🔗 Technical Writing links

A simple page with useful resources for technical writers in the software industry.

🛠 Tools & Reference

Google developer documentation style guide: A complete style guide for technical writers. Highly suggested if you are a solo writer or starting a technical writing team. (Don’t reinvent the wheel.)
Merriam-Webster.com: For all your spelling needs.
The Good Docs Project: Provides best-practice templates and checklists for various types of technical documentation (READMEs, API refs, etc.).
Vale: An open-source “linter for prose.” It allows you to enforce your style guide (like Google or Microsoft) automatically within your code editor.

API the Docs: An online conference focusing exclusively on API documentation.
Write the Docs: “A global community of people who care about documentation.” They organize an annual conferences in Portland, Prague, and Sydney, and meetups across the globe. The page has some interesting resources and a wholesome Slack community.

Ask me about API docs: A unique page written by Clarence William Cromwell that has a set of guides and essays, for both developers and technical writers, about writing API documentation.
Growth.Design Case Studies: While focused on UX, these “comic book” style case studies are incredible for learning how to write concise, persuasive interface copy.
The Art of Command Line: Useful if you need to be fluent in using the command line in *NIX systems.

Books about technical writing:

Docs like Code by Anne Gentle.
Docs for Developers: by Jared Bhatti, Jen Lambourne, David Nunez, et.al.
Modern Technical Writing: An Introduction to Software Documentation by Andrew Etter.
The Product is Docs by Christopher Gales and the Splunk Documentation Team.

Note: To learn more about some of these books, you can read the Three books to boost your technical writing career post.

Books about APIs:

Web API Design Crafting Interfaces that Developers Love: By Brian Mulloy, this book with a Creative Commons license is a good read if you want to get involved in helping design and document REST APIs.

Books about UX writing:

Strategic Writing for UX: By Torrey Podmajersky, this book is a good read if you are involved with UX writing or want to learn more about the subject.

Documenting APIs: A guide for technical writers and engineers: A course by Tom Johnson, the author of the I’d Rather be Writing blog. A complete guide to learn everything you need to know about REST APIs, documenting endpoints, using the OPEN API spec, and more.
Google’s Technical writing courses: Four courses about the basics of technical writing, including writing for accessibility and writing error messages.

Every Page is Page One: A blog and book by Mark Baker that challenges traditional linear documentation and teaches how to write for the way users actually search on the web.
I’d Rather be Writing: Written by Tom Johnson, a technical writer working at Google. He has interesting post series about different topics related to technical writing.
Passo Uno: Written by Fabrizio Ferri Benedetti, a technical and UX writer that works for Splunk. His posts vary from editorial pieces to in-depth discussions about the current state of technical writing.
This is important: Written by Sarah Moir, a technical writer at Snowflake. Her unique vision of combining data analysis and technical writing, plus the way she guides you through her thinking process make this blog an interesting read.

Beyond spell checking - what else can we check automatically?: By Tony Ibbs, interesting talk about automation. It has a DocOps approach to technical writing.
How to write the perfect error message: By James Scott for Write the Docs Prague. Good for every writer.
Minimum Viable Documentation for RESTful APIs: Talk by Mike Jang for API the Docs 2020.
Treating Documentation like Code: a Practical Account: By Jodie Putrino for Write the Docs Portland 2017.