Technical Writing For Dummies (eBook)

Sheryl Lindsell-Roberts leads business-writing seminars throughout the country and is the author of over 25 books, including 135 Tips for Writing Successful Business Documents. She has appeared on television and radio networks throughout the United States and has been featured and quoted in The New York Times.

Introduction 1

Part 1: What It Takes to Write Technical Docs 5

Chapter 1: Working as a Technical Writer 7

Chapter 2: Putting Together a Team and a Plan 25

Part 2: The Write Stuff 37

Chapter 3: Completing a Technical Writing Brief 39

Chapter 4: Crafting a Draft 51

Chapter 5: Designing Documents to Enhance the User Experience 57

Chapter 6: Honing the Tone 85

Chapter 7: Fine-Tuning toward the Ideal 97

Part 3: Frequently Written Docs 107

Chapter 8: Writing User Manuals and More 109

Chapter 9: Preparing Abstracts 127

Chapter 10: Creating Spec Sheets 133

Chapter 11: Generating Questionnaires 141

Chapter 12: Preparing for Technical Presentations 149

Chapter 13: Abridging for Executive Summaries 159

Part 4: Tech Tools 167

Chapter 14: Collaborating with Others 169

Chapter 15: Videoconferencing 183

Chapter 16: Offering eLearning 195

Chapter 17: Surfing the Net 211

Chapter 18: Protecting Intellectual Property 221

Part 5: The Part of Tens 233

Chapter 19: Ten Tips for Writing a Whitepaper 235

Chapter 20: Ten Tips for Publishing in a Technical Journal 241

Chapter 21: Ten Frustrations of Technical Writers 247

Appendix A: Punctuation Made Easy 253

Appendix B: Grammar's Not Grueling 265

Appendix C: Abbreviations and Metric Equivalents 275

Appendix D: Tech Talk: Glossary of Terms 285

Appendix E: Technical Writing Brief 289

Index 293