• Specificity, specificity, specificity (query critique)

    Updated: 2023-11-30 20:00:00
    If you’d like to nominate your own page or query for a public critique, kindly post them here in the discussion forums: Also, if you’d like to test your editing chops, keep your eye on this area or this area! I’ll post the pages and queries a few days before a critique so you can see how your […]

  • Will you ever buy mostly e-books? (17th annual poll)

    Updated: 2023-11-27 20:00:00
    I first launched this poll in 2007, when Amazon’s first Kindle had just been released and iPads didn’t even exist yet. Now we have gadgets and gizmos aplenty, though paper has held on strong. It’s been interesting through the years to get the pulse of e-book optimism and pessimism. My usual caveats to pre-empt the […]

  • Why I decided to reread Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZAMM series)

    Updated: 2023-11-26 08:00:00
    I recently decided to reread a classic in the tech comm field: Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, nearly 50 years after it was first published. I wondered if Pirsig had more insights about technical writing than I initially understood when I first read the book long ago. In this introduction to an upcoming series, I list a few parallels and questions I'm hoping to answer.

  • Podcast: Tech writing and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, with Dan Grabski (ZAMM series)

    Updated: 2023-11-18 08:00:00
    : , : , Blog Podcast API doc course Course home Chapter 1 : Introduction to REST APIs Chapter 2 : Using an API like a developer Chapter 3 : Documenting API endpoints Chapter 4 : OpenAPI spec and generated reference docs Chapter 5 : Step-by-step OpenAPI code tutorial Chapter 6 : Testing API docs Chapter 7 : Conceptual topics in API docs Chapter 8 : Code tutorials Chapter 9 : The writing process Chapter 10 : Publishing API docs Chapter 11 : Publishing tools and workflows Chapter 12 : Thriving in the API doc space Chapter 13 : Native library APIs Chapter 14 : Processes and methodology Chapter 15 : Metrics and measurement Chapter 16 : AI tools and API documentation Chapter 17 : Glossary Chapter 18 : Additional resources Downloads Download PDFs Shop About About me Contact Presentations

  • Upcoming webinar: Experiments and use cases for AI from a tech writer’s perspective

    Updated: 2023-11-18 08:00:00
    I'm giving a webinar titled 'Experiments and use cases for AI from a tech writer’s perspective' on December 8, 2023. The webinar is sponsored by the STC Washington, DC - Baltimore Chapter. In this presentation, I’ll share some personal experiences in using AI for different writing-related use cases, explaining what I’ve found helpful. These use cases and takeaways are all experiential, based on my experiments with using AI both in the workplace for documentation-related scenarios and writing on my blog.

  • The award for drama goes to the National Book Awards (This week in books)

    Updated: 2023-11-17 20:00:00
    This week! Books! The blog will be dark next week as I celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, and I hope all who are celebrating have a happy and healthy (well… sort of healthy) time. If all goes to plan I’ll be back the week of November 27. Where to start with the National Book Awards? Well. […]

  • Be judicious with gestures (page critique)

    Updated: 2023-11-13 21:18:04
    If you’d like to nominate your own page or query for a public critique, kindly post them here in our discussion forums: Also: I’M LOW ON QUERIES TO EDIT. If you post your query in the query critique forum, there’s a good chance I’ll edit it in the coming weeks. If you’d like to test your editing chops, […]

  • Writing will be there when you need it

    Updated: 2023-11-13 20:00:00
    At some point in your journey, you’re probably going to need to take a break from writing. You might even want to take a break from it. And virtually everyone I know who takes a step back from writing feels a whole lot of guilt. There’s an immense sunk cost to building a writing career, […]

  • You've heard of 'Docs as code' -- Now get ready for 'Code as docs': Q&A with Speakeasy

    Updated: 2023-11-09 08:00:00
    Speakeasy is a platform aimed at simplifying the creation and consumption of APIs. Its primary product is the creation of SDKs (client libraries), but its new offering (and most relevant to technical writers) is the 'Code as Docs' product. Their Code as Docs product embeds SDKs into the traditional API reference, providing users with code snippets in 8+ languages and bridging the gap between documentation and real-world applications. This post is a Q&A with Sagar Batchu, CEO and co-founder of Speakeasy.

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