Books
How to Improve Your Technical Communication Books – 10 Ideas
Books are the bread and butter of technical writing and communication. Here are 10 ways in which you can improve the quality of the technical communication books you may end up writing during your career: 1) Always start from a clear outline that should become the basis for your Table of Contents. Make sure each…
Read MoreBook Review: Conversation and Community by Anne Gentle
Anne Gentle, senior technical writer and author of the JustWriteClick blog, has just published her first book: Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation. Anne graciously sent me a copy, and I’ve put together the following review. The major premise of this book is that expectations for documentation have shifted from bookshelf to search.…
Read MoreLegal Liability for E-Book Publishers – Are You Covered Legally?
Legal liability is an issue for all writers. Legal liability for writers is the legal responsibility of a writer for the accuracy and truthfulness of their work. A legal liability can come from an assertion that the writer has acted in some manner that violates civil or criminal law. It can also arise out of…
Read MoreBook Review – Descartes's Secret Notebook
By Amir D. Aczel Amir D. Aczel is the kind of writer I love to read; a “science popularizer”, that is, a scientist who can write about science in terms that someone like me, a person who is not a professional scientist yet loves to learn more about science, can understand. But that’s not all.…
Read MoreBook Review – Managing Writers by Richard L Hamilton
(A book review by Sarah Maddox of ffeathers.com. Here is an excerpt…) I’ve just finished reading Richard L. Hamilton’s new book entitled “Managing Writers, A Real World Guide to Managing Technical Documentation”. It’s a good read, with useful information for managers, writers and technical communicators alike. Book review – Managing Writers by Richard L Hamilton…
Read MoreTechnical Book Review – "Letting Go of the Words"
© 2009-2010 Ugur Akinci There are some books that can launch a career. This is one of them. After reading Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works by Janice (Ginny) Redish and digesting its main principles, you can easily put up a web site and start marketing yourself as a “Content Strategist.”…
Read MoreA Good Outline is Half of the Solution
© Ugur Akinci I do not believe outlining is a good way to write poetry. But if you are writing non-fiction, an article, a book, a thesis, or a technical document you’d be at a great disadvantage to start writing before you have a detailed outline at hand. I’d go as far as claiming that…
Read MoreBook Review – Handbook of Technical Writing
by Gerald J. Alred, Charles T. Brusaw, and Walter E. Oliu (NOTE: This review is based on the 7th edition of this work which, at this time of writing, is in its 9th edition.) Handbook of Technical Writing, Ninth Edition is (together with Microsoft’s Manual of Style for Technical Publications) definitely one of the top…
Read MoreTechnical Book Review – "Technical Writing for Dummies"
© 2009-2010 Ugur Akinci The only thing I do not like about this series of books is their name: “… for Dummies!” Nobody likes to be addressed as a “dummy.” But having said that, I also have to admit that most Dummies books are well written. I do not always enjoy the kind of “obligatory…
Read More
Book Review – Guidelines for Developing Instructions
Book by Kay Inaba, Stuart O. Parsons, and Robert Smillie Introduction This is a small but information-packed (and rather expensive) 136-page book for all technical writers who are writing procedural guides and/or maintenance and troubleshooting manuals for mechanical systems. The authors clearly have a lot of experience in documenting mechanical systems and working on military…
Read More