Resources of Lone Writers

Lone writers are those who often work in a void. With no other technical writers within the same company to assist them, these writers are often the company's chief English speaker. Lone writers are responsible for creating and/or maintaining the quality of the documentation, sometimes against all odds and unreasonable deadlines. Sometimes the lone writer is a freelancer, brought in to write all the company's documents (and often finding themselves doing other odd English-related tasks as well). And sometimes, the lone writer is an employee of a small company, given the task of working with the developers, advising the marketing department on all things English. In both cases, the lone writer must decide many issues on his or her own: what font to use, which documents to produce, what formats to release. Are the deadlines reasonable? What is the priority? Sometimes, it's a matter of English - should we hyphenate, capitalize, bullet, separate. How do we document this new module, etc.

Below is a list of resources that help lone writers stay in touch:

email lists:
  • Techshoret: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/techshoret/
  • HATT: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HATT/
  • Techwr-L: http://www.techwr-l.com/
  • See HAT Links and Vendors for additional links
Valuable websites:

http://www.acronymfinder.com/
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/t.html
http://www.annoyances.org/
http://bs-glossary.standardsdirect.org/BS-Sheet124_list_37.html
http://desktoppub.about.com/
http://www.dictionary.com
http://www.download.com/2001-20-0.html
http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/trade/eicb/military/gr1-2-en.asp
http://www.digitaldutch.com/unitconverter/http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/
http://www.helpstuff.com
http://www.knopf.com
http://www.m-w.com/home.htm
http://www.nightflight.com/foldoc/contents.html
http://planet.nana.co.il/mannelie/calculator/calcompute.htm
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/units.html
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/accents/codealt.html
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/magazine/technical/screencapgraphicshomepage.html
http://www.webopedia.com/