A friend of mine just published this[1], which is a quick read and inexpensive (free on Kindle Unlimited apparently). I'm not sure if I'm allowed to out where he works but he's the real deal.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Technical-Writing-Introduction-Documentation-ebook/dp/B01A2QL9SS" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Technical-Writing-Introduction-...</a>
See: <a href="http://docs.writethedocs.org/book/" rel="nofollow">http://docs.writethedocs.org/book/</a><p>HN discussion from almost a year ago: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8699178" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8699178</a><p>Related: <a href="http://docs.writethedocs.org/" rel="nofollow">http://docs.writethedocs.org/</a>
This could be a contender for best, at least, the manuals referenced here are better than most: <a href="http://www.helpscribe.com/2008/12/great-examples-of-technical-writing.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.helpscribe.com/2008/12/great-examples-of-technica...</a>
Good article + links on how to write a research paper: (Write good papers - Daniel Lemire) <a href="http://lemire.me/blog/rules-to-write-a-good-research-paper/" rel="nofollow">http://lemire.me/blog/rules-to-write-a-good-research-paper/</a>
Someone else linked to Write the Docs, but that conference is awesome and full of great tech writing advice.<p>Word Up! by Marcia Riefer Johnston (<a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Write-Powerful-Sentences-Paragraphs-Everything/dp/0985820306" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.ca/Write-Powerful-Sentences-Paragraphs-Eve...</a>) is also solid for improving the quality of your writing. The book itself is a bit… precious, though.<p>How to make sense of any mess by Abby Covert is great for organizing (which is a big part of tech writing for me). Available on Amazon and now also at <a href="http://www.howtomakesenseofanymess.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.howtomakesenseofanymess.com/</a>
* Strunk and White<p>* Chicago Manual of Style<p>* NASA Technical Report Writing (Technical Memorandum 105419 (1))<p>(1) A personal favorite: <a href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19930013813.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/1993001...</a>
I once read a text by Steve Losh about how to write documentation, and I learned much from it.<p>I'm on a device with a glass interface so it's too difficult to get the link, but you can just google it.