The Forum for Technical Communication filled up Dataforeningen’s new course room on Tuesday 29 January for a workshop on controlled natural language. We were pleased to have a fully booked course with enthusiastic participants from a variety of companies based in different parts of Norway. Louise Harrison from SDL led the workshop, guiding us through four main topics. She explained what could motivate us, and the companies we work for, to use controlled natural language. She continued with a thorough English grammar recap. Then, Louise explained the rules of controlled natural language and she ended the workshop by providing us with things to consider when we create style guides.

Most of us write for a mixed audience of native and non-native speakers who usually have different levels of knowledge and experience. Louise explained how our choice of words affects how easily readers can comprehend what we write. Grammar is not something that is at the top of our minds in our everyday work life, and the review of English grammar with exercises was a nice refresher. Armed with this newfound knowledge, we dove into the rules of controlled natural language. Louise went through these rules with excellent examples that she interspersed with questions to the class to illustrate each rule. She also prepared hands-on exercises where we attempted to apply the rules ourselves. A style guide is an important tool that enables teams to write clear and consistent documentation using controlled natural language. Louise gave guidance on what to include in a style guide and how to maintain it as an active document.