. Technical names
3. Technical verbs.

Technical names and verbs are word categories where organisations and writers can enjoy a considerable degree of autonomy using STE guidelines for customer-specific terms, most of them are known as technical names. Technical names are mainly nouns that you need in order to write meaningful content about your specific product or services. They are not included in the dictionary because terminology differs from one industry to the other. To manage this unpredictability, STE provides lists of 19 categories for nouns (Rule 1.5 of Issue 7), and four categories for verbs (Rule 1.12 of Issue 7). I am happy to report that the STE Maintenance Group has since reviewed and enriched those lists in Issue 7. You will not do away with most of your product-specific terminology. However, STE principles will help you regulate and filter it. I strongly encourage technical communicator in any field to hold onto this specification as a highly valuable resource!