Re: Examples of good tech writing?

[Michele Davis <michele -at- krautgrrl -dot- com>]

Read, read, read. Not only should you have good examples, you should 
study bad ones. I have an entire folder of bad technical writing I've 
found on the web. I haven't read everyone's response but I think it 
needs to be said that some important characteristics of excellent 
technical writing include active verbs (voice) as opposed to passive 
verbs (voice). Don't say: "You can create..." That's passive, instead, 
say "You create..."

Trimming your sentences to be as concise as possible is also important. 
Ever notice how some websites yack on for two paragraphs when they could 
have said the same thing in two sentences? Consider if something is 
relevant before adding it to a manual.

Dummies books by Wiley & Sons, who bought out IDG, are good because most 
of their books have the chapters subsisting as solo entities. This means 
that you don't have references to previous chapters (I should know, I'm 
writing my third Dummies book right now) and each chapter has to exist 
on it's own written merit and procedures.

O'Reilly & Associates has a Learning Series of books that are good. Stay 
away, far away, from Visual QuickPro by Peachpit Press books, they are a 
good example of bad, bad writing and screen grabs.

Just my two cents worth.

Michele

---------------
Michele E. Davis, Writer
Kraut Companies
612-824-3516
612-309-6903 (cell)
www.krautgrrl.com
www.krautboy.com
and the uber geek empyre