About the Terminology in This Book

I have made every effort to keep the terminology used in this book as consistent as possible with the Camtasia Studio user interface as well as its pre-existing documentation. If alternate terms for the same thing exist as a general software convention, I try to point those out, so that those familiar with similar third-party applications have a frame of reference when discussing certain topics.

A side-note on political correctness: I liberally use the word “they” as a gender-neutral singular pronoun, as in, “When the user follows a link to this page, they will be presented with the navigation menu.” While ungrammatical, I find it infinitely preferable to awkward constructions such as he/she (his/her) or alternating back and forth on a case-by-case basis to ensure that each gender gets fair play. So, until the grammatical prescriptivists devise a better system, that’s the convention I’m sticking with.

And here’s another blow to the prescriptivists: Whether doing stand-up technical training or writing documentation, I generally find it preferable to address the learner in an informal, conversational tone. In this book (and in other manuals I’ve constructed), I tend to write like I talk, which I believe makes the text a lot more approachable. But it also means that I freely start sentences with conjunctions, end them with prepositions, and occasionally make use of puns and other corny humor that some may find off-putting. If these sorts of things bother you, then you are more than welcome to go write your own book…J