1. Free Alternatives to Expensive Technical Writing Software
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

... the best alternative to buying Visio. And after learning on Dia, moving to Visio shouldn't be a problem. From osalt.com Dia is designed to be much like the commercial Windows program 'Visio'. It can be ...

2. What is a Technical Writing Portfolio?
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

... engineering or architecture and less like disciplines in the arts and sciences, such as biology or literature. For simple proof just look at two of the strongest academic programs in technical writing ...

3. How to Gain Experience in Technical Writing
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

... projects are usually chock full of programmers, but thin on the writing staff. Chances are they'd welcome someone to take over their documentation tasks, from user manuals and install guides to API docs ...

4. Quickly Getting into Technical Writing
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

... We aren't talking a whole program or degree or anything, but some short, 5-week long, basic classes. For short classes like these, look at private schools that emphasize online learning. Another tip is ...

5. Using Old School Web Design
(Web Design/Web Design Tips and Articles)

... that linked to pages relevant (sometimes) to the portion of the image being linked. Elements such as these were common in the recent past, but haven’t been used (with purpose and by professional programmers) ...

6. Technical Communications and Programming: The Economic Reasons for Commenting
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

The importance of computer program maintenance can not be overstated. As the life-span of programs increases, and portions of those same programs are reused more frequently and are therefore more pervasive, ...

7. Technical Communication and Programming: Dissertation Study
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

... followed 5 programmers as they transitioned a mainframe data system into an online data management system. Attached here is my dissertation. It's a bit long--okay, really long--and a bit dry--okay, really ...

8. Technical Communication and Programming: Internal and External Documentation
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

There are some fundamental differences between a program's internal and external documentation. Internal documentation--that is, comments--should give a close explanation of specific things within the ...

9. Persuasive Writing Example
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

I need to write a persuasive letter. The letter is intended for the corporate sponsoring organizations of our technical communication program at New Mexico Tech, and its purpose will be to convince the ...

10. The Use of Programming Source-Code Comments
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

Attached to this is a rather long article drawn from my dissertation research on the use of source-code comments in programming. Why is it published here rather than elsewhere? Well, the simple answer ...

11. Technical Communication and Programming: Using Writing Rules
(Technical Communication/Technical Communication Lessons)

This article is about better commenting practices for the purpose of—perhaps—helping some to better their programming practices. But before beginning, let me qualify the entire thing by saying that I am ...