Advent of Technical Writing: Placeholders

This is the twelfth post in the Advent of Technical Writing series, wherein I will share something I have learned from my experience as a technical writer. My experience is primarily in software technical writing, but what you read may apply to different fields, too. View all posts in the series.

When you are focused on writing documentation, leaving your editing tool to find an appropriate graphic can be distracting. You have to answer questions like "Do I have an asset I could use here already? Where can I find it? Or do I need to take another screenshot?" Sometimes, you want to keep writing because you know what you want to say and how you want to say it.

I like to use placeholder values for images and final code to include in an article when I am writing documentation. The placeholder I use is [add image] or [add code]. I use [add image] when I don't have an image immediately to hand and know I will need one or when the type of visual asset I want to add (i.e. a GIF) isn't supported in my writing tool (Google Docs). I use [add code] for the same purpose except for code. I sometimes add placeholders for code when I have a working script to which I am referring but have changes to make (i.e. reduce the number of lines of code, change placeholder values).

When I have written my first draft of the text for an article, I can go back and search for [add to find values that need to be changed efficiently. I can go back and fill in images and code as necessary.

This is a "quick trick" that helps me stay focused on writing. Perhaps it will be helpful to you, too. (But always remember to search for your placeholder. Double check that your work doesn't contain placeholders.)

from Hacker News https://ift.tt/sjF9xpT