🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1564@zen.co.uk>, helen@zen.co.uk (Helen Grayson) writes:
[ what is good reading for tech writers? ]

Once again I give my highest possible recommendation to John Brogan,
_Clear Technical Writing_, McGraw-Hill, 1973. After I read Brogan and
worked through his exercises, I completely changed my writing style.
I now say things with fewer words and simpler sentences. I also find
my thoughts organizing themselves better.

I grow tired of plowing through the circumlocutions endemic to the
technical literature. I wish I had a "Brogan filter" to simplify
everything I have to read down to its essential factual content.  (I
solidly believe that such a device could add billions of dollars to
the economy annually in the form of higher professional productivity.)

For ten years I had read and mindlessly imitated the technical
literature. I could take the simplest concept and render it
inaccessible to all but the most erudite and persistent. Reading
Brogan took me about a week of evenings. I suspect I may one day look
back at that week and find it to have been pivotal in my career.

Dan Mocsny
dmocsny@uceng.uc.edu