{"id":2207,"date":"2011-06-14T10:28:34","date_gmt":"2011-06-14T00:28:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/?p=2207"},"modified":"2012-02-13T14:08:05","modified_gmt":"2012-02-13T03:08:05","slug":"a-manual-by-any-other-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2011\/06\/a-manual-by-any-other-name\/","title":{"rendered":"A manual by any other name&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s an officious sounding word for many people, and certainly a daunting prospect if you have to write or update the manual for your business. So much so, that people often avoid having a procedures or operations manual or just call it something less intimidating.<\/p>\n<p>Which raises the first question &#8211; <strong>what is a manual?<a href=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/pile_manuals.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-3466\" title=\"pile_manuals\" src=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/pile_manuals.jpg\" alt=\"A pile of business manuals\" width=\"144\" height=\"144\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/pile_manuals.jpg 400w, https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/pile_manuals-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/pile_manuals-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 144px) 100vw, 144px\" \/><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Really it is just a collection of ideas and <a title=\"start instructions clearly\" href=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2011\/01\/important-information-comes-first\/\">instructions<\/a> to help operate something efficiently. It may be boring to read the manual that came with your new iPod, phone or TV but it is very handy when you can&#8217;t figure out how to set it up or use the advanced features.<\/p>\n<p>Manuals range from a few pages long to hundreds and even thousands of pages long, depending on the purpose of the manual. Obviously the manual to run a multi-million dollar business will be longer than the manual for your home printer, but the concept is the same.<\/p>\n<p>Here are a few tips to make the concept of a manual less intimidating in your business:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a title=\"a different name can change the meaning\" href=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2008\/06\/a-rose-by-any-other-name\/\">call it something other than a manual<\/a> if the name has negative associations for you &#8211; options include guidelines, procedures, rules, &#8216;helpful information&#8217;, policies and the &#8216;how to book&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>make sure\u00a0to write it (or get it written)\u00a0in <a title=\"Keeping business writing short and sweet is simple\" href=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2010\/07\/short-and-sweet\/\">simple terms<\/a> so it&#8217;s easy to understand<\/li>\n<li>present it in an accessible way &#8211; a heavy folder stored on a high shelf will be ignored but a shared computer file on\u00a0your intranet is much easier to use<\/li>\n<li>divide\u00a0the manual into usable chunks &#8211; much better to have a long index than instructions that go for pages and cover many tasks<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you are starting a new manual from scratch, you have the advantage of making it friendly from the start, and <a title=\"Preparing procedures eBook from Word Constructions\" href=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/preparing-procedures\/\" target=\"_blank\">preparing procedures<\/a> and <a title=\"Style guides\" href=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2008\/02\/style-guides\/\">style guides<\/a> doesn&#8217;t have to be frightening either!<\/p>\n<p>Thinking about manuals you&#8217;ve had to use in the past, what were some of the big issues with them?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s an officious sounding word for many people, and certainly a daunting prospect if you have to write or update the manual for your business. So much so, that people often avoid having a procedures or operations manual or just call it something less intimidating. Which raises the first question &#8211; what is a manual? [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1425,53,60],"tags":[720,1140,647,700],"class_list":["post-2207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-communications","category-business-info-tools","category-writing","tag-instructions","tag-manual","tag-name","tag-procedures"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2207"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3467,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2207\/revisions\/3467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}