ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English (STE) 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.
Course outline*
Participants have the flexibility of attending a 1, 2, or 3-day training session with us.
Day 1: Classroom Training
Practical overview of ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English
How STE helps both native & non-native speakers of English
Benefits of adopting the STE international writing standard
Writing rules and how to apply them in practice
How to use the general vocabulary.
Day 2: Application, Review, & Exercises
Approved and non-approved words discussion and the rationale behind.
How to deal with industry-specific terminology
How to use STE for various documentation types
How to implement STE with minimal disruption to on-going production and existing documentation
Day 3: Extended Writing Workshop
Practical workshop session for applying STE rules to your own documents
Review, edit, and discuss participants’ own documents to reinforce learning
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.
Learning how to optimally use a documentation standard like ASD-STE100 is a substantial boost to our technical writing team’s capabilities and significantly improved our compliance rating! Raja Sureshbabu, Global Head of Aerospace Vertical, Tata Consultancy Services.
Who should attend?
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 training 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
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 180 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, Shumin 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 industries ranging from machinery to IT, automotive to medical equipment.
ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English (STE) 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.
It is important that operation and management information be understandable to the target audience. Sometimes, operation information is conveyed through a less-than-optimum selection of words. The manufacturer’s technical language can result in incomprehensible operation documentation.
Course outline*
This course introduces the underpinning principles of STE and its most practical application. We will explain the underlying principles of STE grammar rules and offer participants the opportunity to apply what they have learnt in a highly interactive classroom environment.
Practical overview of ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English
How STE helps both native & non-native speakers of English
Writing rules and how to apply them in practice
How to use the general vocabulary
How to deal with industry-specific terminology
How to use STE for various documentation types
How to implement STE with minimal disruption to on-going production and existing documentation
Hands-on STE editing and review
* Shufrans also offers customised ASD-STE100 training solutions tailored to meet your specific requirements. These courses are normally provided at the customer’s premises.
Who should attend?
Compliance managers
CIO, COO, CTO
Customer support managers
Documentation managers
Editors
Engineering managers
Engineers and SMEs who create documentation
ILS managers
Maintenance managers
Operation managers
Product managers
Project managers
Quality managers
Technical writers
Translation managers
Translators
What training 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
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 180 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, Shumin 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 industries ranging from machinery to IT, automotive to medical equipment.
ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English (STE) 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.
STE is a ‘way of life’ in the field of technical writing and documentation. The ASD-STE100 exercises covered a wide spectrum of topics from choosing between approved and non-approved words to recreating documentation in STE. Shumin expertly guides us from classroom learning mode to real-life practical application of STE rules. The materials that she presented were informative and very convincing.” Martin Broekhuis, Technical Editor, Webasto.
Course outline*
Practical overview of ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English
How STE helps both native & non-native speakers of English
Writing rules and how to apply them in practice
How to use the general vocabulary
How to deal with industry-specific terminology
How to use STE for various documentation types
How to implement STE with minimal disruption to on-going production and existing documentation
Hands-on STE editing and review
* Shufrans also offers customised ASD-STE100 training solutions tailored to meet your specific requirements. These courses are normally provided at the customer’s premises.
Who should attend?
Compliance managers
CIO, COO, CTO
Customer support managers
Documentation managers
Editors
Engineering managers
Engineers and SMEs who create documentation
ILS managers
Maintenance managers
Operation managers
Product managers
Project managers
Quality managers
Technical writers
Translation managers
Translators
What training 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
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 180 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, Shumin 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 industries ranging from machinery to IT, automotive to medical equipment.
This training workshop is hosted by Citec Finland, our preferred training partner in Finland.
by Shufrans Techdocsin BlogComments Off on International Standards at Shufrans TechDocs
Safety starts with quality. The best product is only as good as its documentation and technical data allow the customer to make optimum use of it. Formerly known as Simplified English, Simplified Technical English (STE) is an international standard (ASD-STE100) that helps to make technical documentation easy to understand.
Simplified Technical English standardises vocabulary, grammar and style, while letting users control their specific terminology.
Although Simplified Technical English originates from the aerospace and defence industries, it can easily be customised and applied to any other industry.
Using guidelines from the ASD-STE100 specification, writers and editors can take document clarity and consistency to the next level. Text written in Simplified Technical English shows improved readability and translatability. These benefits should not be overlooked as products and their accompanying documentation are increasingly shipped to many countries worldwide where English is not the main language used. Consequently, whether the majority of your audience is made up of native or non-native speakers of the English language, getting your message across clearly becomes faster and easier.
Text based on Simplified Technical English is also cheaper and faster to translate. Users of your documentation will benefit from higher translation quality, and mistranslations become less of a concern.
Injuries, losses and costly legal liabilities can happen as a result of unclear documentation and ambiguous translations. Simplified Technical English is based on standardised terminology and simple grammar rules. Consistent terminology facilitates your task of indexing and helps users to find pertinent information faster by eliminating unnecessary synonyms and spelling variants.
by Shumin Chenin BlogComments Off on Different industries, one technical language?
Given the success of Simplified Technical English (STE) and its adaptability, it was over time applied to various document types, and increasingly also in other (mainly technical) industries. In the aerospace and defence industries, safety, efficiency and readability are the main considerations for the use of STE. In many other industries, such as machinery, automotive, electronics, IT and medical equipment, another important consideration is to save on translation cost without compromising on translation quality.
Simplified Technical English (STE) rules describe sound writing practices
STE is an aerospace standard, or at least it started off as an aerospace standard. That having been said, out of those 65 writing rules, I couldn’t name a single one that is aerospace-specific. Take these STE rules for example:
Do not make long sentences (maximum 20 words for procedures, 25 words for descriptive text).
Do not use clusters of more than 3 nouns.
Only use simple verb tenses.
When you give an instruction, use the imperative/command form of the verb.
Well, most of us will have seen this kind of rules. We don’t like long sentences and Simplified Technical English tells us that for procedures or tasks there should be no more than 20 words in one sentence. For descriptive text we are allowed some more flexibility, and we need that, we have up to 25 words. Also English is a rather problematic language in that it allows us to just put any number of nouns into a cluster, and this makes it very difficult at times to see the relationship between the nouns in those clusters. For example ‘left engine switch’ can already be confusing, and difficult to understand, difficult to accurately translate.
If I say ‘left engine switch’, does that mean it is the switch for the left engine, or is it the left switch for a specific engine? So, do ‘left’ and ‘switch’ or ‘left’ and ‘engine’ belong together most directly?
In this case, the use of prepositions such as ‘of’, or ‘for’ will help to clarify this. Take the example of the ‘runway light connection resistance calibration‘. While it is common to see noun clusters made from several words in technical language, clusters that are too long will mean that your reader has to make his way through four modifying words to reach the main noun.
For technical writing professionals who are considering the option of implementing Simplified Technical English (STE) in their organisation, you now see that many of the STE writing principles are very valid for all technical documentation purposes.
One STE rule that can transform your technical writing skills
One valuable STE rule is the rule that I would consider the most important one: Only use approved words. This is where Simplified Technical English becomes really different from corporate style guides. Why? Because the STE language standard includes a core vocabulary (or general dictionary) of around 930 words that will let you write just about everything that you need for technical documentation, even for procedural information in general.
We find that roughly 95% of the words in the STE general dictionary can be easily adapted even for general banking, like financial aspects of banking information. The set-up of the STE standard is such that you can very easily adapt the STE to suit and cover your specific needs. It mainly entails additions to the dictionary which are customarily made, even for aerospace customers. Because even within aerospace, there is a lot of variation when it comes to vocabulary, terminology, especially when dealing with different systems on board an aircraft.
As a very simple example, one of our customers actually makes coffee machines. Now coffee machines seem to have nothing to do with aircraft. However, I think 98% of passenger aircraft actually have coffee machines on board, and they need their documentation in Simplified Technical English.
Now if this coffee machine happens to be in an office, or in a medical practitioner’s practice, or in a cafeteria, would it really require documentation that is all that different from the documentation on board an aircraft? No.. If anything at all, we just restrict the rules a little bit less. Aerospace tends to be a little bit more restrictive, we just relax the rules a little bit for other industries.
by Shufrans Techdocsin BlogComments Off on How ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English can help you save time and cost
STVY (Finnish STC) article on ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English by Dr. Frans Wijma. Nakyma-STE-article
First published in Suomen teknisen viestinnän yhdistys ry. • The Finnish Technical Communications Society • Näkymä Joulukuu/December 2012
Rules regulate the choice and use of words, building phrases and sentences, the use of articles, the verb tenses that can be used and (to some extent) the punctuation. Some of the rules are specific to procedural or to descriptive text. Part of the rules is generally known to professional communicators, but the overall set is in general rather nicely balanced while going beyond most corporate and general style guides..
by Shufrans Techdocsin BlogComments Off on Standardisation as a cost reduction strategy
Why standardise?
Standardisation is widely practised in manufacturing to realise economy of scale at the product level. Why not apply standardisation to documentation?
Data standardisation is cost saving by common sense. Injuries, losses and costly legal liabilities can occur as a result of unclear documentation and ambiguous translations. Just like the manufacturing industry makes use of standard components in their product assembly line, Simplified Technical English uses standard vocabulary in the ASD-STE100 specification and consistent industry-/product specific terminology to create documentation.
The borrowed concept of standardisation in the engineering world when translated into the technical documentation industry is based on standardised terminology and simple grammar rules.
The latter for instance, promotes the use of the active voice and simple present tense to clearly identify the doer of a particular action so as to avoid miscommunication and ambiguous translations during the localisation process. In a nutshell, we can draw a parallel between grammar rules and SOPs that both share a common purpose in streamlining processes in a straightforward and objective manner.
What is STE, and how does STE differ from Standard English and how do I know if this is right for my industry?
ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English (STE) is an international standard that helps to make technical documentation easy to understand. Simplified Technical English standardises vocabulary, grammar and style, while letting users control their specific terminology. Although Simplified Technical English originates from the aerospace and defence industries, it can easily be customised and applied to any other industry, including machinery, automotive, electronics, IT and medical equipment. Major manufacturers and the S1000D standard require the use of ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English.
Simplified Technical English pays for itself
Our customer is a manufacturer of mobile X-ray based imaging solutions. They created an operator manual and a service manual in Standard English. This manual is to be translated into 7 other languages.
Before using Simplified English, the manuals had a total word count of 67,300 words. The number of pages was 454. In Simplified English, the word count came down to 49,600 words. The page count was reduced to 406.
Text in Simplified Technical English is easier to understand and may not even require translation. Where translation is needed, Simplified Technical English helps to drastically reduce translation cost and time-to-market, as it effectively eliminates redundant words and improves consistency.
The company thus saves almost EUR 21,000 or 35% on the translation of these manuals. For subsequent manuals, the savings would increase further thanks to better re-use and yield from translation memory.
With the ever increasing number of languages that companies need to deal with, these savings add up quickly. As content in Simplified Technical English is easier to validate, technical writers will be more productive, and fewer iterations and less rework will be required.
For this reason, the time-to-market is reduced by a similar percentage.
Editorial note: Based on feedback from readers, we would like to clarify that the cost reduction above is based on statistics from standard commercial memory tools, i.e. re-use on the sentence (segment level). This is brought by a combination of consistent style, vocabulary and terminology.
by Shufrans Techdocsin BlogComments Off on Simplified Technical English at the core of your documentation strategy
Why Simplified Technical English (STE)?
Whether you are looking to implement working standards such as DITA, S1000D, ATA iSpec 2200, RailDex, or ShipDex to standardise your information structure and facilitate content re-use, it is important to give due consideration to the quality of your source text when creating your technical content. Ambiguous or inconsistently worded documentation can result in non-compliant data deliveries, poor customer support, potential legal liabilities, equipment damage, as well as safety risks.
A well-written source text ensures the ease of downstream content management processes such as translations
Improved readability for your technical content
STE prescribes the use of grammar rules that are relatively more restrictive than the standard rules of the English language.
The general vocabulary has only 900 approved words while explicitly listing 1500 other non-approved words with alternative suggestions.
By introducing these grammar and vocabulary restrictions, technical authors can avoid writing overly long sentences and leave out unnecessary technical details where applicable, all of which are obstacles to the ease of readability and sound understanding.
Recommended by global documentation standards
Military defence standards (MIL-SPEC / MIL-STD) such as MIL-STD-3048, as well as technical documentation standards like S1000D and ATA iSpec 2200 recommend the use of ASD-STE100.
Although the S1000D standard was originally intended for the aerospace and defence industry, this widely successful specification has been customised for the shipping and train manufacturing and operations communities giving rise to both ShipDex and RailDex. Likewise, sound and consistent STE writing rules are highly applicable and practical for use across industries.
Simplifying or eliminating the need for translations?
STE is an international aerospace standard that helps to make technical documentation easy to understand. However, the benefits of STE have proven very highly applicable to all industries. That is why 60% of STE users today come from industries outside of aerospace & defence.
Understandably, STE was designed with non-native speakers of the English language in mind. By providing technical writers with a common set of standardised writing rules and general vocabulary, STE enables teams of writers to write technical manuals that are consistently accurate and require less proofreading and editing effort. Consequently, this does away with the need for translations altogether.
Besides the aerospace maintenance industry however, product exports are still subjected to much scrutiny in terms of their paperwork, documentation and associated product translations. Therefore, the use of STE to create technical content can support downstream translation processes in several ways:
A 900-word general vocabulary dictionary eliminates the need for other non-approved, and possibly uncommon synonyms. This reduces the likelihood of term-related clarifications and queries from translators, resulting in faster translation processes.
Enforcing STE rules strictly guarantees a high level of consistency at word-, phrase-, and sentence-levels. This allows project managers to leverage on existing translation memories to substantially reduce translation costs.
With fewer technical terms to translate and a more uniform translation memory, translators can provide cheaper, faster and better translations thanks to STE.
Having STE content in place will result in exceptional translation quality with machine translations as well.
In a nutshell
For many years now, the use of STE as a controlled language authoring strategy has successfully taken off not just at large organisations, but also in small and medium enterprises.
With professional Simplified Technical English training that costs only a fraction of supposed “full implementation”, and yet achieves 75% – 85% of the benefits and results of an approach that includes checker software, getting started with STE is no longer the major and expensive investment it used to be.
Training technical writers and engineers to write in STE within two to three days may sound like a simple and straightforward undertaking. However, to change the way your technical authoring team works does require some managerial direction while the team transits to STE. Trained technical writers will experience on a more regular basis, the many benefits that STE as a controlled language writing strategy offers.
About the author
Since 2006, Ms Shumin Chen has been working as a consultant with customers in various industries worldwide: aerospace and defence, banking, consumer products, healthcare, IT, medical and fitness equipment. She has helped many companies with their documentation needs, based on standards where possible, and is widely regarded as a leading expert in ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English training, aviation documentation and multilingual documentation.
Ms Chen now heads the ASD-STE100 training arm of Shufrans TechDocs. In her current role, Ms Chen continues to focus on the practical implementation of international standards to facilitate the efficient creation and management of multilingual documentation.
