HP-35S 'Guide for Dummies' being posted online

[MagyarBoy]

Hi everyone,
Earlier I posted here an intention to create a 'guide for dummies' for the HP-35S; something aimed at people who have no experience whatsoever with HP calculators or RPN. I decided to post it online here.

Basically I am trying to set up a technical/business writing service company, and I decided that it would be better to present this guide for free as a demonstration of (I hope!) my writing skills, than selling it as a formal product.

Things are still under construction, including the website, but I hope to have most of the remainding chapters on-line within a week or so.

Let me know if you have any feedback or find issues/errors/hiccups etc. This is kind of a first draft so I think you may find something

Hope this effort is useful to at least someone out there. Thanks in advance for the feedback.

[Marcus von Cube]

Let's start with the simple things: Your choice of colors, especially the grey background, makes reading the text on my iPad mini unnecessarily hard for the eyes.

[walter b]

Some remarks as I came across various points:

• Introduction: "... (Google it)." If this shall be a verb it shall not be capitalized AFAIK. And there are, BTW, also other search machines.
• "... results that have been verified regardless." ? Regardless of what? Verified by which means?
• Last paragraph contains the renowned English "student" apparently meaning a person visiting a so-called highschool. "Student" is ambiguous though. I'd recommend looking for a better word.
  

To be continued.

d:-)

Edited to correct an error in a foreign language.

[walter b]

• 2 Basics: I don't know if English is your mother tongue (your user name indicates it isn't). If it isn't, a capable native speaker should proofread. Else I'd recommend it as well. Some expressions sound a bit strange to me but I'm no native speaker either.
• Same applies to punctuation.
• 3 RPN: Nice example. When it comes to the whiteboard, though, it starts deviating from real life IMHO: do you really draw tables on such a board? I know you need them for your explanation ...
• For the record, the result is 22.222°C.
• I'd guess the boss will be satisfied with FIX 1.
  

Enough for now.

d:-)

[Gerald H]

(04-19-2015 08:02 AM)walter b Wrote:  Some remarks as I came across various points:

• Introduction: "... (Google it)." If this shall be a verb it shall not be capitalized AFAIK. And there are, BTW, also other search machines.
• "... results that have been verified regardless." ? Regardless of what? Verified by which means?
• Last paragraph contains the reknown English "student" apparently meaning a person visiting a so-called highschool. "Student" is ambiguous though. I'd recommend looking for a better word.
  

To be continued.

d:-)

The renowned student is someone, any age, any etc, who wants to learn. If it's a problem, us monosylbs prefer "famed".

[walter b]

Danke, Gerald, 1:0! Ich hab's oben gleich korrigiert.

(Thanks! Point taken. Corrected.)

d:-)

[BartDB]

(04-19-2015 08:02 AM)walter b Wrote:  Some remarks as I came across various points:

• Introduction: "... (Google it)." If this shall be a verb it shall not be capitalized AFAIK. And there are, BTW, also other search machines.
• "... results that have been verified regardless." ? Regardless of what? Verified by which means?
• Last paragraph contains the reknown English "student" apparently meaning a person visiting a so-called highschool. "Student" is ambiguous though. I'd recommend looking for a better word.
  

To be continued.

d:-)

The word "Introduction" is a tile/heading and should be capitalised: (let me "Google it" for you)
http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/capita...itles.html (note: verbs is in the "Do Capitalize" section).
http://www.businesswritingblog.com/busin...dings.html
http://www.proz.com/kudoz/English/comput...tents.html ("introduction" it is not an article, preposition or coordinate conjunction).

Do I need to "Google" or search more for you??????


The word "regardless" in context of the paragraph is "regardless of the previous statement that the reader is advised to confirm their work as they are learning the calculator, the author has verified all examples".

Do you not know how to read in context???????????????


The word "student" can mean "university student". There are many courses requiring calculators and not complex numbers, that is all he is saying.


Now please stop correcting people in a language you obviously know nothing about.

[walter b]

Ok, Bart, knotty timber requires sharp wedges:

1. I didn't correct anything - I just came across some points. Please read my text above.
2. Please look for "Google it" in the OP's text before telling me the obvious about capitalisation. Thanks.
3. I'm perfectly aware of what "student can mean". I just recommended to be more specific.
4. I already mentioned I'm no native speaker. I may be less choleric than some.
   

And, BTW, I guess I've written more books than you in a foreign language. The feedback I got so far tells I know a bit more than "nothing about" said language. Nevertheless, if you find errors there (and I'm sure you will), please tell me - but be correct, I'll rely on you.

d:-/

[Jlouis]

(04-19-2015 03:11 AM)MagyarBoy Wrote:  Hi everyone,
Earlier I posted here an intention to create a 'guide for dummies' for the HP-35S; something aimed at people who have no experience whatsoever with HP calculators or RPN. I decided to post it online here.

Basically I am trying to set up a technical/business writing service company, and I decided that it would be better to present this guide for free as a demonstration of (I hope!) my writing skills, than selling it as a formal product.

Things are still under construction, including the website, but I hope to have most of the remainding chapters on-line within a week or so.

Let me know if you have any feedback or find issues/errors/hiccups etc. This is kind of a first draft so I think you may find something

Hope this effort is useful to at least someone out there. Thanks in advance for the feedback.

Thanks a lot!

[Gerald H]

(04-19-2015 09:18 AM)BartDB Wrote:  

(04-19-2015 08:02 AM)walter b Wrote:  Some remarks as I came across various points:

• Introduction: "... (Google it)." If this shall be a verb it shall not be capitalized AFAIK. And there are, BTW, also other search machines.
• "... results that have been verified regardless." ? Regardless of what? Verified by which means?
• Last paragraph contains the reknown English "student" apparently meaning a person visiting a so-called highschool. "Student" is ambiguous though. I'd recommend looking for a better word.
  

To be continued.

d:-)

The word "Introduction" is a tile/heading and should be capitalised: (let me "Google it" for you)
http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/capita...itles.html (note: verbs is in the "Do Capitalize" section).
http://www.businesswritingblog.com/busin...dings.html
http://www.proz.com/kudoz/English/comput...tents.html ("introduction" it is not an article, preposition or coordinate conjunction).

Do I need to "Google" or search more for you??????


The word "regardless" in context of the paragraph is "regardless of the previous statement that the reader is advised to confirm their work as they are learning the calculator, the author has verified all examples".

Do you not know how to read in context???????????????


The word "student" can mean "university student". There are many courses requiring calculators and not complex numbers, that is all he is saying.


Now please stop correcting people in a language you obviously know nothing about.

If "in a language you obviously know nothing about" is true of Walter's English I wonder how good your Chiricahua is.

[BartDB]

(04-19-2015 10:02 AM)Gerald H Wrote:  If "in a language you obviously know nothing about" is true of Walter's English I wonder how good your Chiricahua is.

I don't come on here correcting other people's Chiricahua, do I? In fact, I don't even correct people's English (except Walter's when he posts condescending corrections on others' posts).

[walter b]

(04-19-2015 10:21 AM)BartDB Wrote:  I don't even correct people's English (except Walter's when he posts condescending corrections on others' posts).

Nor did I - please read above.

d#-/

[r. pienne]

(04-19-2015 03:11 AM)MagyarBoy Wrote:  Let me know if you have any feedback or find issues/errors/hiccups etc. This is kind of a first draft so I think you may find something

Nice work. I'm sure it will be useful when it's finished.

Is it my turn to be pernickety? From a quick scan, here are a few things:
1. Introduction:
- "HP-35S" should be "HP 35s"
2. Basics:
- "Take your HP-35S and place it on the table next to this book." Duh. There's no book, and might not be a table.
5. RPN:
- Łukasiewicz (sic) was "Polish", not "polish", which is stuff you put on your shoes.
9,10. Rolling stack, roots/powers/logs:
- It refers to "Excel", assuming we are all Microsoft fans. Rather than adding LibreOffice/OpenOffice/others to the list, just refer to a "spreadsheet".
- The font size changes half-way through.
11. More examples:
- "Asparagus cola"? What on earth is that?
- explain that mL is the same as cm3.
- "$3.447 dollars" is tautological.
- "Gallons" should be "US gallons", as there are various sizes of gallons used in the shrinking pre-metric world.
General:
- Represent key strokes using little graphics or styled text (see e.g. Wikipedia article on the 35s, or Walter's 34s Calculation Guide), which would be more compact and stand out better.

None of the above is in any way critical, but hopefully some of it might be useful. Cheers.

R.

[walter b]

BTW, Bart,

(04-19-2015 09:18 AM)BartDB Wrote:  The word "Introduction" is a tile ...

I know tiles from Lisbon. The bigger you come the harder you fall on them.
SCNR

d;-)

[Tugdual]

I read this thread and felt like entering a world of weirdness.

[d b]

Marcus had a good point. Anyone who uses one of the several Android pads would be helping the OP by checking how the doc reads on that unit.

r. pienne; That was a well written and concise list of possible corrections that you wrote for the OP. It's not at all condescending, self inflating or pompous. If I ever need my writing critiqued, I'm going to ask you personally to do me that favor. You're good at it. -db

[everettr]

Hi Stacy,
I have marked up a PDF of your draft guide and attached the file.
Be warned, I tend toward the persnickety on some points, nothing personal. I was definitely more careful at the beginning, and slacked off at the end :-)
BTW: You will probably need to open the file in Adobe Reader or Acrobat or some equivalent program in order to see all of the comments.

Edit (to post): Attachment removed as you are revising...

Cheers,
Everett

[MagyarBoy]

Hi all, thanks for the feedback. I guess my first draft needs to be cleaned up a bit more before it goes live; I probably rushed things a bit in my desire to get this on-line. OK. Unless people want to keep reading it, I'll take the pages offline and repost them once they've gone through another round of editing. I'll also think about a better color scheme.

edit: also I'm in Canada & my first language is english so yes, I admit I rushed this too much. Apologies for releasing it too soon. I'll endeavor to clean it up, and also have it as one single PDF rather than multiple files.

[jebem]

(04-19-2015 02:18 PM)walter b Wrote:  BTW, Bart,

(04-19-2015 09:18 AM)BartDB Wrote:  The word "Introduction" is a tile ...

I know tiles from Lisbon. The bigger you come the harder you fall on them.
SCNR

d;-)

Do you mean the sidewalks tiles in Lisbon?

May I present a small (digest) dissertation, just for fun?

I had my fair share of crashes against the sidewalk pavements in Lisbon, specially on rainy days when using Portuguese expensive leather-soled shoes, walking around while looking to the nice nice looking people passing by.

Seriously, as I see it, the only thing worse than this, would be one Lisbon pigeon flying over your head and defecate right in your new nice shirt, while you fall down in the sidewalk tiles, trying to run out of the rain!

Actually this sequence of events have happened to me many years ago in Lisbon downtown.
Now, what are the odds of such event happening more than once in a person's lifetime?

But to be on the safe side, now I only use rubber-soled shoes made in Indonesia like everybody else, I do not run to shelter myself from the rain, I stop walking when I'm looking to nice people passing by (like any wise person would do in Lisbon ), and I pay special attention to the building eaves as it can have one or more pigeons up there waiting for me!

P.S. - Please feel free to comment on my English style. I'm not a native English speaker and I'm I'm willing to learn until the day I die

[rprosperi]

It appears to be removed at this time... I'll look at the next version after the basic improvements.