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A Resource Manual for Technical Writers

By Michelle Byrd and Jessica Horn

The following books, software, internet resources, and journals have been chosen for this manual after a thorough survey of the current materials available to technical writers. This manual is not meant to be a definitive guide. It can, however, serve as a valuable resource for those interested in the technical writing field. It has been composed to act as an aid for both those currently employed in the technical writing field and those who are considering a career in the field. The categories included are diverse in subject matter. Some sources are geared toward presenting trends and guidelines, while other sources offer helpful discussion .We have tried to include a broad range of sources so the information available can be easily accessed.

BOOKS

Technical Writing 101 : A Real-World Guide to Planning and Writing Technical Documentation
by Alan S. Pringle, and Sarah S. O'Keefe.
$34.95

For technical writers, answering the obligatory “What do you do for a living?” question at a party can have many effects. It can:

* Create more questions: “What’s that?”

* Draw blank stares

* Provoke some minor hostilities: “Did you write that worthless manual that came with my word processing software? That book reeked!”

So, if you’ve decided that you want a career in technical communication, be prepared. Although you’ll have a challenging, fast-paced job that changes as swiftly as the technology you write about, discussing your work at a party will be a quite a conversation stopper.

What’s in this book:

Technical Writing 101 will show you that there’s more to technical writing than just writing. The first major section of the book explains the skills you need as a writer. It also describes some of the essential tools and techniques for delivering projects on schedule and on budget. The chapters in this section are:

Chapter 1, “So, what’s a technical writer?”
Explains what a technical writer does and what skills might make technical writing a good choice for you.

Chapter 2, “An overview of the technical writing process”
Provides a high-level view of the technical writing process. Most documentation projects share a common structure—even when the subject matter is completely different.

Chapter 3, “Very necessary evils—doc plans and outlines”
Explains some project management tools that every technical writer needs. Documentation plans provide writers with a roadmap to follow as they create materials. Typically, a documentation plan includes a description of the target audience, the schedule, and a list of documents or online help to be developed. Manual outlines are just that—those hideous indented things you probably remember from high school. Unfortunately, you’ll discover that outlines are in fact a necessity for technical writers, and perhaps we’ll be able to convince you that they aren’t so bad when you’re trying to write an entire book!

Chapter 4, “The Tech Writer’s Toolbox”
Focuses on the tools and technologies that you need to work successfully. Technical writers use a variety of writing and graphics packages to develop material.

In the second major section, you learn about how to get information, organize information, and (finally) write documentation. The chapters also describe other tasks in the documentation process, such as creating graphics, technical editing, production editing, and indexing. The chapters in this section are:

Chapter 5, “Getting information”
Gives you tips on how to extract information from source documents and product developers. Many people respond well to bribery, especially when the bribe is edible and includes chocolate in some form.

Chapter 6, “Finally—it’s time to start writing”
Describes how to write documentation, including addressing a document’s audience and dividing your content into different types of information—interface, reference, conceptual, and procedural.

Chapter 7, “Writing task-oriented information”
Explains the basics of writing procedures. Because most technical documents tell users how to perform tasks, the ability to write good task-oriented information is a fundamental skill for all technical writers.

Chapter 8, “A few words about pictures”
Describes how to create and work with images. A graphic may not be worth exactly a thousand words, but an illustration can often explain something with more clarity than any amount of text.

Chapter 9, “Editors—resistance is futile”
Explains what you can expect from an editor and what most editors can expect from you. Refusing to work with an editor is not an option for technical writers—editing is an essential component of the technical documentation process. A competent editor can make you look good by catching your mistakes before the client sees them.

Chapter 10, “Indexing”
Explains the basics of writing a good index. A thorough, useful index is essential because readers often check the index first when looking for a particular piece of information. A good index can also save a company money—readers who quickly find the information they need are less likely to call customer support.

Chapter 11, “Final preparation—production editing”
Tells you how to make sure your document is ready for printing by checking for line breaks, page breaks, and other formatting issues.

The third section explains some advanced topics. Chapters in this section are:

Chapter 12, “Avoiding international irritation”
Offers some tips on minimizing the hassles that occur when documentation is translated into other languages. Learning about the translation process before you start writing the English documentation can save your company a lot of time and money—and prevent many, many headaches.

Chapter 13, “Single sourcing”
Describes how to create multiple types of deliverables—hardcopy books and online help, for example—from one set of files. The ability to create multiple deliverables while minimizing the time and money spent is important for many documentation departments, which often operate under tight schedules and with limited budgets.

The appendices provide information about how to get a job, along with lists of resources and a sample documentation plan. The appendices are:

Appendix A, “Getting your first job as a technical writer”
Gives you some pointers on tailoring your resume for technical writing jobs, interviewing, and putting together a portfolio.

Appendix B, “Resources,” and Appendix C, “Tools information”
List web sites, books, organizations, and tools that are useful for technical writers.

Appendix D, “Sample doc plan”
Contains a sample documentation plan.

This book focuses on documentation for computer hardware and software. However, many of the concepts described apply to other forms of technical writing, such as writing about manufacturing environments, medical and pharmaceutical topics, and science.

If you’re a talented writer with an interest in technical topics, writing technical documentation can be quite lucrative. This book gives you the advice and tools you’ll need to get started in this challenging field.

Technical Writing for Dummies
by Sheryl Lindsell-Roberts
$19.99

Professional Writing Skills
by Janis Fisher Chan and Diane Lutovich
$45.00

Untechnical Writing - How to Write About Technical Subjects and Products So Anyone Can Understand
by Michael Bremer
$14.95
Editorial Reviews
Henry Berry, Editor/Publisher, The Small Press Book Review
Bremer learned the methods and principles of writing he calls untechnical writing from 10 years experience as a writer and manager in the entertainment software business, including working for the company that produced the very successful SimCity computer game. Bremer deals specifically, and thoroughly, with the varied sources and purposes of writing in this field; which he sees as a new field of writing calling for the new approaches to writing he expounds. He gives writers clear-headed, experienced guidance on how to make different sorts of technical subjects comprehensible and applicable to general readers. This is obviously an important task in today's growing technological society. Bremer's timely manual is a highly-recommended guide and reference for any writer wishing to write comprehensibly and effectively about technical subjects for non-technical readers.

Effective Business Writing : A Guide for Those Who Write on the Job
by Maryann V. Piotrowski
$12.00
Editorial Reviews
--A.L.A. Booklist
"Practical and thoughtful...Varied and incisive...A handy reference-well organized and to the point."

--Steve Robbins, Harvard Business School
"The best book on business writing I've ever encountered."

The Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications
by Microsoft Corporation
$29.99
Editorial Reviews
From Book News, Inc. , June 1, 1996
Originally created for in-house use by Microsoft, the manual provides technical writers and editors with a style standard for technical documentation, including: use of terminology; conventions, procedure, and design treatments; and punctuation and grammar usage. The guide is arranged in alphabetical order with three appendices that specifically deal with acronyms, special characters, and words with numbers.

Developing Quality Technical Information : A Handbook for Writers and Editors
by Gretchen Hargis (Editor), Ann Hernandez, Polly Hughes, Jim Ramaker
$39.99
Editorial Reviews
From Book News, Inc.
This practical guide developed by IBM software documentation experts presents the basics of conveying quality technical information: from writing from the intended audience's point of view, to editing the text and visual elements. Includes a glossary, quality checklists, red flag words, and bibliography. Book News, Inc.®, Portland, OR

Making Money in Technical Writing
by Peter Kent
$16.95
Editorial Reviews
Keith Soltys, at the Internet Resources for Technical Writers Web site
I found the book highly readable and interesting. It's logically organized and covers its material quite thoroughly. Kent has strong opinions on some subjects, but he backs them up with facts and experience... it's hard to imagine a technical writer who couldn't find something useful and worthwhile in this book. It should be especially useful to anyone who is trying to break into the field, to salaried writers considering making a move to freelancing, or to freelancers who want to improve their incomes.

Handbook of Technical Writing
by Gerald J. Alred, Charles T. Brusaw, and Walter E. Oliu
$35.95
Editorial Reviews
From Book News, Inc.
This reference guide provides a lengthy series of alphabetically arranged, cross-referenced entries for terms that are pertinent to technical writing and to writing in general. The entries reflect such recent technological developments as hypertext, the Internet, computer-assisted design, and electric correspondence. The authors include an essay on five steps to successful writing and numerous samples of technical writing and graphics. Spiral wire binding. Book News, Inc.®, Portland, OR --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Elements of Technical Writing, The
by Robert W. Bly and Gary Blake
$9.95
Editorial Reviews
From Book News, Inc. , December 1, 1993
The authors are expert, and their concise treatment hits the essentials, including matters of style, some rules of punctuation and grammar, principles of technical communication, word choice, and various tasks of the technical writer. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Pocket Guide to Technical Writing
by William S. Pfeiffer.
$13.95
From the Back Cover
This handy guide for on-the-job writing gives quick, easy-to-find answers to common writing problems faced in various technical and professional careers. It provides immediate help for planning, drafting, and revising 16 common documents — from letters and memos to reports and proposals. Three quick access chapters cover achieving speed and quality in the writing process; achieving order and design in structure; and special topics of graphics, speeches, and Email.

Complete Idiot's Guide to Technical Writing
by Krista Van Laan, Catherine Julian
$16.95
From the Author
The authors of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Technical Writing," are obviously biased, but we think this book fills a big need. It's the book we wish we had had when we started.
We've spent the last 10 years training newcomers in the field of technical writing, and more than once, we've wished there was a book we could hand them that would lay everything out clearly and progressively. This is that book!

Technical Editing : The Practical Guide for Editors and Writers (Hewlett-Packard Press)
by Judith A. Tarutz
$35.00
Synopsis
Direct from the trenches, here's the practical guidance technical editors can use to apply editing principles under absurdly tight deadlines and constantly changing product specs, tips and tricks for editing common constructs in technical writing, and when to bend the rules to avoid technical ambiguity.

The Fine Art of Technical Writing
by Carol Rosenblum Perry
$9.95
Editorial Reviews
From Book News, Inc. , December 1, 1991
Subtitled Key points to help you think your way through writing scientific or technical publications, theses, term papers, & business reports

Writing a Professional Life: Stories of Technical Communicators On and Off the Job (Part of the Allyn & Bacon Series in Technical Communication)
by Gerald Savage(Editor), Dale L. Sullivan(Editor)
$30.00

RoboHELP 2000 for WinHelp : The Course in a Book
by William Meisheid David Locke
$55.00
Book Description
Use this workbook to bootstrap yourself into the online information world with RoboHELP. Discover how to start your project the right way the first time, avoid the traps beginning help authors fall into, use the powerful features of RoboHELP to their best advantage...and do it all in as little as a day!

The Quick Start section provides a step-by-step overview, and the accompanying CD provides source files so you can create a project as you progress through the units. The second half of the book, Digging Down, provides more detail on the Quick Start concepts. You will learn how to use RoboHELP 2000...and, just as importantly, you will learn how to create help systems that actually help users.

Whether used for class materials or as a self-study guide, this workbook can launch you into the fast-growing field of online authoring.

SOFTWARE

The following software was compiled after consulting current job requirements.

Microsoft FrontPage 2000
Price 114.99
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
The Internet offers unprecedented publishing possibilities, allowing anyone with a few hundred bucks and some spare time to bypass the middleman and reach readers, viewers, listeners, and buyers directly. If you want to tap into the power of Web publishing without staying up nights learning HTML, try Microsoft FrontPage 2000.

With its intuitive interface (especially if you've already done time with other Microsoft applications), you can soon be creating hyper-linked pages to your heart's content. Formatting, inserting graphics or sounds, and keeping track of all your pages is push-button simple--experiment all you want, and retreat when necessary (some color schemes can induce nausea). The package also allows easy use of ActiveX controls, plug-ins, and Java applets--as well as more traditional scripting features--to snazz up your site for the higher-bandwidth viewer.

The integration between Office software, new with the 2000 edition, means you can easily publish information stored in an Access database or Excel spreadsheet without suffering through the nightmare of cutting, pasting, and reformatting. Whether you want to sell Beanie Babies or find new readers for your poetry, Microsoft FrontPage 2000 will help you present yourself in the best possible light. --Rob Lightner

From Winmag®
FrontPage 98 was an effective, full-featured Web authoring tool, but many complained that the program would invasively alter their HTML code. With this new version, FrontPage 2000, Microsoft has reined in the program's penchant for arbitrarily changing HTML tags and using narrowly supported functions. In addition, FrontPage's Personal Web Server no longer installs itself without informing you of its actions. In fact, the server doesn't even ship with this version.

Microsoft Visio Standard 2000
Price 162.99
Product Description
Improve collaboration and communication by sharing flow charts, organization charts, timelines, and other important diagrams in a variety of formats, including file types supported by e-mail, corporate intranets, and the Web. Plus, Standard Edition works with your existing desktop technologies, such as Microsoft Office, and your IT infrastructure.

Clarify your business communications by including Visio 2000 diagrams in your documents. Whether you need to create a flow chart to document a quality-assurance program, drop an updated organization chart into an e-mail message, enhance a corporate presentation, or illustrate a marketing strategy, Visio 2000 Standard Edition can help you turn ideas and information into understanding and action.

Cut, paste, and even edit your Visio 2000 drawings within Microsoft Office documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Need to illustrate your point? Produce a Visio diagram, then include it in PowerPoint presentations to strengthen and clarify your ideas. With Standard Edition, diagrams embedded in PowerPoint slides can adopt the PowerPoint color scheme, allowing you to create more polished presentations in half the time.

Adobe Framemaker 6.0
Price 800.00
Product Description
The multichannel technical publishing solution for print and the Web, Adobe FrameMaker 6.0 software delivers a comprehensive solution for publishing long, content-rich documents across multiple channels. Whether publishing to the Web, CD-ROM, or print, FrameMaker 6.0 offers improved book-building features, including bookwide commands, and gives you the power of Quadralay WebWorks Publisher Standard Edition software for enhanced HTML and XML capabilities. This version also supports creation of structured PDF files.

Adobe Acrobat 5.0
Price 228.99
Product Description
Adobe Acrobat 5.0 lets you easily convert any document to an Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) file. Whether you create business plans, spreadsheets, graphically rich brochures, or Web sites, Acrobat 5 is an essential tool. Anyone with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader can open your Adobe PDF file across a broad range of hardware and software. It will look and print exactly as intended. Save on printing, mailing, and warehousing by easily distributing compact, secure, searchable Adobe PDF files with Adobe Acrobat 5.0.

Teams can work smarter by adding comments to your PDF files right from their Web browsers with electronic highlighting and sticky notes, e-signature approval, and more. Control access to sensitive content by adding password protection to your document. Confidently share business plans, spreadsheets, graphically rich brochures, and even Web sites. Use a variety of security options to control access to sensitive content or prevent others from changing or printing your document.

Adobe PDF files retain the originals' visual integrity--with layout, fonts, formatting, links, and images intact. Get enhanced integration with Adobe Illustrator 9.0 and Photoshop 6.0. Acrobat 5 provides support for transparency and consistent color management. Click an image in your Adobe PDF file to edit natively in Photoshop, or open Adobe PDF pages or graphics in Illustrator for editing. Repurpose information from your Adobe PDF files by saving the files in Rich Text Format (RTF) for editing in Microsoft Word. Automatically crop, rotate, or insert a large number of Adobe PDF pages with new batch-processing capabilities, and use tiling options to easily proof oversize documents.

Accelerate the Web-site review-and-approval process. Capture your graphically rich sites as PDF files so clients and internal teams can approve and comment on your text and layout without having to go online. Attach Adobe PDF files to e-mail or post them to your network server. Adobe products are tightly integrated, so PDF conversion with Acrobat is a natural next step after you've created pages with Adobe GoLive or other graphically rich software.

Corel (Word Perfect Office 2000)
Price 270.99
Product Description
WordPerfect Office 2000 provides the latest tools to maximize your efficiency for word processing, spreadsheets, and more.
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Whether you've always used WordPerfect or you just want to show Microsoft who's boss, the inexpensive Corel WordPerfect Office 2000 Standard suite of software will help you run your home or business just as efficiently as competitive products do. You'll find WordPerfect 9, Trellix 2 Web-development software, Quattro Pro 9 spreadsheet program, Corel Presentations 9 multimedia package, CorelCENTRAL 9 personal information manager, and more in this suite.

All these different programs can share files with each other and with Microsoft Office 97, so you don't have to give up interoperability. In fact, if you're switching over, the only thing you will give up is your inertia--while it'll take some time to learn a few new commands, most are so intuitive that you could figure them out in your sleep.

Frills include multilingual writing tools, clip art, over 1,000 fonts, and the Adobe Acrobat reader. Essential for the power user is Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications, a powerful customizing language to help you build the most efficient office suite to meet your needs.

Find out why WordPerfect users refuse to switch and abandon these applications in favor of more dominant players; get Corel WordPerfect Office 2000 Standard, do business simply and easily, and thumb your nose toward Redmond. --Rob Lightner

Microsoft Office 2000 Professional
Price 492.99
Product Description
Find easy and powerful project management tools with a familiar user interface using Microsoft Project 2000. Whether you're overseeing simple, short-term projects or managing complex, multiproject schedules, Microsoft Project 2000 fits the way you work today.

Schedule and track project and resource information in any increment of time, and then present your data using features such as customizable Gantt charts. Easily share information, consolidate projects, split tasks among team members, and track project statuses over electronic mail, your company's intranet--even over the Internet. Finally, Microsoft Project 98 is fully compatible with Office 2000 and Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) databases, and provides built-in Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications for all your customization needs.

Microsoft Office 2000 Standard
Price 399.99
Product Description
Microsoft Office 2000 is a suite of applications for document creation, communication, and business-information analysis. The suite includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, FrontPage, Publisher, PhotoDraw, Visio 2000, MapPoint, and Project.

Office 2000 offers a multitude of new features. For many functions, the business platform has evolved from paper to the Web, and the respective programs now are more closely integrated with a variety of innovations that affect the entire suite

From Winmag®
While Office 2000 initially impressed me greatly when I saw the first beta over a year ago, on closer inspection (and more testing) I'm less enamored of the suite. For example, Web collaboration sounds great - share documents over the Web and view comments from your browser - but to use it you'll have to use an NT server with Office extensions. As a single user or a worker in a small office, that puts it beyond my reach. That may be just as well. I think other solutions are actually more effective. For example, if you do much collaboration, you should be using SmartSuite. Hands down it's the collaboration champ, with a user interface that makes it a no-brainer to accept or reject changes and incorporate comments. If you need a Web-based solution, consider storing your files on Punch Networks' WebGroups which offers check-in/out control and using your existing word processor.

Microsoft also boasts about how HTML is just another file format, and it's true that Word .DOC files saved as HTML have greater fidelity to the original. However, for the vast majority of us, I doubt you're going to use Word as your Web-page editor. It's fine for text-based pages (with a picture or two), but it doesn't have any of the tools (fly-over mouse-triggered activity, for example) that dedicated tools (such as FrontPage) offer. Worse, while it's true that you can create HTML documents, it doesn't offer anything like FastSite (in Lotus SmartSuite) for actually posting the content.

FastSite is one of those SmartSuite jewels that helps novices create intranet sites with an absolute minimum of Webmaster intervention. What does Word offer? Zip. Sure, you can save to a Web site, assuming you know the URL and have permission, but no links are automatically created as they are when you incorporate a document into a FastSite project. Thus, what Microsoft has given us is really half a solution: a tool for creating content but no good way to turn several Word documents into a site. It's this kind of half-baked approach that ultimately makes Office 2000 a disappointment. It also makes you wonder what Microsoft was thinking about how people work in the real world.

That's not to say Microsoft hasn't done some fabulous things with the Web. You can take in an existing Web page, edit it in Word (rather than an unfamiliar Web tool), and save it back out, for quick-and-easy editing. But how many of us do that? Not as many, I suspect, as Microsoft would have us believe. Being able to export a pivot table to a Web site is great - if you can count on the person viewing your spreadsheet using IE. Great for Microsoft-centric installations, not so great for the real world: Web tool developers tell us tales of how many corporations are still stuck on Netscape version 2 or 3. Sure, Microsoft is taking the forward-looking position. It's just that you'll have to wait for everyone else to catch up. That could take some time, and by then there may be yet another Office upgrade to consider instead.

Some of the day-to-day productivity enhancements - the ability to save 12 items to an Office clipboard, a History folder (more of your most-recently-used files are listed), easier toolbar customizations everywhere, multilingual AutoCorrect, the three-panel view in PowerPoint, and synonyms finally available in Word by right-clicking on a word - are great. But others, such as integration with Microsoft NetMeeting and a resource-hog called PhotoDraw 2000, just don't excite me.

Where are the improvements I can use every day? Why do I have to use tables to place left- and right-aligned text on the same line? Microsoft knows this is a problem, and has for some time. They even joke about it in presentations. Yet it remains unfixed. WordPerfect has been able to handle this simple text feature for a long time. Corel, it seems, understands how people work better.

Dreamweaver 4.0
Price 281.99
Product Description
Dreamweaver 4 is everything that you need to create and manage small business sites, corporate Intranets, and complex Web businesses. Familiar page-layout techniques let you "draw" complex table-based layouts with pixel-precise accuracy, while generating clean, version-3.0-friendly table code. Professional hand-coding environment includes autoindenting, punctuation balancing, and the ability to debug client-side JavaScript directly in your browser. And, if you're ready to master the nuances of HTML, you can refer to the integrated online reference material from O'Reilly Publications. Dreamweaver 4 makes it simple to incorporate content from Microsoft Office and graphics from Macromedia Fireworks. You can even generate Macromedia Flash (.swf) graphics directly in Dreamweaver to create engaging Web experiences. Working on teams and tracking projects is easier, too. Quickly organize site assets, create sitewide reports, and integrate with WebDAV and Microsoft Visual SourceSafe for Windows for maximum productivity.

RoboHelp Office
Price 899.99
Product Description
RoboHelp Office is a versatile, powerful tool for creating full-featured Help systems. RoboHelp automates the Help authoring process, making it fast and easy to create Help. It is the choice of technical writers, Help authors, and developers worldwide.

RoboHelp Office saves at least half of the time it takes to create a Help project. RoboHelp guides you through a series of wizards and dialog boxes so you can focus on the content of the Help system. Create Help for Web-based applications, Web sites, Windows applications, policies and procedures, intranets, cross-platform applications, Java applets, stand-alone applications, extranets, file-based server applications, and Electronic Performance Support Systems (EPSS).

RoboHelp Office lets you choose your own editing environment: Dreamweaver, FrontPage, HomeSite, or any other leading HTML editor. Or select the built-in HTML editor or Microsoft Word. Generate the finished Help system in any leading format--WebHelp (cross-browser/cross-platform), Microsoft HTML Help, WinHelp, Oracle Help for Java, or JavaHelp. You can also create context-sensitive Help and printed documentation. A RoboHelp system provides your users with a convenient online self-help opportunity. You can author in several languages besides English: Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, or Brazilian Portuguese. RoboHelp spell-checks your text, auto-corrects words, and creates your index.

*Many software downloads are available by using links posted to the technical writing websites compiled in this manual.

INTERNET RESOURCES

“Eamonn Fitzgerald’s Technical Writing Resource.” The Technical Writing
Resource Home Page. Online. Internet. <http://www.eamonn.com>.
21 April 2001.

This website attempts to give information on the finer points of technical writing: a language clinic with information on grammar, mechanics, HTML, and Java; a writing center with writing samples, textbooks, and links.

“Guide to Grammar and Writing.” Online. Internet.
<http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/index.htm>. 24 April 2001.

This site might not fall under the strict parameters of technical writing, but it is extremely helpful for all writers at all skill levels. The page has drop down menus that enable the person viewing it to get definitions of parts of speech and explanations of common errors such as sentence fragments, tense shifts, and comma splices. The site contains PowerPoint presentations on several topics such as commas, semicolons, and clauses. The page is maintained by Capital Community College in Hartford, Connecticut.

Hewitt, John. “Living Documentation: The Future of Technical Writing.” Writer’s
             Resource Center. Online. Internet.
             <http://www.poewar.com/articles/living_documentation.htm>. 19 April
            2001.

This article discusses the particular challenges that technical writers face and the way these challenges affect the reader of the manual the tech writer composes. Hewitt discusses how manuals are sometimes inaccurate, sometimes too difficult or lengthy, and sometimes helpful. The website itself addresses many different types of writing and offers writer’s forum and submission sections.

“Home Page.” The Official TECHWR-L, the Internet forum for Technical
Communicators. Online. Internet.
<http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/index.php3>. 17 April 2001.

This site is filled with resources for tech writers, including books, software, web sites, and an employment directory. This website is very helpful to both the beginning and experienced tech writer; it also offers the writer a chance to make money by writing for the website.

“Longman English Technical Writing.” The English Pages. Online. Internet.
<http://www.aw.com/englishpages/tech.htm>. 17 April 2001.

Beginning tech writing site for students. Gives a good introduction to tech writing and explains how the craft has changed over the past 20 years. Also contains workbook and activity center sections to give students practice.

“Society for Technical Communication Home Page.” The Society for Technical
Communication. Online. Internet. <http://www.stc.org>. 19 April 2001.

This society offers member benefits such as access to publications, employment opportunities, and the opportunity to “network” with other professionals in the field. The STC also sponsors an annual conference for tech writers.

“Technical Standards Inc. Home Page.” Technical Standards Inc.: Documentation
Solutions. Online. Internet. <http://www.tecstandards.com/>. 24 April
2001.

This corporate site offers training for tech writers, a job search, and lists projects the firm has handled. The company also sponsors a contest for the worst technical writing manual.

“TechWriters.com Home Page.” TechWriters.com: Your Tech Writing Resource.
Online. Internet. <http://www.techwriters.com/index.asp>. 22 April 2001.

This site offers many valuable resources for technical writers and employers, including searches for both tech writers and tech writing jobs. It also offers writers the chance to hone their tech writing skills by enrolling in a 2-day seminar conducted by Webster Techwriters for “only $795 per attendee.”

“Technical Writing.” Technical Writing Resources at The Mining Company. Online.
Internet. <http://techwriting.miningco.com/careers/techwriting/>. 17 April
2001.

Excellent website with links to samples of tech writing; information for beginners, professionals, and consultants; news groups; user manuals, and a great deal more. Very detailed website covering nearly every aspect of the field.

“Technical Writing.” Writers Write. Online. Internet.
<http://www.writerswrite.com/>. 19 April 2001.

This website offers links to tech writing resources, a message board, lists of books, tools for tech writers, job listings, and writer’s classifieds. It is a fairly thorough website and most of the links seem to be operational; on some of the older websites, the links are outdated.

“Technical Writing with Gary Conroy: Your Guide to One of Over 700 Sites.”
About.com: The Human Internet. Online. Internet.
<http://techwriting.about.com/careers/techwriting/>. 17 April 2001.

This website offers a fairly comprehensive look at the technical writing field. It consists of many different subjects, forums, chat rooms, and advice. The page also offers an “In the Spotlight” section with several articles on current trends in tech writing.

“ZD Webopaedia.” ZDNet: Help & How-To. Online. Internet.
<http://www.zdwebopedia.com/>. 24 April 2001.

Designed for the tech writer who runs into a word he/she doesn’t recognize, this searchable database offers definitions for some common (and not-so-common) technical writing and computer terms.

SOME UNIVERSITY TECHNICAL / PROFESSIONAL WRITING LINKS:

These schools offer a major, minor, or concentration in professional / technical writing. Many schools offer courses or certificate programs in professional writing, but there are thousands of these links.

http://english.cmu.edu/

§ Carnegie Mellon University

Ø http://www.pittstate.edu/engl/techwriting/undergrad.html

§ Pittsburgh State University

Ø http://www.sfsu.edu/~tpw/

§ San Francisco State University

Ø http://www.umass.edu/pwtc/

§ University of Massachusetts

Ø http://www.people.memphis.edu/~english/prowrit.html

§ University of Memphis

Ø http://www.uncc.edu/engldept/techwrit.htm

§ University of North Carolina at Charlotte

JOURNALS:

CWRL: Computers, Writing, Rhetoric And Literature/Learning
This electronic journal focuses primarily on writing, rhetoric, and humanities as they relate to information technology.

H-RHETOR
H-RHETOR is an international scholarly online discussion that deals with the history of writing, communication, and rhetoric. It is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and Michigan State University.

Intercom
Intercom is the journal of the Society for Technical Communication. It focuses on tips for technical writers and is available only as a privilege of STC membership.

Technical Communicators’ Forum
This magazine promotes itself as a service offered by tech communicators to their colleagues. The magazine contains articles about technical writing and depends on its subscribers to respond to those articles in future issues of the magazine.

Technical Communication Quarterly
This journal is published by the Department of Rhetoric at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. It publishes “‘a range of writing topics, including pedagogy, rhetoric, linguistics, organizational communication, business / industrial communication, intercultural communication, text design, graphics, audience analysis, and software and hardware issues as they pertain to technical communication’” (qtd. in “Technical”).

Technostyle
Technostyle is the scholarly journal of the Canadian Association of Teachers of Technical Writing. The journal includes Canadian research in professional writing and contains articles by both Canadian and non-Canadian scholars.

This manual should serve as a valuable tool for those who need information about technical writing. This list is not exhaustive; many websites were certainly left out simply because of time and space limitations. However, we made every attempt to include the most relevant resources. This resource manual fills a void in a rapidly-expanding field and should be thoughtfully considered.

Michelle Byrd is currently a graduate student at ETSU. She plans on
graduating in December of 2001 with an M.A. in English. She completed her
undergraduate degree in English at Milligan College in 1999. Her hobbies
include reading and playing guitar.

Jessica Horn will graduate from East Tennessee State University in May 2001 with a Master of Arts degree in English. She graduated from Emory & Henry College in 1999 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. Her hobbies include reading and listening to music.

Works Cited

“CWRL: Computers, Writing, Language and Literature/Learning.” H-RHETOR Home Page. Internet. Online. <http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~rhetor/internet/ejour.html>. 24 April 2001.

“Eamonn Fitzgerald’s Technical Writing Resource.” The Technical Writing Resource Home Page. Online. Internet. <http://www.eamonn.com>. 21 April 2001.

“Guide to Grammar and Writing.” Online. Internet. <http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/index.htm>. 24 April 2001.

Hewitt, John. “Living Documentation: The Future of Technical Writing.” Writer’s Resource Center. Online. Internet. <http://www.poewar.com/articles/living_documentation.htm>. 19 April 2001.

“Home Page.” The Official TECHWR-L, the Internet forum for Technical Communicators. Online. Internet. <http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/index.php3>. 17 April 2001.

“H-RHETOR.” H-RHETOR Home Page. Online. Internet. <http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~rhetor/>. 24 April 2001.

“Intercom.” Society for Technical Communication. Online. Internet. <http://www.stc.org/intercom/intercom.html>. 24 April 2001.

“Longman English Technical Writing.” The English Pages. Online. Internet. <http://www.aw.com/ englishpages/tech.htm>. 17 April 2001.

“Main Page.” Technical Communicators’ Forum. Online. Internet. <www.tc-forum.org/main.htm>. 19 April 2001.

“Society for Technical Communication Home Page.” The Society for Technical Communication. Online. Internet. <http://www.stc.org>. 19 April 2001.

“Technical Communication Quarterly.” Written Communciation: An International Quarterly of Research, Theory, and Application. Online. Internet. <www.wisc.edu/english/compositioncommunication/ Wcwebpg/journals-teq.htm>. 19 April 2001.

“Technical Standards Inc. Home Page.” Technical Standards Inc.: Documentation Solutions. Online. Internet. <http://www.tecstandards.com/>. 24 April 2001.

“Technostyle.” Canadian Association of Teachers of Technical Writing. Online. Internet. <http://www.sfu.ca/cattw/English/>. 19 April 2001.

“TechWriters.com Home Page.” TechWriters.com: Your Tech Writing Resource. Online. Internet. <http://www.techwriters.com/index.asp>. 22 April 2001.

“Technical Writing.” Technical Writing Resources at The Mining Company. Online. Internet. <http://techwriting.miningco.com/careers/techwriting/>. 17 April 2001.

“Technical Writing.” Writers Write. Online. Internet. <http://www.writerswrite.com/>. 19 April 2001.

“Technical Writing with Gary Conroy: Your Guide to One of Over 700 Sites.” About.com: The Human Internet. Online. Internet. <http://techwriting.about.com/careers/techwriting/>. 17 April 2001.

“ZD Webopaedia.” ZDNet: Help & How-To. Online. Internet. <http://www.zdwebopedia.com/>. 24 April 2001.