How I use applied linguistics to be a better technical writer
summary
Applied linguistics shows that shared context matters more than raw English proficiency so documentation success comes from aligning vocabularies not policing grammar; evidence comes from a literature review of 31 studies and interviews plus work with more than 20 feature teams. Practical tools are simple: explicit templates, linking to backlog items, asking what where who why how, dialing a neutral dialect and code‑switching. These changes produce tangible results — engineers move from terse notes to full headers and tables, and documentation intake improves.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (9)
- 0:00Start
- 0:01How I use applied linguistics to be a better technical writer
- 1:31New speaker, who dis?
- 3:38Two research questions
- 4:50Bachelor thesis
- 8:40Master's thesis
- 10:02How does this look in a software company?
- 14:33How do I get what I need to know?
- 18:57Key takeaways
related talks
29mHumanizing Your Documentation
41mFrom morphemes to manuscripts: how linguistics can make you a better writer
03mTechnical writers or UX advocates
11mBeyond Conversation: Why Documents Transform Natural Language into Code
40mDocumentation as User Experience
39mInvisible influence: the documentation behind UX copy
05mTurning cooperation into collaboration: A UX writing case history
26mWriting for humans in an AI world
