Favorite Resources for Technical Communicators
Linda Gallagher, Anne Halsey, Bettie Roney and Gail Bernstein
Consulting and Independent Contracting Special Interest Group
Society for Technical Communication Rocky Mountain Chapter
October 17, 2002
General Writing and Information Design
Alred, G. J., Brusaw, C.T., & Oliu, W. E. (2000). Handbook of technical writing (6th ed.). Boston, MA. Bedford/St. Martin’s.
Blake, G., & Bly, R. W. (1993). The elements of technical writing. New York: Macmillan. [Amazon shows 2000, 1st edition from Pearson Higher Education]
Brockman, John R., Writing Better Computer User Documentation, 1990, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., ISBN: 0-471-62260-5
Carroll, John M., The Nurnberg Funnel, 1990, MIT Press
Carroll, John M., Editor, Minimalism Beyond the Nurnberg Funnel, 1998, MIT Press, ISBN: 026203249X
Coe, Marlana, Human Factors for Technical Communicators, 1996, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., ISBN: 0-471-03530-0
Tarutz, J.A. (1992). Technical editing: The practical guide for editors and writers. Reading, MA: Perseus. [Amazon shows Hewlett-Packard Press]
General Tech Writer Resources on the Web
techwr-l – a jumping-off page for a wide variety of TW stuff
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/index.html
STC RMC Internet resources page – topics covered include general references, mailing lists and listservs, online dictionaries, clipart and images, color definitions, grammar/composition, mentoring, newsletters, HTML/XML/SGML ...
http://www.stcrmc.org/resources/resource_internet.htm
STC RMC software resources page – links to software and support resources for vendors (Adobe, Corel, eHelp, Macromedia ...)
http://www.stcrmc.org/resources/resource_software.htm
whatis.com – definitions for terminology common to the IT industry
http://whatis.techtarget.com/
webopedia.com – online dictionary for Internet and computer terminology
http://www.webopedia.com/
Search Engines
google
http://www.google.com/
Authoring Tools
ComponentOne Doc-To-Help
http://www.componentone.com/cmd.boa?product=DTH6
FrameMaker
Adobe’s site: www.adobe.com/products/framemaker/main.html
Independent FrameMaker support sites:
www.framemaker.org
microtype.com/
RoboHelp (eHelp Software)
www.helpcommunity.com
RoboHelp Tutorials and information about the online help community
www.hypertexas.com
Mailing Lists
The Help Authoring Tools Technology (HATT) mailing list
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HATT
Technical Writers Discussion List TECHWR-L
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/
WebWorks Publisher
E-mail list: www.yahoogroups.com search for wwp-user list (you must join Yahoo Groups before you can join the list)
WebWorks FAQ, Knowledge Base, and Forums: webworks.com/support/
Single Sourcing
Presentation: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wwp-users/files/
General: any of the Que Special Edition Using (name of tool) books.
Web Site Design
Nielsen, Jakob. (2000). Designing web usability: the practice of simplicity. Indianapolis, IN: New Riders.
Rosenfeld, L., & Morville, P. (1998). Information architecture for the world wide web. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly & Associates.
webmonkey – authoring, design, back-end, programming, e-biz ... also provides links to quickrefs for things like javascripting, HTML, color codes, stylesheets, browsers
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/
pageresource – web design/tutorial info site
http://www.pageresource.com/
useit.com – Jakob Nielsen’s site on usability and web design
http://www.useit.com/
webpagesthatsuck.com – learn to be good by viewing what really SUX!
http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/
HTML/CSS/JAVA
HTML tutorial http://www.cwru.edu/help/introHTML/toc.html
HTML Colors: hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/reference/color_codes/
Get Started with CSS: builder.cnet.com/webbuilding/pages/Authoring/CSS/?tag=st.cn.sr1.ssr.bu_css
Unicode charts (for character style mapping): www.unicode.org/charts/
Lie, Hakon Wium and Bos, Bert, Cascading Style Sheets: Designing for the Web, Second Edition, 1999, Pearson Education Limited, ISBN: 0-201-59625-3
JavaScript tutorial http://www.webteacher.com/javascript
Types of Help
JavaHelp
JavaHelp installation instructions: www.knopf.com/resources.html click the Installing JavaHelp link on the right side of the page
JavaHelp home page with links to sign up and search the e-mail list: java.sun.com/products/javahelp/
Lewis, Kevin, Creating Effective JavaHelp, 2000, O’Reilly & Associates, ISBN: 1-56592-719-2
Microsoft HTML Help (compiled help)
HTML Help Workshop online help
MS Web page: msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/htmlhelp/html/vsconHH1Start.asp?frame=true
Modular HTML Help: http://www.helpware.net/htmlhelp/how_to_merge.htm
Wexler, Steve, Official Microsoft HTML Help Authoring Kit, 1998, Microsoft Press, ISBN: 1-57231-603-9
Online Help Resources
Shadow Mountain Tech online help resources – links to lots of helpful information for OLH developers
http://www.smountain.com/m_linkWH.htm
Knopf Online – online help resources (HTML help, JavaHelp, WinHelp, WebHelp ...)
http://www.knopf.com/resources/help/
Internet resources for technical communicators – contains OLH resources and a lot more
http://www.soltys.ca/techcomm/online.html
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/sgml/entities.html - Character entity references in HTML 4
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-CORE-TECHS/ - Core Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
http://www.helpmaster.com/ - Helpmaster - HTMLHelp, HTML, Help
http://www.helpware.net/ - Helpware Home Page
http://www.digitdesigns.com/colrPick/framePic.htm - JavaScript Color Picker
http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm - Section 508 The Road to Accessibility
http://www.helpstuff.com/vendors.html - WinHelp-HTML Help Tool Vendor Links - JTF Associates, Inc.
http://www.workwrite.com/ww_home.htm - Work Write, Inc. User Assistance from the Desktop to the Web
Online Documentation and Help
Boggan, Scott, Farkas, David, and Welinske, Joe, Developing Online Help for Windows 95, 1999, Solutions, Inc., ISBN: 0-9670642-0-1
Hackos, JoAnn, and Stevens, Dawn, Standards for Online Communication, 1997, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN: 0471156957
Horton, William K., Designing and Writing Online Documentation, 2 edition, 1994, John Wiley & Sons; ISBN: 0471306355
Horton, William K., Illustrating Computer Documentation, 1991, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN: 0471538450
User Analysis and Usability
Cooper, Alan, The Inmates are Running the Asylum, 1999, Sams, ISBN: 0-672-31649-8.
Hackos, JoAnn, and Stevens, Dawn, User and Task Analysis for Interface Design, 1998, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN: 0471178314
Horton, William, Designing Web-Based Training, 2000, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN: 0-471-35614-X:
Nielsen, Jakob and Tahir, Marie, Homepage Usability, 2002, New Riders, ISBN 075371102-X
Norman, Donald A, The Design of Everyday Things, 1988, Doubleday, ISBN: 0-385-26774-6.
Rubin, Jeffrey, Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests, 1994, John Wiley & Sons; ISBN: 0471594032
Sachs, Tammy and McClain, Gary, Back to the User, 2002, New Riders, ISBN 07357111186
Spool, Jared, Web Site Usability: A Designer's Guide, ISBN: 1-55860-569-X
Veen, Jeffrey, The Art & Science of Web Design, 2001, New Riders, ISBN 0789723700
Computer Software Training
www.compusa.com/training local classroom and online training
www.rmmmug.com local Macromedia users group
Bardzell, J. (2003). Macromedia mx elearning: Advanced training from the source. Berkeley, CA: Macromedia Press.
Green, G., & Weinman, L. (2002). Dreamweaver 4 HOT hands-on training. Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press.
Weil, K., Green, G., & Weinman, L. (2002). Flash 5 HOT hands-on training. Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press. [Flash MX book is now available also]
www.lynda.com for latest HOT training
www.rapidintake.com for elearning developer’s series books (Dreamweaver)
Web-based Training
Horton, W. (2000). Designing web-based training: How to teach anyone anything anywhere anytime. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Lee, W. W., & Owens, D. L. (2000). Multimedia-based instructional design: Computer-based training, web-based training, distance broadcast training. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Instructional Design
Hassell-Corbiell, R. (2001). Developing training courses: A technical writer’s guide to instructional design and development. Tacoma, WA: Learning Edge.
Piskurich, G. (2000). Rapid instructional design: Learning ID fast and right. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Academic Certificate Programs and Courses
www.cudenver.edu/ilt/wle Designing & Implementing Web-based Learning Environments
www.regis.edu/regisasp?sctn=apg&p1=gp&p2=cert&p3=med&p4=et Educational Technology
Regis University course: Managing Web Technologies (a webmaster course).
Job Search Resources
STC RMC searching for a job home page
http://www.stcrmc.org/resources/resource_jobsearch.htm
STC RMC corporate jobs page
http://www.stcrmc.org/resources/resource_jobsearch_companies.htm
STC RMC national and international jobsearch URLs page
http://www.stcrmc.org/resources/resource_jobsearch_urls.htms
Reference Sites
http://www.cosy.sbg.ac.at/~lendl/tags.html - A List of HTML Tags.
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-paper.html - A4 Paper - International Standard Paper Sizes
http://builder.cnet.com/webbuilding/pages/QuickReference/HTMLReference/ - CNET - Web Building - Reference - Useful HTML Tags and Their Attributes
http://www.convert-me.com/en/ - Convert-me.Com Interactive measurements calculator, weights and measures - metric conversion
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html - Definitions of the SI units The binary prefixes
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/units.html - Essentials of the SI Base & derived units
http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/html/index.html - Index DOT Html THE Advanced HTML Reference
http://www.online-dictionary.net/ - Online Dictionary Net The Most Comprehensive Listings of English and Non-English Language, Interest and Professional Dictionary
http://crosstouch.com/techtionary/index_in.html - TECHtionary World's first animated technical dictionary
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/ - Webmonkey The Web Developer's Resource
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