TECHNICAL DOCUMENTATION ~ USER FRIENDLY MANUALS ~ ONLINE MANUALS ~ TECHNICAL WRITING

Technical Documentation

Internet Links for finding information about hard copy and online Documentation.

Efficacy of Documentation

Documentation is used here to mean hard copy, online documents, online help, quick start guides, and other written instructional information. The need for documentation is often an afterthought when designing products. Product development engineers are so enmeshed in creating the product that they feel its use is "intuitive" or self-evident. This assumption is usually not the case. In many respects, documentation compensates for the lack of intuition. It permits understanding the product and provides a quick source for looking up specific details that are not immediately obvious to the user.

But all documentation is not created equally. It is important to offer the information that is needed by the user rather than focusing on the product and covering each function without regard to the user. So a user-centric approach is necessary to create effective documentation. This is not much different from an Instructional Design process where the purpose is to train the user.

The importance of good documentation in all its forms should not be underestimated. Great technological innovation can be a bust in the marketplace if end-users feel it is too hard to learn, not easy to use, or too cumbersome. Good documentation can make a product easy to understand and use which results in greater user acceptance.

Our Role

Usernomics' Instructional Psychologists apply Instructional System Design (ISD) techniques to develop Documentation for hardware and software. We develop documentation for a wide range of products from high tech to consumer products to aircraft.

Internet Links

As a service to our professional community, we are pleased to bring you a great starting place for locating information about User Documentation. The following Internet Links are for topics in:

• Technical Documentation
• User Manuals
• Computer Based Manuals
• Online Help

If you like this page, please link to us.

• APA Style Formatting Guide is short guide is intended to be used as a technical reference for students at Indiana State University school of nursing.
• APA Style Resources has several links to American Psychological Association (APA) style guides and help sheets on the Internet.
• ASTD Technical Training Handbook was written by Leslie Kelly in a teaming arrangement with Digital Concepts for Business, Inc. who wrote one of the chapters for this training related publication.
• ATTW is the home page for the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing.
• The American Heritage^® Book of English Usage us a detailed look at grammar, style, diction, word formation, gender, social groups and scientific forms. This valuable reference work is ideal for students, writers, academicians and anybody concerned about proper writing style.
• American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) The AMWA Journal is the official publication of the American Medical Writers Association. Delivered quarterly to AMWA members and Journal subscribers, the AMWA Journal aims to be an authoritative, comprehensive source of information about the knowledge, skills, and opportunities in the field of biomedical communication worldwide.
• Apple Computer Style Guide for Technical Documentation.
• Apple Style Guide has a complete version in PDF format.
• The Author's Toolkit is a compilation of reference guides and resources to help authors prepare engineering reports.
• Bartlett's Famous Quotations contains over 11,000 searchable quotations.
• The Canadian Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (CATTW) had two e-lists administered by Simon Fraser University: cattw-announce and cattw-net. The CATTW e-list moved to a new home at the University of Winnipeg and is now administered there.
• The Chicago Manual of Style contains 1,000 pages of answering many detailed questions written by editors at the University of Chicago Press and adapted by Ohio State.
• Dictionary.com has an online "Ask Doctor Dictionary", Roget's Thesaurus, and links to other helpful tools.
• Edufind is a search engine for grammatical questions and has a Grammar Guru to answer specific questions.
• The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. is a book asserting that one must first know the rules to break them. This classic reference book is a must-have for any student and conscientious writer. Intended for use in which the practice of composition is combined with the study of literature, it gives in brief space the principal requirements of plain English style and concentrates attention on the rules of usage and principles of composition most commonly violated.
• FOLDOC is a free online dictionary of computer terms.
• Guidelines for Technical Writing by V.L. Young and K.J. Sampson at Ohio University has specific guidelines and links to other sources.
• IEEE Professional Communication Society is concerned with the art of clear writing and speaking. Now their interests extend to distance learning, web design and hypertext, document usability, video, team writing, visual communication, information design, communication and publication management and production, user interface design, and information dissemination, retrieval, and use.
• Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators produces several types of publication: Journal - a quarterly journal for members only, or by subscription, Newsletter - the latest news in the world of communication, available to all, Books - reference material published by the ISTC and reviews of other publications, Courses guide.- details of communication courses available in the UK.
• Journal of Biocommunication is dedicated to serving as a showcase of biocommunication techniques; describing proven and experimental procedures in medical art and illustration, print, photography, film, television, computer, multi-media systems, and other communication modalities applied in the health sciences.
• Journal of Cognitive Systems Research covers all topics in the study of cognitive processes, in both natural and artificial systems.
• Kairos is a refereed online journal exploring the intersections of rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy. Each issue presents varied perspectives on special topics such as "Critical Issues in Computers and Writing," "Technology and the Face of Language Arts in the K-12 Classroom," and "Hypertext."
• Lingo24 a translation Service that provides a free online English language paraphrasing tool "
• M.I.T.& Communication Center is a great resource for technical writers, speakers, and teachers.
• MIT Writing & Communication Center focuses on technical writing involving additional emphasis on knowing your audience as well as attention to format.
• Microsoft Research published several tips that have been gathered for making technical publications in Microsoft Word 2000. The tips are written for someone with experience using MS Word who needs a boost on the basic techniques for specific layout problems.
• Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online a free 14-day trial of the new Web site that Library Journal calls "a wonderfully usable and powerful online dictionary and reference suite . . . literally 'redefines' the notion of what a dictionary and thesaurus can be.
• NASA Langley Library and Media Services Branch Website has A Handbook for Technical Writers and Editors by Mary K. McCaskill.
• NAS Style Guide is from the Technical Publications Group, Numerical Aerospace Simulation Facility, NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California.
• The NASA Thesaurus contains the authorized subject terms by which the documents in the NASA STI Databases are indexed and retrieved.
• Newbie Tech Writer This site is a compilation of advice and resources for those who are new to technical communication and want to know what it takes to break into the field.
• OWL at The Purdue Writing Lab is primarily a tutorial center for writers who want to work one-to-one with a tutor at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. The Lab serves the entire Purdue community and offers outreach services to Internet users around the world via an Online Writing Lab (OWL).
• Online Technical Writing: Online Textbook is a compressive online textbook on technical writing.
• The Orange Journal of Technical Communication and Information Design is a graduate student journal that strives to foster critical thinking and discussion on a wide variety of topics and issues important to technical communicators.
• Plain English Network has a great set of articles on writing user-friendly documents.
• Resources For Student is a great resource for professional writers located at The University of Illinois.
• Resources for Writers and Writing Instructors by Jack Lynch, Rutgers University is a supplement to his grammar and style guide.
• Society For Technical Communication (STC) is an individual membership organization dedicated to advancing the arts and sciences of technical communication - it is the largest organization of its type in the world.
• Technical writing and research ethics from RMIT, Australia has pointers to information about research and writing, intended primarily for computer science.
• The School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences (COGS) was established in 1985 and is now a leading center for multi - disciplinary research and teaching in the fields of Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science, Linguistics, Philosophy and Psychology.
• TECHWR-L is a discussion list for technical writers.
• Technical Documents by R. A. Wirtz is an online course at Univ. Nevada Reno.
• Technical Communication Online This is the online references for the Society for Technical Communication (STC. Good references and bibliography.
• Technical Writing by Nancy Halligan is a good online course in how to write technical documents.
• Technical writing and research ethics from RMIT, Australia has pointers to information about research and writing, intended primarily for computer science.
• Thesaurus.com is a free online thesaurus.
• University of Toronto contains Writing Resources for Engineers and Technical Writers.
• The University Writing Center has a wide range of tips for technical writing, grammar, and online writing by Chad Covey at Texas Tech University.
• WelchWEB has several links to several Writing Guides Style Guides For print publications.
• Writer's Bookstore has a large list of books on writing.
• Writer's Research Center is good for finding journalism assignments for freelance writers.
• Writers' Workshop and writers strategies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has close to one hundred web sites where one can find self-help documents on the writing process.
• The Writing Center at Harvard has several handouts (many of which are online) related to general writing issues. Both these handouts and the book Writing at Harvard (left) may be of particular interest to college students.
• The XML FAQ is edited by Peter Flynn and is the list of Frequently-Asked Questions about the Extensible Markup Language. It is restricted to questions about XML.

Additional Writer Tools

• The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation This is Jane Straus' reference guide and workbook online. An excellent and easy-to-use resource.
• Good Grammar, Good Style A searchable archive of grammar and style articles and frequently asked questions.
• Grammar Now! You can enter a grammar question and they will e-mail you the answer free of charge.
• Guide to Grammar and Style An indexed list of grammar suggestions by Jack Lynch.
• The Online English Grammar A comprehensive list of English grammar resources. Well indexed and easy to use.
• Symbols.com contains more than 2,500 Western signs, arranged into 54 groups according to their graphic characteristics.
• TechEncylcopedia is a comprehensive technical dictionary containing More than 11,000 definitions of computer terms and concepts.
• U-Geek Technical Glossary is an online glossary of technical and computer terms.
• Voycabulary transforms web pages into links to Dictionary or Thesaurus lookups. It can also translate web pages into different languages.
• Whatis.com is an online dictionary of technical terms and has a list of file name extensions.

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