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Writing: Commas, Commas, Commas

Note: The following comes from our top-selling grammar book, Abrams' Guide to Grammar.

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Commas Overview The comma is probably the most used, overused, and misused form of punctuation. For some reason, writers often suffer from comma angst. I have no magic formula for learning comma rules; they are many. Some may even be a judgment call. But even so, you must be able to go to a rule to support any change you make. Once you understand a rule for the comma—again that’s understand, not memorize— you will be able to make a generalization about the rule and apply it to your writing, editing, or proofreading.

Commas with Independent and Dependent Clauses

Two independent clauses can be connected with a comma and a coordinating conjunction (and, but, for, or, nor, yet, and sometimes so.) For example:

• She was a welcome guest in our home, and she always made us feel we were the perfect hosts.

Use a comma to set off an introductory dependent clause. A dependent clause contains both a subject and a verb, but it is incapable of standing alone as a sentence because of the word introducing the clause. Words that commonly introduce dependent clauses include when, that, as, if, unless, although, after, because, since, until, though.

• Because we cut the budget, we will not be able to hire any new staff members this year.

Do not use a comma to set off most adverbial dependent clauses at the end of a sentence unless the clause is parenthetical. Adverbial clauses answer one of the following questions: where? when? why? to what degree? in what manner?

• We will not be able to hire any new staff members this year because we cut the budget.

Note: Dependent clauses that begin with that, which, who, and whom are not adverbial clauses.

Commas After Introductory Constructions

Commas are used to set off most types of introductory constructions. Introductory constructions are words, phrases, or clauses used at the beginning of a sentence or at the beginning of an independent clause elsewhere in the sentence.

Set off an introductory dependent clause with a comma. We have already discussed setting off a dependent clause when it appears at the beginning of a sentence. A dependent clause introduced by a subordinating conjunction is usually not set off if it appears at the end of a sentence.

• Although punctuation may seem arbitrary, most rules are closely related to meaning.

Note that although makes the first clause dependent. The comma after arbitrary helps make the independent clause stand out.

Remember to place a comma after a dependent clause that introduces an independent clause in the middle of a sentence.

• I walked to the library to get Anita Shreve’s new book, but when I arrived, all copies had already been checked out.

Note that the preceding sentence begins with an independent clause. But joins the first independent clause with a second independent clause, which itself is made up of one dependent clause and one independent clause. A comma is placed after book because it introduces an independent clause and makes the independent clause stand out. Remember, more important information should be in the independent clause.

Use a comma to set off an introductory verbal phrase. A verbal phrase is a word group containing a verb form that is used as another part of speech and has no subject. There are three forms of verbals: the infinitive (to walk), which can be an adjective, adverb, or noun; the present participle (walking), which is always an adjective, and the past participle (walked), which is also always an adjective. As with dependent clauses, the use of the comma after the verbal phrase makes the independent clause stand out.

Here are examples of verbal phrases.

• Infinitive phrase: To learn to play the guitar properly, you must take lessons and practice every day.
• Present participial phrase: Offering tender loving care, the nurse was a favorite among the patients on the pediatric ward.
• Past participial phrase: Embarrassed by his ill-spoken words, he quickly changed the subject.

Use a comma to set off transitional words and phrases. Transitions are words or phrases at the beginning of a sentence that help connect the sentence to the preceding sentence.

Here are examples of transitional words and phrases.

• Finally, the seniors will participate in an all-night grad party.
• In the meantime, you may use the computer in the lab.
• As a result, we can all enjoy an extra day off.

Print Publishing: Image Formats You Can Import into QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign

Both Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress allow you to place (import) graphics created in graphics programs such as PhotoShop, Illustrator and Freehand. You can place PSD, AI, PDF, EPS, TIF, DCS, JPEG, GIF, PNG, PhotoCD, PICT and other graphic formats. Although many file formats are supported, consider sticking with TIF and EPS images for prepress print workflow and cross-platform issues. Talk to your prepress service provider before choosing to work with PSD, PDF and AI files to ensure they can work with these types of images.

Here’s a description of some of the graphic formats that can be imported:

• DCS 2.0 (Desktop Color Separations): an EPS saved as a single file. This kind of file is pre- separated and therefore prints faster than a standard EPS.
  
• EPS (Encapsulated PostScript): can contain bitmap and object-oriented information. This format allows you to include low-resolution previews for screen display and non-PostScript printing. Since some EPS files do not have a preview when you go to import them into a picture box, a gray box appears in the picture box instead of the image. Even so, the picture still prints.
  
• GIF (Graphics Interchange Format): a popular graphic file format for Web pages. These kind of images can support up to only 256 colors.
  
• JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group): a popular format for Web pages that compresses very well. These kinds of images support 24-bit color. PhotoCD: developed by Kodak and meant for storage on CD-ROMs.
  
• PICT: developed for the Macintosh. PICTs contain bitmap and object-oriented information.
  
• PNG (Portable Network Graphics): a bitmap format that is touted as the replacement for the GIF format thanks to its better compression and color capabilities. PNG images are supported only by newer Web browsers.
  
• TIFF (Tagged Image File Format): can contain bitmap and object-oriented information and support bitmap, grayscale, RGB, CMYK and indexed color models. Like the JPEG format, compresses very well.
  
• WMF (Windows Metafile): developed for Windows. WMFs can contain both bitmap and object- oriented information.
  

When you import pictures, both InDesign and QuarkXPress remember the path to the original image file—called a link. When someone change the location of the image, modify or delete it, both programs prompts you to relink or update the graphic via the Links palette (InDesign) or Usage dialog (QuarkXPress).

All content, graphic or otherwise, is placed in a frame. You can place a picture into any selected graphics frame. Once placed in a frame, you can crop the graphic, resize it, reposition it and, if the picture is a one-bit or grayscale TIF, you can even recolor it. If you have not made or selected a frame before placing a graphic, InDesign creates the frame automatically. With QuarkXPress, you must create a Picture box before attempting to import a picture. Although both programs allow you to change size, skew, color, rotation and transparency effects, doing so can increase the size of the PostScript file— resulting in longer print times—and increase the possibility of PostScript errors. It’s better to make such changes in a graphics program before importing them into either InDesign or QuarkXPress.

Print Publishing: Tracking and Kerning

The goal of many print publishers is professional- looking and readable typography. To help you reach this goal, both QuarkXPress and InDesign come with tools to ensure the best visual spacing between words and characters in your layout. To achieve the best results possible, you can use tracking or kerning.

Tracking is the process of loosening or tightening the spacing of a selected text. Kerning is the process of adding or subtracting space between two specific characters. Tracking and kerning are both measured in 1/1000 em, a unit of measure that is relative to the current type size. In a 6-point font, 1 em equals 6 points; in a 10-point font, 1 em equals 10 points.

Here are keyboard shortcuts to track or kern text in both QuarkXPress or InDesign. Keep in mind that if you want to track text, select at least two characters. If you want to kern, click between two characters.

QuarkXPress 7

• Decrease 1/20 em space: [command] [shift] [{]
• Increase 1/20 em space: [command] [shift] [}]
• Decrease 1/200 em space: [command] [alt] [shift] [{]
• Increase 1/200 em space: [command] [alt] [shift] [}]

InDesign CS 2

• Decrease 20 thousandths em space: [alt] [left arrow key]
• Increase 20 thousandths em space: [alt] [right arrow key]
• Decrease 100 thousandths em space: [alt] [command] [left arrow key]
• Increase 100 thousandths em space: [alt] [command] [right arrow key]

Grammar Clinic: The Parts of Speech

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The following comes from our top-selling grammar book, Abrams' Guide to Grammar.

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If I were to ask you how many parts of speech we have in the English language, I’m sure you would say “eight” and rattle them off: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. So I won’t ask.

Remember those horrible vocabulary assignments given to you by your 7th-grade English teacher: “Look up twenty-five words and write the definition, the part of speech, and a sentence.” By the time you got to the end of the list, you were just happy to be done. You probably had no idea what any of the words meant or how they should really be used. The truth is, no word is a part of speech until it’s used in a sentence.

I’ll give you six sentences using the word down, and each time I use it, it will be a different part of speech.

• Eric fell down. (In this sentence down is an adverb because it is modifying the verb fell.)
• Eric fell down the stairs. (In this sentence down is a preposition.)
• The quilt is made of eider down. (In this sentence down is a noun because it names a thing.)
• The down elevator was broken. (In this sentence down is an adjective because it modifies a noun.)
• She downed the ball on the fifty-yard line. (In this sentence down is a verb because it is the action of the sentence.)
• Down! (Okay, so I cheated a bit here. In this sentence down is acting like an interjection, but I guess we would agree that it is really an adverb as it is modifying the understood word get as in “Get down!”)
• As a word person, you may not be asked often to label the part of speech of words, but when you are editing and proofreading, it’s a good idea to have the ammunition to support your changes. In a later module, we will be discussing the difference between adjectives and adverbs to avoid errors such as “I feel badly.”

The Parts of Speech: Definitions

Noun: Names a person, place, or thing. A noun can be a common noun, such as friend, monument, river, and street, or a proper noun, such as Ellen, Washington Monument, Hudson River, and Main Street. A noun can name something concrete, such as a chair, computer, dog, or desk, or something abstract, such as love, justice, honor, or friendship. Possessive nouns are adjectives because they modify nouns: Susan’s bike, Alfonso’s idea, Jacob’s car, and Hasim’s music.

Pronoun: Takes the place of a noun. Pronouns include personal pronouns, such as I, she, we, and they. Pronouns also include words such as this, that, these, those, who, whom, some, most, many, all. Possessive pronouns such as his, hers, ours, and mine can stand alone (This is his). Possessive pronouns such as his, her, our, and my modify nouns and are considered adjectives (This is his book).

Adjective: Describes a noun or a pronoun. Adjectives include words such as large, one, the, a, funny, and happy.

Verb: Expresses an action or a state of being. Verbs include overt actions, such as run, laugh, write, and sing. Verbs also include mental actions, such as think, decide, review, and love. State of being verbs include words such as is, are, was, will be.

Adverb: Describes a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Adverbs answer the following questions: How? Why? When? Where? To what degree? The following words can function as adverbs: quickly, very, quite, somewhat, intelligently, there.

Conjunction: Connects two words or phrases or clauses. Conjunctions include simple coordinating conjunctions: for, and, nor, but, or, yet. Conjunctions also include subordinating conjunctions (if, until, unless, when, where, because) and correlative conjunctions (either/or, neither/nor).

Preposition: Stands before a noun and together with the noun becomes a phrase modifying something else in the sentence. The following words are examples of prepositions: in, for, to, under, around, above.

Interjection: Expresses an exclamation in the middle of a sentence without grammatical connection to other words. The following words are interjections: ouch, ah, oh, oops.

Captivate 2: Watch Those Support Files

Publishing Flash files from Captivate has always been easy. All you have to do is select the Publish command, select Flash (SWF) from a list of publish options and Captivate creates two files: an HTML file and SWF. Your only worry was to ensure both of those files were kept together. As long as you posted both files on a Web server somewhere and kept the two files together, users who accessed the HTML file would get to enjoy the SWF. Simple.

But now there's Captivate 2!

When you publish SWF movies in Captivate 2, you'll quickly discover that, in addition to the two main files (the SWF and HTML files), there might be a second SWF file for any skin you created. (I'll talk about Skins next week... boy are they cool).

There's also a new JavaScript file (standard.js). Why is it important? If you've published movies within the last few months, you've probably run face first into the new security settings in Internet Explorer. You know, the annoying message that requires the user to acknowledge (by clicking) any SWF movie before the user can interact with your movie. It's never been a big deal, but ranks as a nuisance because the user has to click twice on a button in your movie before the movie works. The JavaScript fixes that. In essence, it "tricks" Internet Explorer and acknowledges the SWF for your users. Very nice.

Last but not least, there are also some metadata files that make it easier to integrate your project into Adobe Connect Enterprise. If you allow Captivate to include the metadata, you might end up with larger than expected SWF files. The metadata files are not necessary if you do not plan to connect to Adobe Connect Enterprise. You can stop the metadata files from generating, and lower the size of your SWFs, by deselecting Publish Adobe Connect Enterprise metadata (via Project > Preferences).

Print Publishing: What's In a Font?

There are three types of fonts are available for you to use today: TrueType, PostScript Type 1 and OpenType.

TrueType is a scalable font format developed by Apple Computer, Inc., and built into Apple’s OS 7 and newer, as well as into the Windows OS. PostScript Type 1 fonts are the publishing industry standard for digital type. If you plan on using a commercial printer and service provider to print your document, quality-made Type 1 fonts are recommended, although good quality TrueTypes also image just fine. Neither TrueType nor Type 1 font files are cross-platform—a major frustration to publishers and service bureaus.

OpenType fonts are a newest PostScript format and are the wave of the future. The OpenType format allows for one file to have complete cross- platform compatibility between Macintosh and Windows. OpenType fonts can contain more than 65,000 characters as opposed to a limit of 256 characters in TrueType and Type 1 fonts. One font file can contain an entire family of style variations including ligatures, true small capitals, fractions and old-style figures. OpenType fonts are a two-byte character encoding that encompasses most of the world’s languages, including Asian characters. You can learn more about fonts on the Web at http://www.adobe.com/type/

Technical Writing Clinic: Eliminating Deadwood

Deadwood is another word for "wordiness." And wordiness can be contagious. You may start your professional life with a natural, concise writing style, but after a while you may notice that other writers in your organization are incorporating inflated language, redundancies and long sentences into their documents. Before long "bureaucratese" and gobbledygook begin to sound natural. Your writing has now become infected. Remember wordiness and pomposity do not equal formality. And simple words do not equal simple ideas.

Clarity, conciseness and simplicity of word choice do make a difference, especially when the message is complex or the reader is uninformed. Conciseness does not necessarily mean brevity.

The following will help you avoid "deadwood."

• use complete instead of absolutely complete
• use planning instead of advance planning
• use ask instead of ask the question
• use assembled; gathered instead of assembled together
• use continue instead of continue on
• use cooperate instead of cooperate together
• use consensus; general opinion instead of consensus of opinion
• use each; every instead of each and every
• use Easter instead of Easter Sunday
• use identical instead of exactly identical
• use rabbi instead of Jewish rabbi
• use experience instead of past experience
• use shrugging instead of shrugging her shoulders
• use because instead of the reason is because

The CBT Development Process

I wouldn't disagree with people who say that Captivate is a very easy program to learn and use. Compared with programs like Adobe PhotoShop, they're right. Captivate is easy. In fact, you'll have it pretty much figured out in two-days or less (that's the time it should take you to finish my Captivate workbook).

However, there's a whole development process you need to go through if you intend to produce effective CBTs. And Captivate mastery is only a small part of that process. Getting a handle on the CBT development process isn't easy. It takes a lot of practice, experience, and above all, patience. I've outlined my CBT development process below. While this list is by no means complete, it will give you a nice overview. And I've included a power scale that demonstrates the skill level necessary to get the job done. The scale goes from 1 to 10, with 10 indicating a potentially difficult process.

Write It: If you're not a writer, you'll need someone to write the step-by-step instructions (also known as a script or storyboard) necessary to record the project in Captivate. You'll typically find technical writers doing this kind of work. And I'd consider this the most important process. Without a good script, you don't have a movie. Think I'm kidding? What do Battlefield Earth, Barb Wire, Godzilla, Heaven's Gate, Popeye and Ishtar have in common? (Power Scale: 10)

Rehearse It: Take the completed script and go through it with the software you’ll be recording in front of you. Don’t skip any steps. You’ll be able to see if the steps you wrote are incomplete or inaccurate before you attempt to record the movie in Captivate. (Power Scale: 2)

Reset It: After rehearsing the steps, be sure to "undo" everything you did. Few things are more frustrating than recording your movie only to find a step you intend to demonstrate has already been performed. (Power Scale: 1)

Record It: If rehearsals went well, the recording process should as well. (Power Scale: 1)

Clean It: This is where you add all of the interactivity in Captivate including highlight boxes, captions, text entry fields, buttons, question slides, etc. If the project contains 70-80 slides and each slide needs your attention, you should budget 7- 10 hours to get the project perfected. (Power Scale: 8)

Publish It: While not a difficult task, if your project is large this could take a great deal of time. You cannot do any work in Captivate while your project is publishing. (Power Scale: 1)

Test It: This task isn't difficult, but it could take time. If you find a problem, you've got to go back and clean it, publish it and re-test it. Some people argue that this step belongs above the Publish It process. I cannot argue with that logic. However, after testing the project, you'll still need to Publish it and then, if working with a Learning Management System (LMS), upload it and test again. Maybe it should be Test It, Publish It, Test it. See how easy I am? (Power Scale: 2)

RoboHelp: Editing the GLO

You can easily create a Glossary in RoboHelp by clicking the Glossary tab, adding your Glossary term and definition.

But what if you've created a perfectly good glossary in Word and want to use it in RoboHelp? While Word does not allow you to directly import a Word document into RoboHelp, all is not lost. Here is how you convert your Word document into a RoboHelp glossary.

1. Open the Word document.
2. Type NAME= (case sensitive) in front of every word you expect to use as a glossary term.
3. Ensure the glossary definition appears on the very next paragraph (the definition cannot be more than one paragraph)
4. Copy the entire document to the clipboard
5. Navigate to your RoboHelp project and open the .GLO file with NotePad (or some other text editor- -the GLO file is the file RoboHelp uses to maintain the RoboHelp glossary)
6. Paste the glossary text you copied from Word into the GLO file
7. Save and close the GLO file
8. Back in RoboHelp, go the Glossary tab and behold that the terms and definitions to pasted into the GLO file appear on the Glossary

What's Your Point?

If you are a new print publisher, you are probably more comfortable in layouts that use inches as the default measurement system. In fact, most new users would rather that they never have to work with points or picas.

There are two main problems working with inches. First, it’s very difficult to add, subtract, multiply or divide when you are dealing with parts of an inch. If asked what half of 1 5/8 inches is, few would be able to answer quickly--unless you're still good at math and fractions, which I'm not. However, if asked what half of 36 points is, most people know the answer is simple division (36 divided by 2 =18 points). Second, most professional printers and service bureaus work with points. If you are comfortable working with points, it will make working with other print professionals easier.

I’ll give you an easy method for memorizing point/pica/inch conversions. Remembering a few numbers will help you avoid having problems working with points or picas.

Here is the magic formula:

• 12 points = 1 pica
• 6 picas = 1 inch
• 72 points = 1 inch

Four little numbers: 12, 6, and 72. All three of them equal 1 (pica, inch, inch respectively). The biggest number to keep in mind is that 72 points = 1 inch. If you can keep that straight, you'll be able to quickly tell how many points there are to 1/2 inch (36) or how many points there are to 1/4 inch (18).