Technical Documentation
User Manuals
Computer Based Manuals
Online Help
APA Style Formatting Guide - short guide is
intended to be used as a technical reference for students at
APA
Style Resources - links to
American Psychological Association (APA) style guides and help sheets on the
Internet.
ASTD
Technical Training Handbook - written by Leslie Kelly in a teaming
arrangement with Digital Concepts for Business, Inc.
ATTW
- Association of Teachers of Technical Writing.
The American
Heritage® Book of English Usage
- a detailed look at grammar, style, diction, word formation, gender, social
groups and scientific forms.
American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) -
official publication of the American Medical Writers Association.
Apple Computer - Style Guide for Technical
Documentation.
Apple Style Guide - complete version in PDF
format.
The
Author's Toolkit - compilation of reference guides and resources to
help authors prepare engineering reports.
Bartlett's
Famous Quotations - over 11,000 searchable quotations.
The Canadian Association of Teachers of Technical Writing
(CATTW) - had two e-lists administered by
The Chicago Manual of Style - contains 1,000
pages of answering many detailed questions written by editors at the
Dictionary.com
has an online "Ask Doctor Dictionary", Roget's
Thesaurus, - links to other helpful tools.
Edufind - search engine for grammatical
questions and has a Grammar Guru to answer questions.
The Elements of
Style - by William Strunk, Jr. is a book asserting that one must
first know the rules to break them? It gives in brief space the principal
requirements of plain English style and concentrates attention on the rules of
usage and principles of composition most commonly violated.
FOLDOC
- free online dictionary of computer terms.
Guidelines
for Technical Writing - specific guidelines and links to other
sources.
Hawley
& Associates Writing Style Guide - describes proper writing
style for documents written by Hawley & Associates. Good technical writing
is often hard to identify because it usually goes unnoticed, while bad
technical writing is easy to notice, whether it's spelling or grammatical
errors, inaccurate or confusing technical language, colloquial or offensive
language, or other problems.
IEEE Professional
Communication Society - concerned with the art of clear writing and
speaking. Their interests extend to distance learning, web design and
hypertext, document usability, video, team writing, visual communication,
information design, communication and publication management and production,
user interface design, and information dissemination, retrieval, and use.
Institute of
Scientific and Technical Communicators - produces several types of
publication:
1) Journal - a quarterly journal for members only, or by subscription.
2) Newsletter - the latest news in the world of communication, available to all.
3) Books - reference material published by the ISTC and reviews of other publications.
4) Courses
guide.- details of communication courses available in
the
Journal of
Biocommunication - dedicated to serving as
a showcase of biocommunication techniques; describing
proven and experimental procedures in medical art and illustration, print,
photography, film, television, computer, multi-media systems, and other
communication modalities applied in the health sciences.
Journal
of Cognitive Systems Research - topics in the study of cognitive processes.
Kairos - online journal exploring the
intersections of rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy.
Lingo24
- translation Service that provides a free online English language paraphrasing
tool.
M.I.T.& Communication Center - great resource for
technical writers, speakers, and teachers.
MIT Writing
& Communication Center - focuses on technical writing involving
additional emphasis on knowing your audience as well as attention to format.
Microsoft Research - tips that have been
gathered for making technical publications in Microsoft Word 2000.
NASA
Langley Library - A Handbook for Technical Writers and Editors by
Mary K. McCaskill.
NAS Style Guide -e Technical Publications
Group, Numerical Aerospace Simulation Facility,
The
NASA Thesaurus - authorized subject terms by which the documents in
the NASA STI Databases are indexed and retrieved.
Newbie Tech Writer - compilation of advice and
resources for those who are new to technical communication and want to know
what it takes to break into the field.
OWL - Purdue Writing Lab is primarily a
tutorial center for writers who want to work one-to-one with a tutor at
Online Technical Writing: Online Textbook -
compressive online textbook on technical writing.
The Orange
Journal of Technical Communication and Information Design - graduate
student journal that strives to foster critical thinking and discussion on a
wide variety of topics and issues important to technical communicators.
Plain
English Network - great set of articles on writing user-friendly
documents.
Resources
For Student - great resource for professional writers located at The
University of Illinois.
Resources for Technical Writing Students - at
Resources for Writers and Writing Instructors -
Society For Technical Communication (STC) individual
membership organization dedicated to advancing the arts and sciences of
technical communication - it is the largest organization of its type in the
world.
Technical
writing and research ethics -has
pointers to information about research and writing, intended primarily for
computer science.
The School of
Cognitive and Computing Sciences (COGS) - established in 1985. Now a
leading center for multi - disciplinary research and teaching in the fields of
Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science, Linguistics, Philosophy and
Psychology.
TECHWR-L
- discussion list for technical writers.
Technical Documents - an online course at
Univ. Nevada Reno.
Technical
Communication Online - online references for the Society for
Technical Communication. Good references and bibliography.
Technical
Writing - good online course in how to write technical documents.
Technical
writing and research ethics - pointers to information about research
and writing, intended primarily for computer science.
Thesaurus.com
- free online thesaurus.
University of Toronto - Writing Resources for
Engineers and Technical Writers.
The University
Writing Center - wide range of tips for technical writing, grammar,
and online writing.
WelchWEB - links to several Writing
Guides Style Guides For print publications.
Writer's Bookstore - list of books on writing.
Writer's
Research Center - good for finding journalism assignments for
freelance writers.
Writers'
Workshop and writers strategies - close to one hundred web sites
where one can find self-help documents on the writing process.
The
Writing Center - at Harvard has several handouts (many of which are
online) related to general writing issues.
The XML FAQ
- Frequently-Asked Questions about the Extensible Markup Language. It is
restricted to questions about XML.
Additional Writer Tools
The Blue Book of
Grammar and Punctuation - reference guide and workbook online.
Good
Grammar, Good Style - searchable archive of grammar and style
articles and FAQ.
Grammar Now!
- enter a grammar question and they will e-mail you the answer free of charge.
Guide to Grammar and Style - indexed list of
grammar suggestions by Jack Lynch.
The
Online English Grammar - comprehensive list of English grammar
resources.
Symbols.com
- more than 2,500 Western signs, arranged into 54 groups according to their
graphic characteristics.
TechEncylcopedia - comprehensive
technical dictionary containing More than 11,000 definitions of computer terms
and concepts.
U-Geek
Technical Glossary - online glossary of technical and computer
terms.
Voycabulary
transforms web pages into links to Dictionary or Thesaurus lookups. It can also
translate web pages into different languages.
Whatis.com
- online dictionary of technical terms and has a list of file name extensions.