Best Courses/Books/Resources for Technical Writers

This post has been created in order to help technical writers find useful resources for professional growth. Here you will find resources for both experienced tech writers and those who have just started their professional journey.

Top Online Technical Writing Courses

• Udemy

  At the moment, this huge learning portal offers 15 possible options for technical writers willing to improve their skills. Some courses cover specific topics, like: API technical writing, technical writing for manufacturing and aerospace industries. But, there are also several courses that promise to improve your technical writing skills in general. Judging by clients’ reactions, the following online course is great for beginners - Professional Technical Writing: Advance Your Writing Skills (note that Ugur Akinci will be your professor for the course, he is a very experienced technical writer himself).

  As for more advanced tech writers, they should check out this course - Technical Writing: Master Your Writing Career. Its creator promises to help you become more profitable and successful.

• Study.com

  This website offers a solid and thorough course in technical writing called - English 305: Advanced Technical Writing.The course itself consists of videos and their transcripts and short follow-up quizzes for each chapter. All chapters with descriptions can be found on the course page which is very convenient - you get to know what’s inside and decide right away whether you would like to enroll.

• University of Wisconsin Eau Claire

  An impressive list of online courses for technical writers is offered by the University of Wisconsin. You can earn certificates in tech writing and improve as a techcomm professional.

  The series includes such online programs as:

  • Advanced Technical Writing - a course for those who want to take on advanced tasks;

  • Technical Communication Techniques and Principles for Project Managers - pretty self-explanatory, really :)

  • Check out the full list of programs here.

• ACS Distance Education

  This education portal offers several online courses for technical writers on tech writing and editing. The courses are 100-hour long. And, they are more than just reading and writing - you will be offered to apply your researching, problem solving, and analyzing skills. The courses are based in Australia and getting them in the online format adds a little bonus - a 5% discount.

  Check out the available online courses here.

• Coursera

  This big educational website surprisingly doesn’t have much to offer at all. If you search for ‘technical writing’ there, you will find plenty of courses on writing science reports and business letters. Well, these courses might still work for improving your general writing skills, but they have nothing to do with technical writing processes.

  We decided to include Coursera in our list anyway just because you would probably go there in search of courses for tech writers as it is kind of a popular place for online education. At least, now, you know what to expect.

Top Books for Tech Writers

Another way to work on your technical writing skill set is reading the right books. Here’s the list of books on technical writing we composed for you starting from books for beginners and moving in the direction of books for pros.

• Technical Writing for Dummies by Sheryl Lindsell-Roberts.

  This book is perfect for those who are considering to become a techcomm specialist and weighing out the options at the moment. It provides readers with step-by-step guides on how to create technical documentation, user guides, make up documentation plans, and other basic things. Complete beginners (as seen from the title) might find this book extremely helpful to get the general understanding of technical writing processes.

• How To Write Usable User Documentation, 2nd Edition by Edmond H. Weiss

  This book works best for tech writers involved in the software industry. It doesn’t just explain the steps to create user manuals, it helps readers to see how to make their writing more valuable and understandable.

  A lot of examples provided by the author make this book really easy to follow. It is a good read for both beginners and pros as it can really provide some valuable insights as far as the tech writing process is concerned.

• The Handbook of Technical Writing by Gerald J. Alred

  The following book will work for any technical writer. This is a great reference book that covers a lot of topics connected with style, grammar and punctuation slanted towards the technical side of writing.

  The book has all the topics alphabetically structured for easier use. The language of this book is smart and easy at the same time. A great choice for people who like to revise things to keep their writing skills in a good shape.

• Managing Your Documentation Projects by JoAnn T. Hackos

  This is a book for experienced technical writers. As seen from the title, it teaches readers how to deal with project management. The information provided by JoAnn T. Hackos, a famous project management consultant to a lot of big corporations, will be useful specifically for team leads and project managers. The book learns how to create documentation in the most efficient manner in order to save time and money.

• Agile Documentation: A Pattern Guide to Producing Lightweight Documents for Software Projects by Andreas Rüping

  Here’s another book for advanced technical writers creating documentation for software products in the agile environment. It teaches organizing documents, adapting the documentation process to different projects’ requirements, how to understand which details are vital and what has to go. The book can help you with real advice on adjusting help authoring to the agile model of software development.

Conclusion

There are various ways of developing as a technical writer. We hope that you will find the resources we have mentioned here helpful. For additional insights on the topic, you can also check out another blog post called ‘How to Become and Further Develop as a Technical Writer’. Remember, to achieve your professional goals, you should never stop improving!

Good Luck with your technical writing!
ClickHelp Team
Author, host and deliver documentation across platforms and devices