Details the skills you need as a technical writer to create both printed and online content. This valuable reference describes the entire development process-planning, writing, visual design, editing, indexing, and production. You also get tips on how to write information that is more easily translated into other languages. You'll learn about the importance of following templates and about how structured authoring environments based on Extensible Markup Language (XML) streamline the content development process. This updated third edition features new information on the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) standard for structured authoring, and it explains the impact of Web 2.0 technologies-blogs, wikis, and forums-on technical communication.

Combining guidance for writing over 40 typers of professional documents with thorough coverage of grammar, usage, and style, the Handbook of Technical Writing functions as both a writer's handbook and a complete guide to technical communication. It provides quick access to hundreds of topics and scores of sample documents and visuals. [publisher's note]

The seventh edition of this classic comprehensive reference is now easier to use and more thorough than ever. With up-to-date coverage of workplace technology—from e-mail, Internet research, and writing for the Web to Web forms and page design—the Handbook of Technical Writing offers expert advice for meeting the demands of online writing. Abundant "real world" examples and sample documents throughout the text provide models for effective technical communication. The book's new "five-way access" structure—the alphabetical organization, topical key to the alphabetical entries, checklist of the writing process, comprehensive index, and new topical list of figures and model documents—provides even more ways of retrieving information, faster. This edition also includes new and revised entries on research, documenting sources, brochures, formal reports, newsletters, proposals, sales letters, presentations, and visuals. With entries that have been consolidated and streamlined, and in-depth treatment of grammar, usage, and the writing skills that both students and professionals need to master, the Handbook of Technical Writing remains both an accessible and easy-to-use guide, and the quick reference faithful users have come to appreciate.