Skip to Content
Technical Writing, 2nd Edition
book

Technical Writing, 2nd Edition

by Phillip A. Laplante
July 2018
Intermediate to advanced
300 pages
7h 44m
English
CRC Press
Content preview from Technical Writing, 2nd Edition

1The Nature of Technical Writing

1.1Introduction

What is technical writing? I’m afraid that there is no universally accepted definition. Many authors discuss the difficulties in defining “technical writing” and then offer their own definition. For our purposes, it is easier to define technical writing by differentiating it from all other kinds of writing. There are two main differences between technical and nontechnical writing: precision and intent.

Precision is crucial in technical writing. When you express an idea in technical writing, it may be realized in some device or process. If the idea is wrong, the device or process will also be wrong. To quote my friend, physicist and software engineer par excellence, Dr. George Hacken, “syntax ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Technical Writing

Technical Writing

Phillip A. Laplante
Storytelling with You

Storytelling with You

Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9780429884498