WRITING | EDITING SKILLS
Editorial management: Experienced leading teams of content creators, including writers, editors, illustrators, and video producers.
Writing/editing: Seasoned technical, marketing, and business writer. Extensive experience as a developmental editor and copyeditor working with direct reports, freelancers, SMEs, and others to produce world-class customer-facing content. Familiar with Associated Press, Chicago Manual of Style, global English standards, and ANSI safety-advisory standards. Experienced writing and managing content with high stakes for customer safety.
Content management: Experienced managing content across multiple publishing platforms and technologies. Implemented single-source authoring system (MadCap Flare/XML based) at Rad Power Bikes. As a writer and a trained full-stack web developer, I understand that content is data (and vice versa) and that it needs structure and a sharp eye on the back end to facilitate cost-effective maintenance and an amazing customer experience.
Localization management: Nearly a decade of experience preparing content for localization across different languages and geographies. Have partnered with various localization specialists and services to implement and maintain translated content in various media. Established 400+ term in-house term base for eight languages at Rad Power Bikes, ensuring import/export compatibility with MemoQ and other CAT software.
PUBLISHED WRITING SAMPLES
All content and trademarks below are the property of their respective owners.
Rad Power Bikes
I was a Senior Technical Writer/Editor and then Technical Writing Manager at Rad Power Bikes for three and a half years. Below are some samples of the content I worked on there. These samples represent my work, but are not necessarily the most current versions. If you are a Rad Power Bikes customer, please consult the Rad Power Bikes Help Center for the most current technical information.
RadRunner 3 Plus Owner's Manual and RadRunner 3 Plus Rider Quick Reference card.
Owner's Manual: Wrote or edited all content. Created illustration callouts in Adobe Illustrator (illustrations by Jeff Anderson). Produced in MadCap Flare with a custom template I created. Localized for three geos and multiple languages.
Rider quick reference card: Wrote or edited content. Produced in Adobe InDesign.
Safety essentials Help Center article. Wrote and formatted (including custom CSS) this “Safety Essentials” article. Published on Zendesk.
Remove, inspect, and replace tire components
Wrote all content for this Help Center article, “Remove, inspect, and replace tire components,” including the script for the companion video. Reviewed by internal SMEs and the CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission). Formatted and published in Zendesk. Custom CSS for safety advisories, accordions, and image/caption divs.
Aldus and Adobe Magazine
For six years I was an editor at Adobe Magazine (née Aldus Magazine), an advertising- and subscription-supported trade publication on electronic publishing, design, and digital media that had, at its zenith, an international circulation of ~1.2 million (including an audited ~800,000 in the U.S.). I was the technical editor, managing editor, and then chief editor.
Editorial matter included technical Q&As, how-to articles, and feature stories on design and publishing topics. Below is a partial list of articles that I wrote or co-wrote (unless otherwise noted, I was the sole bylined author).
- “The ABCs of UAEs.” Aldus Magazine, vol. 3, no. 2, January/February 1992, 51–55. Methods for preventing and troubleshooting the dreaded Unrecoverable Application Error.
- “It Just Takes Two.” Aldus Magazine, vol. 6, no. 1, November 1994, 42–47. Guidelines for working with two-color publications, with specific tips for PageMaker and Aldus FreeHand.
- “Masterful Font Juggling.” Aldus Magazine, vol. 6, no. 4, March/April 1995, 30. Review of Master Juggler v. 1.9, font-management software.
- “Shopping on the Left Side of the Brain.” Aldus Magazine, vol. 6, no. 6, July/August 1995, 27–32. Aldus Magazine goes shopping for a Pentium-based PC with the intent of creating a dedicated Photoshop workstation.
- “Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too.” Adobe Magazine, vol. 7, no. 3, January/February 1996, 55–59. Advice for creating PDF files that are attractive, readable, and compact.
- “A Frame Job?” Adobe Magazine, vol. 7, no. 8, September/October 1996, 19. Frames vs. free-form layout in PageMaker 6.5.
- “Packing Light,” by Teri Patrick and Tamis Nordling. Adobe Magazine, vol. 9, no. 1, Winter 1998, 41–43. How fully embedding, or subsetting, or not embedding fonts in PDF files affects file size, editability, and typographic fidelity.
- “Food for Thought,” by John D. Berry and Tamis Nordling. Adobe Magazine, vol. 9, no. 2, Spring 1998, 30–35. Feature article on the challenges and lessons of cookbook design.
- “Moonlighting with PageMaker,” by Wendy Katz and Tamis Nordling. Adobe Magazine, vol. 9, no. 4, Autumn 1998, 43–46. Tricks for using PageMaker to handle jobs normally associated with enterprise software, including mail merge, labels, and more.
Aldus TechNotes
In 1992 I was hired to convert Aldus TechNotes, which had been a series of infrequently published books, to a bimonthly periodical covering Aldus FreeHand, PageMaker, Photostyler, and Persuasion. I worked with other departments to design the product; research, write, lay out, and produce each issue; manage inventory and distribution; and set pricing structures and other policies. Aldus TechNotes (circulation ~10,000) covered undocumented features, troubleshooting tips, and advanced techniques. Each issue included two 16-page, platform-specific editions (Mac and PC). Click on the thumbnail to see a sample issue.
Miscellaneous
Other writing and editing projects have spanned quite a range from technical to marketing, including:
- Materials on IgE-mediated food allergies and anaphylaxis while on the board of Washington FEAST (e.g., this pamphlet),
- Miscellaneous real-estate marketing materials,
- Blood-products-related articles while a communications manager at the Penn-Jersey Blood Region of the American Red Cross (e.g., this newsletter featuring the rollout of hepatitis C testing),
- A range of internal and external newsletters, marketing/fundraising materials, and more for the American Red Cross, University Cooperative School, and other non-profit organizations.
- The Procrastination Research Institute, a just-for-fun blog I created to explore popular CMS platforms. Various iterations lived on WordPress, Squarespace, and finally Wix. All writing and illustrations were my own.
