1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Concise, Excellent Bang for Buck, 2007-09-18
A solid, common-sense guide to technical writing that is applicable to writing in general. The tips and pointers presented in this manual will improve all your writing, not just technical. This book makes the excellent point that good technical writing is ultimately just good writing...applied to technical subjects. Excellent buy.
21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
Some value for the price, 2005-11-30
In order of size, but not importance, the four books Technical Writers need within easy rolling distance are:
1. Strunk and White's powerful Elements of Style
2. Michael Bremer's interesting and motivating Untechnical Writing - How to Write About Technical Subjects and Products So Anyone Can Understand (Untechnical Press Books for Writers Series)
3. Blake and Bly's Elements of Technical Writing (MacMillan)
4. Microsoft's Manual of Style for Technical Publications
I found a number of items are useful for SDK online Help documentation. Blake and Bly state a number of golden rules for Technical Writers, a few of which are useful:
#3) Numbers should appear in the same form they are familiar to readers
#4) Hyphenate numbers and unit of measure, such as 32-bytes
#5) Use singular when 1: .8-bit
#9) Write out approximations: half a glass of water
#11) Spell out numbers beginning a sentence
Center equations (2+2=4) on the page
#25) Hyphenate words compounded to form an adjective modifier. State-of-the-art technology, for example; the phrase state-of-the-art modifies the meaning of word, technology, following the phrase.
Hyphenate two adjacent nouns if they express a single idea: air-craft.
#29) Avoid dangling participles: verbs ending with "ing," when attached to the wrong subject.
Wrong: Turning over our papers, the exam began.
Correct: Turning over our papers, we began the exam.
Omit internal punctuation in acronyms and abbreviations: R.S.V.P
Acronyms for measurements are in lower case: cm for centimeter.
Avoid symbols for words: " for inch.
"that evaluates to" is a common enough phrase in program code documentation, but it is passive (not past tense).
Use imperative voice: begin sentence with a verb.
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
This is the mini bible for Technical communications, 2001-01-28
As a technical writer I have found this book an excellent resource. Most examples are short and concise. The rules and examples are probably the most up-to-date in the Technical Communications industry.
35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
Good, but not necessarily for long term use, 2001-01-26
This book is general in its coverage and doesn't attempt to teach writing. It does teach some mechanics and offer some adivce on how to structure reports and articles. I found that I read this book once but now don't find it a useful reference. It does contain a number of style guidelines e.g., "representing numbers and math," but many examples are from chemistry and hard sciences; which I found less relevant to me. One chapter discusses what the authors call systems: computers and software.
Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style" provided, in a small space, rules that you might recall for a lifetime. This book is more like a grammar guidebook with a focus on technical material mixed in.
For more examples, you'll need a bigger book on technical writing; and if you want a style guide, you might do well to remember that the basic conventions of English apply to technical writing too. Bly is great writer; unfortunately this is not one of his best books.
45 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
An excellent guide, 2000-02-04
I found this book to be extremely useful. It was easy to read and clearly pointed out the major elements in technical writing. I recommend it to anyone who needs a boost in their writing, but not for someone looking for a thick reference guide. The only reason it gets 4 instead of 5 stars is it didn't have as many examples as I would have liked or any practice problems. Overall, it helped me organize my papers properly, avoid common writing flaws, and get my main points across.