Book Review - UnTechnical Writing by Michael Bremer
Category Book Reviews
I recently finished the book UnTechnical Writing by Michael Bremer. This is a quirky book for technical writers, and focuses on how to make your technical writing "readable" by untechnical people. Bremer has done a lot of writing for software such as The Sims, so he knows his craft. He also is involved in filmmaking, so you can guess he brings a lot of creativity into his writing.
I liked this book a lot. The tone of the book is conversational, replete with interesting quotes related to the subject of writing. While the book isn't one that will "teach" you how to write, it will help hone your technical writing skills such that you can effectively communicate to a non-technical readership. All too often, technical writers write for other techies. This may be fine if that's the audience, but usually it's not.
Another feature of this book is that it will help you understand the entire process of editing and layout. At this stage of my writing career, I can put words to paper and send it off to be "edited". That part is still a mystery to me, as well as what it takes to get a clean copy into a layout ready for publishing. After reading this book, I have a better idea of what others are doing to my original submission.
Good book if you do technical writing...
I recently finished the book UnTechnical Writing by Michael Bremer. This is a quirky book for technical writers, and focuses on how to make your technical writing "readable" by untechnical people. Bremer has done a lot of writing for software such as The Sims, so he knows his craft. He also is involved in filmmaking, so you can guess he brings a lot of creativity into his writing.
I liked this book a lot. The tone of the book is conversational, replete with interesting quotes related to the subject of writing. While the book isn't one that will "teach" you how to write, it will help hone your technical writing skills such that you can effectively communicate to a non-technical readership. All too often, technical writers write for other techies. This may be fine if that's the audience, but usually it's not.
Another feature of this book is that it will help you understand the entire process of editing and layout. At this stage of my writing career, I can put words to paper and send it off to be "edited". That part is still a mystery to me, as well as what it takes to get a clean copy into a layout ready for publishing. After reading this book, I have a better idea of what others are doing to my original submission.
Good book if you do technical writing...
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