Ars Communica

Thursday, September 10
Starting 10am PDT | 1pm EDT | 5pm UTC/GMT

Join Shlomo Perets for a free one-hour webinar on Framemaker and Acrobat.

Liven up static documentation (software/hardware) and engage readers through interactive graphics, information displayed on demand (popups/rollovers/layers), multimedia (such as video simulations and demonstrations of software processes and functions), interactive 3D, and more. All features demonstrated in the webinar are specified in FrameMaker and are present automatically in the resulting PDFs, with no post-creation actions in Acrobat.

Register at https://student.gototraining.com/register/8019702938678710980

MicroType * http://www.microtype.com

Editors’ Association of Canada seminar, “Paper to Pixel: Editing for the Web” with Christine Hastie

Learn how to edit effectively for the Web, and network with other writers and editors at the next Editors’ Association of Canada (EAC) professional development seminar. The EAC is pleased to present “Paper to Pixel” with communications specialist Christine Hastie on September 24th, 2009 at Hotel Ruby Foo’s in Montreal. STC-Montreal members can register at the discounted EAC membership rate, so don’t miss out!

What You’ll Learn

Web text should be concise, scannable, and written using simple language. Hundreds of studies have confirmed this. But your client’s draft is a long report and doesn’t look like a Web page at all. Or perhaps a client expects you to develop Web pages from a variety of materials. This presentation will help you identify your client’s needs so you can offer Web-appropriate text. We’ll share ideas on making fewer words do more as they become a vibrant source of energy that attracts readers and carries them through the information.

What We’ll Cover

• Understanding Web readers’ needs and expectations in various contexts
• Structure and other features of good Web writing
• Developing an approach to the project and steering through the challenges
• Adding value and ensuring quality

Note: This workshop can be helpful for editors/writers looking to enhance their structural editing skills.

About the presenter

After living in a Cree and Métis community for several years, Christine Hastie established herself as a communications healer in Montréal in 1993. She freelanced for a number of years—creating her first Web page and a touch-screen interface in 1997—and joined the federal public service in 2002. Now working at Ste. Anne’s Hospital in Communications with Veterans Affairs Canada, she develops tools for a community of practice in mental health. Specializing in rewriting, she contributed an article to La révision professionnelle : processus, stratégies et pratiques (2007), edited by Jocelyne Bisaillon. Christine has a Master’s degree in English literature from the University of Western Ontario.

Rates

The Editors’ Association of Canada has made its Montreal seminars available to the STC at its discounted membership rate. The cost for members is $160, instead of $220 for non-members, and includes lunch and coffee breaks. The seminar is fully described on our website at www.editors.ca/branches/qac/pd/index.html.

Note: Those STC members who wish to attend must forward their membership ID numbers with their registration.

Third Wave Studios is launching an video-based training tool for technical writers who document software. The video was designed and presented by award-winning, 25-year veteran writer-programmer and long-time STC Montreal member Manuel Gordon. Full of illuminating advice, easy-to-follow examples and practical exercises, Just Enough Java: Workshop-on-a-DVD is based on his popular seminar of the same name.

The Just Enough Java: Workshop-on-a-DVD is just what the name implies, a live, full-day, technical writing workshop edited down to three hours and 40 minutes of professionally-filmed video. It provides technical writers with an understanding of “just enough Java” to decode a Java source file and make an educated guess about the purpose of each function. This will enable them to work with software developers to create useful documentation for Software Development Kits (SDK’s) and Application Programming Interfaces (API’s).

“Java is today’s most widely used programming language, and there is tremendous demand for technical writers who have a basic understanding of it,” said Gordon.

“That’s the central idea behind the Workshop-on-a-DVD series,” added Marc Proulx, head of Third Wave Studios. “Technical writers really need to know ‘just enough’ about these complex products and processes to read the source files and start documenting the functionality, without getting bogged down in the nitty-gritty.

“Moreover,” Proulx added, “you get all the benefits of going to a day-long workshop without the expense and inconvenience of travel.”
The Just Enough Java: Workshop-on-a-DVD, which includes a 173-page hard copy workbook containing slide printouts, exercises, a glossary and a bibliography, is available for order online at www.thirdwavestudios.com. A seven-minute video preview is also available on the site.

One-hour webinars (free), starting 1pm EDT

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Issue 9 of the Quebec Writers’ Federation’s literary journal carte blanche is now online at www.carte-blanche.org.

NEW: We launch our graphic fiction section with Entropy by Aaron Costain, and showcase literary translations by Alison Newall and Ann Diamond.

Also in this issue:

Kelly Norah Drukker writes a poem for Emile Nelligan,

Shayne Woodsmith rides his bicycle from Red Deer to Vancouver,

and Sarah Gilbert encounters the Tea Master.

Plus photography by Jim Royal; poetry from Gina Roitman, Branka Petrovic, and Julie Mahfood; nonfiction by Marianne Ackerman, Michael K. Gause, and Guido Romeo; and fiction from Andrea Dyck, Katharine O’Flynn, and Lindsey Emes.

For more information:

Visit carte blanche.

Lori Schubert
Executive Director
Quebec Writers’ Federation
1200 Atwater Avenue, Suite 3
Westmount, QC H3Z 1X4

During this time of cutbacks and belt-tightening, the Southwestern Ontario Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication (STC) is pleased to offer you two days of workshops from internationally renowned instructors for a bargain price.

Speakers and Topics

Peter Vogel from PH&V Information Services and Learning Tree International will present two half-day sessions: “Instructional Design: Introducing Interactivity to Technical Training”; and “Three Tutorial Styles: Making Tutorials Work for the Reader”.

Patrick Hofmann from Google will also present two half-day sessions: “Visual Literacy for Technical Communicators: Thinking and Expressing More Graphically”; and “Visualizing Your Information: Advanced Techniques to Make Your Documents More Graphical and Usable”.

Dates and Location

The workshops are on May 11 and 12, 2009, at the Holiday Inn Kitchener-Waterloo Hotel and Conference Centre.

Fees and Registration

Fees for two days are $375 for STC members or $575 for non-members. The fee for one day is $200 for STC members or $400 for non-members.

Space is limited to 25 people, so register early to avoid disappointment. Deadline for registration is April 25, 2009.

More Details

For more information about the workshops, speakers or venue, visit http://www.stc-soc.org/education/education_2009.php. If you have any questions, contact Fei Min Lorente, Education Manager, at the Southwestern Ontario STC chapter.

Shlomo Perets of Microtype is offering three free webinars of one hour each on topics relating to frameMaker and PDF.

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Learn valuable stylistic skills and network with other writers, editors, and translators at the next Editors’ Association of Canada (EAC) professional development seminar. The EAC brings to Montreal on May 13, 2009, a national workshop presentation “Clear and Concise: Guidelines for Style.”

STC-Montreal members can register at the discounted EAC membership rate, so don’t miss out!

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This event is not sponsored by STC-Montreal.

carte blanche is looking for poetry, fiction, and nonfiction for its spring issue. The online literary journal invites you to send your best scribbles and scrawls, be they sonnets, free verse, short stories, memoirs, personal essays, book reviews, literary journalism, or musings on the writing process — as long as it’s well written (and within the 3500 word limit).

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This workshop is not sponsored by STC-Montreal.

Spoken Down Under: A Spoken Word Workshop

Offered in collaboration with the Voix d’Amériques Festival 2009

Thursday, February 12, 1:00 to 5:00
1200 Atwater Avenue, Room 3
Montreal, Quebec

Workshop leader: Alicia Sometimes

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This event is not sponsored by STC-Montreal.

The AELAQ is hosting a round table discussion on publishing poetry. Speaker will be Steve Luxton of DC Books, poet and publisher. It will be held at the Atwater Library Auditorium (1200 Atwater, second floor) on Wednesday, January 14. Refreshments at 5:30, speaker at 6.

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Shlomo Perets presents the second of a series of low-priced FrameMaker web-based seminars.

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The Association of English-language Publishers of Quebec (AELAQ) is hosting on Saturday, November 29, 2008 from 10 am to 3 pm (an hour for lunch, but lunch is not provided) this workshop. It will take place at the Atwater Library Auditorium (2nd floor), 1200 Atwater, Westmount Presenter is Christine Hastie, past president of the Editors’ Association of Canada, Quebec and Atlantic Provinces branch, currently working in communications

Among the topics to be covered are: types of readers: online vs. Web readers; their expectations and needs; web page content, and newsletters, blogs, podcasts, etc.; case study exercise; concepts of usability.

If you have a Web site problem you would like to discuss, print it up and bring it along.

$5 fee for AELAQ members
$20 for non-AELAQ members
Payable at the door, but pre-registration is required

For more information call 514-932-5633, and to register, call by November 25.

http://www.aelaq.org/

Margaret Goldik
Association of English-language Publishers of Quebec

1200 Atwater, Suite 3
Westmount QC H3Z 1X4
Phone 514-932-5633
Fax 514-932-5456

This event is not sponsored by STC-Montreal.

The Quebec Writers’ Federation is proud to co-present Tusarnituq — a festival of Words, Music and Images.

Tusarnituq is an Inuktitut word meaning “beautiful sound” and it is also the name of a two day festival of words, music and images happening in Montreal this November 16th and 17th.

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Learn valuable proofreading skills and network with other writers and editors at the next Editors’ Association of Canada (EAC) professional development seminar.

The EAC is pleased to present “Practical Proofreading” with professional editor and proofreader Elizabeth Macfie on November 27th, 2008, at the Hotel Ruby Foo’s in Montreal. STC-Montreal members can register at the discounted EAC membership rate, so don’t miss out!

Description

You can’t afford embarrassing errors in your documents, and you know that a computer spell check isn’t sufficient. What’s more, production time is short. But you can develop strong proofreading skills to help you through any publication project. This seminar demonstrates tactics for efficiently and effectively capturing and eliminating errors (both textual and visual) on screen, on paper, or in Web documents-with or without a previous version for comparison.

Learn to estimate how much time is needed for proofreading, to concentrate as you work, and to keep track of versions of a document. Discover where errors are likely to lurk. Find out the top 10 things to check before going to print. We’ll also discuss how to handle bilingual documents. In this learn-by-doing seminar, you’ll get hands-on experience proofreading a variety of materials, including complex designs and non-text material such as tables and figures.

Elizabeth Macfie has been a freelance proofreader and editor since 1997. After working as a coordinator of provincial park visitor services and then as a manager of adult education, she has chosen a career clarifying written communication. Her clients include federal government departments and agencies, book publishers, research organizations, communication companies, a university publications service, and a display designer. Elizabeth is an EAC-certified Proofreader and Copy Editor, a past chair of EAC-NCR, and past president of the Indexing Society of Canada.

Rates

The Editors’ Association of Canada has made its Montreal seminars available to the STC at its discounted membership rate. The cost for members is $160, instead of $220 for non-members, and includes lunch and coffee breaks. The seminar is fully described on our website at www.editors.ca/branches/qac/pd/. Note: Those STC members who wish to attend must forward their membership ID numbers with their registration.

Given by Marijke Vroomen-Durning, this workshop will inform participants about where to find online writing work, how it differs from print writing, and how to make money doing it. The event is going to be held on Tuesday, November 11, at 7 p.m., on the top floor of the Atwater Library. The admission fee for non-PWAC members is $5.

This event is not sponsored by STC-Montreal.

Shlomo Perets presents a series of low-priced FrameMaker web-based seminars.

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Save the date! The Rochester chapter of the Society for Technical Communication and the spectrum 2009 organizing committee cordially invite you and your chapter members to spectrum 2009.

This year’s conference will be held Monday and Tuesday, April 6 & 7, 2009 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Rochester, NY. spectrum 2009 will be the Rochester chapter’s 50th annual conference, and we plan to celebrate 50 fabulous years in style. We are working to make spectrum 2009 a regional conference, and we would love your contributions and participation to make that happen.

We are currently seeking speakers, topics, and ideas for this year’s conference. Have you seen a great presentation lately? Is there a topic you’d love to hear more about, or a speaker you’d like to see? If so, contact Amy Friend, Programs Committee Chair, at amy [dot] friend [at] carestreamhealth [dot] com and let her know. The Call for Papers will be coming shortly from the Programs Committee, so let your members know we’ll be looking for their expertise at spectrum 2009. We are also seeking sponsors, vendors, exhibitors, and advertisers who would be interested in showcasing their products and/or services to a wide variety of technical communicators. Their information will be listed in conference materials such as the printed program, and on the chapter’s website. If any of your chapter members would be interested in the visibility that this conference offers, please have them contact us.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at spectrumconference [at] gmail [dot] com.

This event is not sponsored by STC-Montreal.

After more than a year in the making, a new Montreal-based online arts magazine — Rover Arts — is up and running. The magazine boasts a full week of coverage ranging from books to film, tv, stage and music.

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This one-day workshop with renowned Canadian singer-songwriter Connie Kaldor will look at some basic principles of song writing and use them to work on songs that are in progress. Sometimes we all need a little creative shot in the arm or a different perspective to help a song reach its potential. This is a chance to see how songwriter Connie Kaldor tackles the process of writing a song. It is an opportunity to stimulate ideas, and of course to take advantage of her experience to help you work on your songs. You will work with rhythm, melody and lyrics. She will work to give you some ideas on how to finish something that is almost there, develop songs that are not quite working and hopefully stimulate you to create more. No matter what style of music you compose, song writing is a process, and this is a chance to look at that process with someone who has been writing for many years. New songwriters and long-time songwriters are welcome.

Come to the workshop with something that you would like to work on in a small-group context. If you have lyrics, please bring three copies of those lyrics. If you accompany yourself on an instrument, bring it along. We will have a keyboard on site.

Connie Kaldor is a Juno-winning singer/songwriter with nine albums. Billboard Magazine called her “one of Canada’s most significant contemporary folk performers,” and the Boston Globe wrote that she is a “masterful performer, wildly funny one moment, deeply personal the next.” For more information, see http://www.conniekaldor.com.

SONG-WRITING TONIC

Saturday, October 4, 2008, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
1200 Atwater Ave., Suite 3
Workshop leader: Connie Kaldor
Workshop fee: $75

For information, or to register: 514-933-0878 or workshops [at] qwf [dot] org

This event is not sponsored by STC-Montreal.