Textbooks to Train Your Staff

Someone on the STC Management List asked about the best book to train new technical writers. I had some thoughts and posted them there, but thought I should also share them here.

Managers need to prepare workers through several stages of development as technical writers. Each one demands different books.

Preparation: Before workers are really ready to write an entire manual, they need to master the basic "components" of this writing and hone their professional writing style (which drastically differs from the academic and business-ese most are used to) to present information people will use.

So workers first need to learn how to write the "building blocks" of larger works, such as definitions, procedures, and procedures. Two types of books are useful at this phase:

• Books that explain how to write these building blocks. Any of the "big" textbooks on the field, such as Lay (Schuster) et al, Pfeiffer, Anderson, or Markel.

These are generalist books, but I've tried throwing new writers right into an entire manual and found that their lack of grasp of basics gets in the way of their handling more complex task.

• At least one grammar book. Strunk & White's Elements of Style continues to be a best-seller for a reason.

Initiation: after you're convinced they have the basics down, prepare workers to write a complete manual, help system or similar full-size project. At that point, you probably want two types of books:

• A primer on writing documentation. Price's 1985 book on writing a computer manual is probably THE classic. For the online era, his 2002 book with his wife Lisa is equally superb.
• A primer on the "work" of technical communication, such as Techniques for Technical Communicators (disclaimer--I co-edited it; I also recognize that it's old, but a lot of people have trained with it)

Expansion: To introduce more complex assignments and broaden their skills, such as writing in particular genres, and mastering particular parts of the process, such as visual communication, you'll need a different set of books.

• About genres--for writing instructional materials, Training Design Basics (disclosure--this is my book) or one of Bill Horton's books on writing instructions, or Jane Bozarth's More than Bullet Points
• 
  For particular aspects of communication--Slide-Ology (for writing Powerpoint slides), Bill Horton's book on illustrating computer documentation or Robin Williams' book on design for nondesigners, one of the many usability texts out there (Carol Barnum just published a new edition of her book--my students who have self-taught themselves usability found it very helpful), Ann Rockley's primer on content management, and Joann Hackos' books on management (I still prefer her 1994 edition, but the 2007 edition is more current)

This is just a starter list. Comments about other books would be welcome. I'll update the post with the feedback I receive.