On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 2:38 PM, Yves Dorfsman <y...@zioup.com> wrote:
> > Hi, > > I find myself doing more and more writing in my different contracts. I'm > fairly happy with the documents I produce, and so my do my customers since > they keep coming back, but I'm sure there is space for improvement. > > I've just started googling for good books on the subject, but there doesn't > seem to be any particular one that stands out. > > I wonder if you guys have a book about writing that you keep going back to, > or use as a reference. I'm looking specifically for technical writing, but > good references that are pertinent to writing in general would be good too. I don't have any particular book to recommend, but I do have one bit of advice that I've found very useful: after you've written a document (even something as sort as the email message above), go back and move the last paragraph (or section, if it's a long document) to the beginning. Most technical folks, myself included, tend to lay documents out in what seems to us to be a logical order. We start by explaining the background, then we explore the situation at hand, and then finally we build up to explaining what we've done about it, or propose to do about it, or want somebody else to do about it. Most readers, however, are interested primarily in that last part: what have you done, or what do you propose to do, or what do you want them to do? They generally trust that you have good reasons, and they'll read your document in detail if they want to explore those reasons. But what they care about first and foremost is what you're reporting, proposing, or requesting, so put that right at the very beginning. I don't mean to pick on Yves, but the message that I'm replying to is a perfect example of the tendency that I'm talking about: it was the 3rd (and final) paragraph before he got around to stating what he was looking for, after first laying out a solid background for his request. -Brent -- Brent Chapman <br...@netomata.com> Netomata, Inc. -- www.netomata.com Making networks more cost-effective, reliable, and flexible by automating network configuration >
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