Critique of Microsoft Word User Manual
The key to beginning anything is a good introduction, be it a book, an essay, and editorial, and yes, even a user manual. I especially enjoyed the Introduction to the user manual for Microsoft Word 2007. It begins with an introduction to the authors that contributed to the user manual, telling us about their fields of expertise and experience in technical writing. Such an introduction assures the reader that what they are about to read comes from those that have much experience in the area and that the user manual will be as informative as they hope to expect. It then goes on to describe what is new in Microsoft Word 2007, at first glance you can already tell that Word 2007 is more beautiful pleasing, but this section goes beyond the obvious make over to describe new and different features from previous versions of MS Word which helps the end user learn what to expect and what to watch out for if they encounter a feature that is unfamiliar to them..
The experience of the author’s technical writing skills really shows. Everything is clear and concise. Even the most basic of beginners should have no troubles learning the software through this user manual, they keep things simple without using sentences that run on and on. However, I searched high and low looking for anything that would help to describe what certain terminologies such as “footnote” or “bullets” mean. The manual is pretty extensive so I may have just overlooked it. But if it is indeed the case that such explanations were not included than that is something that I would highly recommend be in the next step-by-step process of the user manual.
The MS Word 2007 user manual has excellent step by step instructions for people to use when they want to learn such techniques as adding commands to your quick access toolbar. Everything is broken down into tiny steps that