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Any other engineers trying to improve their writing skills? Any additional resources or tips to help me refine my drafting and editing process?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
thangalin 3y ago
Anything by Diana C. Reep. Technical Writing: Principles, Strategies, and Readings is particularly insightful: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0205721508 https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0205721508
spit2wind 3y ago
Strunk & White is always good to thumb through: https://archive.org/details/TheElementsOfStyle4thEdition https://archive.org/details/TheElementsOfStyle4thEdition The Wikipedia has links to other copies, like on Project Gutenberg.
MrVandemar 3y ago
Death Sentence - The Decay of Public Language, by Don Watson. Blisteringly good. Not aimed at technical writers, but encourages you to think about how to really use language effectively and robustly.
lawn 3y ago
I've been trying to improve by making a conscious effort to practice it. I've been trying to blog and even wrote a book, partly to increase my writing skills. The book that helped me the most is On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction. I also wrote a blog post about some of the lessons I learned: https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2023/11/25/writing_lessons_learned_after_writing_a_book/ https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2023/11/25/writing_lessons_...
RheingoldRiver 3y ago
Developing Quality Technical Information - https://www.amazon.com/Developing-Quality-Technical-Information-Handbook/dp/0133118975 https://www.amazon.com/Developing-Quality-Technical-Informat... My review + some notes - https://river.me/blog/book-review-quality-technical-information/ https://river.me/blog/book-review-quality-technical-informat... (it's very good)
ndand 3y ago
Google has a few courses about technical writing for engineers: https://developers.google.com/tech-writing https://developers.google.com/tech-writing
beezlebroxxxxxx 3y ago
There are innumerable sources online for improving technical writing and they all generally repeat the same conventions and "rules". I tend to warn people, though, that over fixating on technical writing will not make you a great writer but just a capable technical writer. If you're looking to improve your writing in general, then I think Joseph Williams' "Style: Towards Clarity and Grace" is the single best book on the subject written so far. Rather than simply state certain "rules", it methodically workshops examples to show how you can write and rewrite a sentence to change your meaning and emphasis at will.
richrichie 3y ago
I can’t recommend Strunk and White’s Elements of Style enough.
probably_wrong 3y ago
Not a source, but rather an exercise: give yourself a tight word count and rework your essay until it fits. When one third of your article has to go, you start looking really deep into how to extract as much value as possible out of every word.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

thangalin 3y ago

Anything by Diana C. Reep. Technical Writing: Principles, Strategies, and Readings is particularly insightful: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0205721508 https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0205721508

spit2wind 3y ago

Strunk & White is always good to thumb through: https://archive.org/details/TheElementsOfStyle4thEdition https://archive.org/details/TheElementsOfStyle4thEdition The Wikipedia has links to other copies, like on Project Gutenberg.

MrVandemar 3y ago

Death Sentence - The Decay of Public Language, by Don Watson. Blisteringly good. Not aimed at technical writers, but encourages you to think about how to really use language effectively and robustly.

lawn 3y ago

I've been trying to improve by making a conscious effort to practice it. I've been trying to blog and even wrote a book, partly to increase my writing skills. The book that helped me the most is On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction. I also wrote a blog post about some of the lessons I learned: https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2023/11/25/writing_lessons_learned_after_writing_a_book/ https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2023/11/25/writing_lessons_...

RheingoldRiver 3y ago

Developing Quality Technical Information - https://www.amazon.com/Developing-Quality-Technical-Information-Handbook/dp/0133118975 https://www.amazon.com/Developing-Quality-Technical-Informat... My review + some notes - https://river.me/blog/book-review-quality-technical-information/ https://river.me/blog/book-review-quality-technical-informat... (it's very good)

ndand 3y ago

Google has a few courses about technical writing for engineers: https://developers.google.com/tech-writing https://developers.google.com/tech-writing

beezlebroxxxxxx 3y ago

There are innumerable sources online for improving technical writing and they all generally repeat the same conventions and "rules". I tend to warn people, though, that over fixating on technical writing will not make you a great writer but just a capable technical writer. If you're looking to improve your writing in general, then I think Joseph Williams' "Style: Towards Clarity and Grace" is the single best book on the subject written so far. Rather than simply state certain "rules", it methodically workshops examples to show how you can write and rewrite a sentence to change your meaning and emphasis at will.

richrichie 3y ago

I can’t recommend Strunk and White’s Elements of Style enough.

probably_wrong 3y ago

Not a source, but rather an exercise: give yourself a tight word count and rework your essay until it fits. When one third of your article has to go, you start looking really deep into how to extract as much value as possible out of every word.