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The IBM book "Developing Quality Technical Information" is the best I've read on technical writing. For writing style, pickup any novel by Hemingway and copy it
by BaronSamedi 10y ago
The IBM book "Developing Quality Technical Information" is the best I've read on technical writing. For writing style, pickup any novel by Hemingway and copy it. You can also Google "how to write like Hemingway" for some easy to follow basic rules.
IMO, however, the biggest problem with most technical writing is not its style but rather the almost complete ignorance of what it should contain and how it should be structured. Open source documentation is a case in point. Some day I will get around to writing an article about documentation anti-patterns, or perhaps a book, given the abundance of examples.
- perseusprime11 10y agoCan you recommend some hemingway books?
- mishchea 10y agoThe Sun Also Rises For Whom the Bell Tolls A Farewell to Arms
- richeyryan 10y agoI'd recommend The Sun Also Rises or The Old Man And The Sea for a first Hemingway book. They are both within novella length, so they make for easy reading. Farewell To Arms is probably my favourite, if only because of the last page. Hemingway rewrote it around 37 times because he had trouble getting the words right.