Technical Writing Manuals

Technical writing manuals are easy to find if you know where to look. The kind of manual you need might change depending on the kind of tech writing you're planning on doing, so be sure to have an idea of your writing goals before you go shelling out cash for expensive books.

Find useful tech writing manuals.

If you want to by books on technical writing, then it's a good idea to know what you're going to be writing about. In the beginning, general guides will help you to get your bearings, but it won't be long before you pick an area of expertise and need specific information geared for that particular topic.

What are some of the areas that technical writers write about? There are as many topics out there as there are technical specifications. Here is just a small portion of the many things tech writers can write about:

• Software technical support
• Computer programming documentation
• Medical equipment
• Civil engineering techniques and specifications
• Marketing collateral intended for businesses and home users
• Electrical engineering
• Website technical support
• Product manuals for home electronics
• Heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems
• Anything that works in a specific way or needs to be handled with a specific set of skills

As you can see, there are countless topics that a technical writer can specialize in. How do you learn about a specific area?

Here are a handful of technical writing manuals that you might find useful. These are beginner guides and should be right up your alley if you are just starting out:

Are you interested in technical writing?

• Technical Writing 101: A Real-World Guide to Planning and Writing Technical Documentation by Alan S. Pringle and Sarah S. O'Keefe - This book is a general overview of tech writing. The authors talk about the skill set required to be a successful tech writer, how to work with demanding deadlines and discusses the entire workflow from start to finish, including planning, writing, editing, indexing, and production.
• Technical Writing for Dummies by Sheryl Lindsell - Like most of the other For Dummies books, this is a brief overview of a technical writing as a whole. This particular manual discusses how to research your area on the Internet, how to create many different kinds of guides and how to create technical docs for both presentations and online.
• Kaplan Technical Writing: A Resource for Technical Writers at All Levels by Carrie Hannigan, Carrie Wells, Carolyn Stevenson, Tanya Peterson and Diane Martinez - Kaplan's manual for technical writers talks about the many different areas of this career path and then advances to more in-depth topics in the second part of the book. This is a great book if you are just starting out, as it will guide you through to an intermediate understanding of technical writing.
• The Elements of Technical Writing by Gary Blake and Bob Bly - This short guide outlines the very basics of technical writing for those who are unfamiliar with this profession. It outlines the major ideas behind technical writing and provides tips and examples to bolster a student's understanding of new concepts.

If you want to learn more about tech writing, the Internet has countless resources where you can learn a lot about the craft. Check out these links to continue your research.

• If you want to know how to write a great user manual, check out this handy article for some basic tips to get you started.
• This online tech writing textbook covers a more advanced view of technical writing; though if you are seriously interested in the topic, it will get you up to speed fairly quickly.

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