Read Me First!: A Style Guide for the Computer Industry |
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Sun Technical Publications
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Pages: 384 (Paperback)
ISBN: 0131428993
Pub: Prentice Hall
Pub date: 2003-07-10
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 119342
Reader Reviews:
Excellent book for anyone writing software manuals (3/3 people found this helpful)
An excellent book that concentrates on providing useful examples of writing and style, rather than discussing in detail the management of technical writing projects.
Readers wanting ideas and examples for writing software manuals might also consider "Developing Quality Technical Information" written by Gretchen Hargis and IBM software documentation experts.
I own both books, and have found them invaluable.
Great content and FrameMaker templates as a bonus! (4/4 people found this helpful)
This book quickly won out over the MS Manual of Style as ourprimary style reference for its content, organisation and departure from the MS way of living life.
As I read the other reviews, I think many readers don't realise that this type of book is a guide, a "getting started" reference, to help your tech pubs department develop its own customised style guide. We have taken the best ideas here, the best ideas from Digital and the best ideas from MS, and have created a style manual for our particular business, geared to the educational level and computer experience of our customers. Read Me First! contributed more ideas than the other books because it has a broader world view. The MS manual assumes that the reader is planning to work at MS doing MS-distributed documents.
As a bonus, Read Me First! includes a CD-ROM with the FrameMaker templates used to construct the book. This was a great boon to our company. We were just converting from MS Weird to FrameMaker and were considering contractors to build templates for us. Instead, we saved money and time by not having to start at ground level. We were able to tweak the templates and get the results we needed in a very short time.
We are eagerly awaiting an update to this manual to see what other great ideas they've come up with since the first printing.
A good basic text for initiating a style guide (5/5 people found this helpful)
While I agree with another reviewer that this book is boring, I'm not convinced that a guideline for how to set up a style guide is supposed to be sexy, exciting reading. The book does a credible job of discussing the basics and goes into excruciating detail on the mechanics such as punctuation and capitalization. The focus on words commonly used in the computer industry differentiates it from Strunk & White and other books on grammar and elements of style. For a new tech writing department just starting out with a need for "rules" and guilelines, I recommend this book.
Excellent guidelines for indexing technical manuals. (6/7 people found this helpful)
This review will focus only on Chapter 9, Indexing. In my previous life, I was a technical writer. For the past 6 years, I have been a freelance professional indexer, dividing my time between indexing computer books and delivering indexing workshops for technical writers. I am delighted to see a book for technical writers that contains such excellent guidelines for indexing technical manuals. As the introduction to Chapter 9 alludes, indexes enhance product usability. In addition to affecting customers' perceptions of the product, indexes affect customers' perceptions of the developer's credibility. One of the biggest complaints end users of technical manuals have is the inability to find the information they need. If technical writers apply the guidelines in this Chapter, they will avoid some of the most common indexing pitfalls. Some of the best guidelines help writers develop concise, specific index entries and enhance the index by double-posting entries, using meaningful cross-references, finding the right balance (not over-indexing or under-indexing), and editing the index.
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Developing Quality Technical Information: A Handbook for Writers and Editors (IBM Press Series--Information Management)
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