Technical and Scientific Writing

Resources
- Online
Books

Why document?
Audience
Goals
Types of documents; readmes, tutorials, guides, manuals, walkthroughs, checklists, api docs, code comments
What to document

Resources

Online

Google Technical Writing Course

General Writing

plainlanguage.gov
Tips for making writing more fun
Riding the Writing Wave
Write Well
2006/09 How to Write Articles and Essays Quickly and Expertly
2008/08 Vonnegut: How To Write With Style – Novelr
2010/06 How to Write a Book
2010/12 Writers StackExchange: The "Rules" of Writing
2015/01 I’ve Written 100 Posts on Medium, Here’s What I’ve Learned
2019/02 Notes from Malcolm Gladwell's writing Masterclass – Part 1
2019/02 Notes from Malcolm Gladwell's writing Masterclass – Part 2
2019/02 Notes from Malcolm Gladwell's writing Masterclass – Part 3
2019/02 Notes from Malcolm Gladwell's writing Masterclass – Part 4
2020/03 Mise en Place Writing
2020/10 Why You Should Write
2020/11 The Purpose of Writing and the lost art of thinking
2021/04 In praise of writing
2021/04 Writing tools I learned from The Economist
2021/06 I wish I could write this well
2022/02 So you're thinking about writing on the internet
2022/07 Writing: The Most Misunderstood Activity

Technical Writing

Some thoughts on writing
Google Technical Writing Courses
2014/06 Resources For Writing About Programming
2014/08 How to Write a Git Commit Message
2019/04 How Does Writing Get Easier?
2019/12 On Technical Writing
2020/01 Notes on Technical Writing HN
2020/04 A Hierarchy of Documentation
2020/05 Encouraging a Culture of Written Communication
2020/11 How do you write simple explanations without sounding condescending?
2021/07 Write good examples by starting with real code
2021/09 How to write about web performance
2021/09 Writing, Technically

Technical Writing / Environment

proselint A linter for prose.
artifact the design documentation tool for everybody
2012/03 Tex Stackexchange How to write a book in LaTeX
2018/09 The Tools I Use To Write Books
2020/04 Writing a Book with Pandoc, Make, and Vim

Technical Writing / Documentation

writethedocs.org
2009/11 The 7 Rules for Writing World Class Technical Documentation - Developer.com
2013/04 ferd.ca -> Don't be a Jerk: Write Documentation
2016/11 Ask HN: Do you still use UML?
2017/02 Lessons Learned from Not Documenting
2017/03 The importance of documenting things
2017/04 Add documentation where you looked for it
2017/05 documentation is thoroughly hard
2017/08 The documentation system
2018/12 The art of writing software documentation (Updated 2019)
2019/06 Building a documentation website
2019/08 Documentation - your secret weapon
2019/08 Documenting Software Architecture
2020/01 Writing Runbook Documentation When You’re An SRE
2020/02 Socratic vs. Euclidean Forms of API Documentation
2020/06 Q&A: How We Document Software Projects
2021/04 The case for Continuous Documentation
2021/09 Explaining explaining: a quick guide on explanatory writing
2021/09 Writing class documentation
2021/11 The Renaissance of Code Documentation: Introducing Code Walkthrough
2022/03 Why Hugo's Documentation Sucks HN
2022/04 The Esotech Lit Gap
2022/06 Why you should document your self-documenting code
2022/06 Write documentation first. Then build

Technical Writing / Articles

2018/05 Writing Technical Articles
2019/02 How to Write Technical Posts (so people will read them)

Technical Writing / Books

2019/02 Why You Should Write A Book
2020/05 How to write a programming book
2020/11 Writing a technical book: from idea to print
2021/01 How to Write a Technical Book
2021/10 So You Want to Write a Technical Book
2021/04 Writing a Technical Book
2021/04 Writing a Programming Book in 2021
2021/06 How To Write a Programming Book
2021/12 How to Write a Technical Book

Technical Writing / Specifications

Scientific Writing

Advice On writing Papers
2014/07 Thesis Writing Basics: Choosing an Undergraduate Thesis Topic
2015/04 A Guide to Thesis-Writing and a Guide to Life
2018/01 What I’ve Learnt So Far About Writing Research Papers
2020/01 Tell it like it is
2020/06 Conquering the Master’s Thesis: A Guide That Works

Books

General Writing

On Writing Well

Technical Writing

Technical Writing for Dummies

Technical writing 101

1 So, what's a technical writer?
2 The technical writing process
3 Very necessary evils: doc plans and outlines
4 The tech writer's toolbox
5 Getting information
6 Finally: it's time to start writing
7 Writing task-oriented information
8 Visual communication
9 The importance of being edited
10 Indexing
11 Final preparation: production editing
12 Avoiding international irritation
13 Structured authoring with XML
14 Web 2.0 and technical communication
Appendix A: getting your first job as a technical writer
Appendix B: Resources
Appendix C: sample doc plan

Technical writing for success

1 What is technical writing?
2 Audience and purpose
3 Technical research
4 Writing process
5 Brief correspondence
6 Document design and graphics
7 Writing for the web
8 Informative reports
9 Investigative reports
10 Instructions
11 Employment communication
12 Presentations
13 Recommnedation reports
14 Proposal
15 Ethics in the workplace
16 Technical reading

The Engineer's guide to technical writing

1 What is technical writing
2 Reasons for writing
3 Performing technical studies
4 Writing strategies
5 Document options
6 Criteria for good technical writing
7 Writing style
8 Using illustration
9 Formal reports: the outline and introduction
10 Formal reports: writing the body
11 Formal reports: closure
12 Informal reports
13 Review and editing
14 Oral presentations
15 Getting it done

User's Guides, Manuals, and Technical Writing

Part I Structure and Content of a Manual
- 1 Title, table of contents, about, introduction, product overview
- 2 Key features
- 3 Installation, getting started
- 4 Using your ..., instructions, procedures
- 5 Troubleshooting
- 6 Warning and recommendations
- 7 Updates, warranty, contact details
Part II Writing clearly, concisely and unambiguosly
- 8 Writing from a reader perspective
- 9 Avoiding redundancy and long sentences
- 10 Word order
- 11 Terminology
- 12 Avoiding ambiguity
- 13 Automatic translation
Part III Layout and order of information
- 14 Layout
- 15 Heading
- 16 Punctuation
- 17 Capitalization
- 18 Abbreviations and acronyms
- 19 Bullets
- 20 Figures
- 21 Dates and numbers
- 22 Giving examples
- 23 Referencing
- 24 Spelling
Part IV Typical mistakes
- 25 Comparisons
- 26 Deginite article, indefinite article, one
- 27 Genitive
- 28 Infinitive vs gerund
- 29 Negations
- 30 Passive vs active
- 31 Pronouns
- 32 Vocabulary

Technical Communication Today

Part I Elements of Technical Communication
- 1 Communicating in the technical workplace
- 2 Communicating in a reader-focused way
- 3 Working in teams
- 4 Managing ethical challenges
Part II Genres of Technical Communication
- 5 Letters, memos, and email
- 6 Technical descriptions and specifications
- 7 Instructions and documentation
- 8 Proposals
- 9 Activity reports
- 10 Analytical reports
- 11 Starting your carreer
Part III Planning and Doing Research
- 12 Strategic planning, being creative
- 13 Persuading others
- 14 Researching in technical workplaces
Part IV Drafting, Desiging, and Revising
- 15 Organizing and drafting
- 16 Using plain and persuasive style
- 17 Designing documents and interfaces
- 18 Creating and using graphics
- 19 Revising and editing for usability
Part V Connecting with Clients
- 20 Preparing and giving presentations
- 21 Writing for the web
Appendix A Grammar and punctuation guide
Appendix B English as a second language guide
Appendix C Documentation guide

Handbook for technical writing

1 The style of technical writing
2 The process of technical writing
3 The elements of technical writing
4 Forms of technical writing I: memoir reports and formal reports
5 Forms of technical writing II: proposals, manuals, and journal articles
6 Appendix: The mechanics of technical writing

Handbook of technical writing

Preface
Five Steps to Succesful Writing
Checklist of the Writing Process
Alphabetical Entries
Index
Commonly Misused Words and Phrases

Scientific Writing

Coursera: Writing in the Sciences

Persist and Publish

1 I wanted to be a teacher, not a writer
2 Publish or perish is the name of the game
3 The basics of getting started
4 Writing can be fun, but seldom is it easy
5 In the beginning there was the local copy
6 Creating foothills from mole hills: writing journal articles
7 Expanding the horizons: monographs and technical reports
8 Scaling the summits: your first book
9 Seeking new challenges in the publishing game
10 What happens when the stargazers see you

Effective writing. Improving scientific, technical and business communication

1 Writing is communicating. Revising basic assumptions.
2 Writing about aim and audience.
3 Starting to write. A practical approach.
4 Organization and layout of information.
5 The use of headings and numbering.
6 Algorithms for complex possibilities and procedures.
7 Style for readability.
8 Writing with a computer.
9 Informative summaries.
10 Choosing and using tables, illustrations and graphics presentation techniques.
11 Writing instructions.
12 Writing descriptions and explanations.
13 Writing letters and memoranda.
14 Writing minutes and reports of proceedings.
15 Writing in examinations.

English for writing research papers

Part I Writing skills
- 1 Planning and perception
- 2 Structuring a sentence: word order
- 3 Structuring paragraphs
- 4 Breaking up long sentences
- 5 Being concise and removing redundancy
- 6 Avoiding ambiguity, repetition and vague language
- 7 Clarifying who did what
- 8 Highlighting your findings
- 9 Discussing your limitations
- 10 Hedging and criticizing
- 11 Plagiarism and paraphrasing
Part II Sections of a paper
- 12 Titles
- 13 Abstracts
- 14 Introductions
- 15 Review of the literature
- 16 Methods
- 17 Results
- 18 Discussion
- 19 Conclusions
- 20 The final check

Academic Writing. An Introduction

1 Introducing genre
2 Readers reading I
3 Citation and summary
4 Summary
5 Challenging situations for summarizers
6 Orchestrating voices
7 Definition
8 Readers reading II
9 Scholarly styles I
10 Scholarly styles II
11 Making and maintaining knowledge I
12 Making and maintaining knowledge II
13 Introductions
14 Conclusions and the moral compass of the disciplines

Science and technical writing. A manual of style

1 Audience analysis and document planning
2 Writing for non-native audiences
3 Grammar, usage and revising for publication
4 Puncuating and scientific and technical prose
5 Using acceptable spelling
6 Incorporating specialized terminology
7 Using numbers and symbols
8 Using quotations, citations and references
9 Creating indexes
10 Creating nontextual information
11 Creating usable data displays
12 Designing useful documents

Scientific writing. Easy when you know how

1 Scientific writing
2 Getting started
3 Writing your paper
4 Finishing your paper
5 Review and editorial process
6 Publishing
7 Other types of documents
8 Writing style

Writing Science: How to Write Papers That Get Cited and Proposals That Get Funded

Amazon

A guide to writing mathematics