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The Elements of Technical Writing First Edition
Purchase options and add-ons
- ISBN-100020130856
- ISBN-13978-0020130857
- EditionFirst Edition
- PublisherPearson P T R
- Publication dateDecember 19, 2000
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches
- Print length192 pages
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Product details
- Publisher : Pearson P T R; First Edition (December 19, 2000)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 192 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0020130856
- ISBN-13 : 978-0020130857
- Item Weight : 7.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,349,643 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #7,082 in Professional
- #8,302 in Foreign Language Reference
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Gary Blake was born in Manhattan, grew up in Westchester County and took several degrees at The University of Wisconsin. He earned a doctorate from the City Universoity of New York. For thirty years, Blake has written books and has been the director of The Communication Workshop, which offers writing webinars and seminars across the US. His first book, The Status Book, was published by Doubleday in 1978. Blake has co-authored ten books with Robert W. Bly, inclding the best-selling The Elements of Business Writing (Pearson Education). His new book is titled: A Freudian Slip is When You Say One Thing But Mean Your Mother: 879 Funny, Funny, Hip, and Hilarious Puns (Skyhorse Publishing).
Customer reviews
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonTop reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2009This book manages to pack a lot of material in quite a small bundle!
Chapters 1-4 outline 50 umbrella rules to good (technical and other) writing. This address issues as wide-ranging as avoiding jargon, using proper hyphenation, and formatting complex mathematical formulas within your writing. It's not just a list -- it spans 4 chapters and includes both explanation and examples! The remaining 5 chapters are dedicated to specific topics such as writing manuals and proposals.
Throughout, Blake and Bly manage to be both concise and incredibly useful. They provide examples for everything: writing numbers and symbols, revising wordy sentences, and the overuse of "-ize" (with lists of false words, though I disagree with several which have become standard in the language, business, or industry). Showing good writing vs. poor speeds effective learning!
There are 2 appendices: A) "Writing in the Systems Environment", a short 2-page guide about how systems departments work and how this affects writing, and B) "A Brief Guide to Software for Writers." I found the appendices less useful than the text.
Personally, I think "The Elements of Technical Writing" is top-notch. However, someone who needs in-depth tutoring in English grammar would not be served well by this book. Some people need a slower intoduction to everything. This book is *not* wordy, but it covers a lot of ground quickly.
This warning should not be necessary for a college class, but unfortunately, people graduate from high school unable to write as even an eighth-grader should! Professors may consider using this book as a supplement to another -- not because it's inadequate, but because too many students have such low skills. Let the slower book baby them along, and match chapters from this book as reference material.
For the rest of us, this book reminds us of grammar rules that have gotten fuzzy over time. This is staying on my shelf!
- Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2019I used this book years ago to hone my writing skills in my job. I passed it on to my daughter. I bought another copy to give to a coworker who wanted to improve his writing. It's laid out for easy reference. Best book I've had for technical writing.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2014Great book. Easy to understand and follow. It is laid out in a user friendly manner. It has become my go-to-manual for all my technical writing needs. Even though some of the content is the basics, refreshing my skills has been an easy task with this book.
- Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2005In order of size, but not importance, the four books Technical Writers need within easy rolling distance are:
1. Strunk and White's powerful Elements of Style
2. Michael Bremer's interesting and motivating Untechnical Writing - How to Write About Technical Subjects and Products So Anyone Can Understand (Untechnical Press Books for Writers Series)
3. Blake and Bly's Elements of Technical Writing (MacMillan)
4. Microsoft's Manual of Style for Technical Publications
I found a number of items are useful for SDK online Help documentation. Blake and Bly state a number of golden rules for Technical Writers, a few of which are useful:
#3) Numbers should appear in the same form they are familiar to readers
#4) Hyphenate numbers and unit of measure, such as 32-bytes
#5) Use singular when 1: .8-bit
#9) Write out approximations: half a glass of water
#11) Spell out numbers beginning a sentence
Center equations (2+2=4) on the page
#25) Hyphenate words compounded to form an adjective modifier. State-of-the-art technology, for example; the phrase state-of-the-art modifies the meaning of word, technology, following the phrase.
Hyphenate two adjacent nouns if they express a single idea: air-craft.
#29) Avoid dangling participles: verbs ending with "ing," when attached to the wrong subject.
Wrong: Turning over our papers, the exam began.
Correct: Turning over our papers, we began the exam.
Omit internal punctuation in acronyms and abbreviations: R.S.V.P
Acronyms for measurements are in lower case: cm for centimeter.
Avoid symbols for words: " for inch.
"that evaluates to" is a common enough phrase in program code documentation, but it is passive (not past tense).
Use imperative voice: begin sentence with a verb.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2015Not a great book for use as a text book, however very well written and also very good read. If you are just looking to learn and aren't looking for something to do homework with this is a great book.
- Reviewed in the United States on August 12, 2023Quality book for an affordable price
- Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2013This is a good desk reference for new technical writers.The content is also very useful to demonstrate better writing style for the benefit of insistently illiterate office colleagues. Affectation and clichés abound among the Philistines, who "utilize" "robust" "verbiage" in "key" "initiatives" in their TPS reports.
- Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2015Standard for anyone who needs to do any form of technical writing. The best thing is that you can refer to this book when people as why you wrote something a certain way. Everyone is a critic, so pointing to this book as a source of authority will help in business meetings
Top reviews from other countries
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Noch ein KundeReviewed in Germany on December 17, 2019
5.0 out of 5 stars Basics
Für den Anfänger im technical writing wohl sehr gut geeignet, jedoch wird für den Profi nicht viel Neues dabei sein...
- Francis SullivanReviewed in the United Kingdom on March 3, 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Excellent as expected
- Dinh HongReviewed in Canada on October 24, 2013
5.0 out of 5 stars Very concise and useful one
The book is concise but completely useful information about technical writing. It also generalise some mistakes as well as words recommended using in technical writing.
- multitalentReviewed in Japan on June 12, 2005
5.0 out of 5 stars Far better than some of the more expensive writing manuals.
I purchased this book because my job requires me to generate technical reports and I am glad that I bought it. Before this book, I was using a very expensive technical writing manual that was too thick to carry around with me, but The Element of Technical Writing is quite different. The book is less than 200 pages long and it is very light. Don’t underestimate this book simply because of its minuscule size. The book is far more useful than some of the other expensive manuals on the market.
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tyReviewed in Japan on August 22, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars おすすめです。
共通ルールについての本なので、日本語で書かれているテクニカルライティングのルールについての本と、当然内容に大差はありませんが、興味深い記述がたくさんあり、読んでいて楽しいです。例えば、文の先頭の数字はスペルアウトしなければならない、というのはよく知られていることだと思いますが、ではそれが何故なのか、どういう感覚からなのか、と聞かれて答えられる人は少ないのではないでしょうか。使われている英語も平易なもので、スラスラ読めるので、おすすめです。