Table of Contents
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
