cynthiapeter / technical-writing-resources

A collection of blogpost, resources, and links that has helped me in my journey as a technical writer. I still refer to them and contribute to the list as I find more.

Technical-Writing-Resources

Hi there🙌🏾

I hope you are doing well. This is a compilation of essential links I have encountered as a writer. I hope this helps you too.

Getting Started

Technical Writing Roadmap By Hackmamba X iChuloo

Blogs

• A beginners guide to get started with technical writing By Cynthia Peter.
• Technical Writing - A beginners Guide By Bekah Hawrot Weigel.
• What is Technical Writing By UX Writing Hub.
• Everything You need to Know about Technical Writing By Lynda.
• Technical Writing - The what and How By Edidiong Asikpo.
• What is Technical Writing? by Kara Latz.
• What is Technical Writing By TechnicalWriterHq
• A software developer's guide to Writing By Ankur Tyagi
• How to Create Technical Documentation with Examples By Kingson S
• Software Documentation Best Pratices With Examples By David Oragui

Courses

• Learn Tech Writing by Arnab Ghosh.
• Tech Writers Master Class By Janet Underwood.

Types of Documentation You may need to do as a Technical writer:

API Documentation

• Working with APIs By KnowlegdeOwl.
• Postman Learning center for API docs.
• Documenting APIs A guide for technical writers and engineers.
• API Docs for Devs By Shalvah.
• Getting Started in API Documentation By Robert Delwood.
• How to Read API Documentation By Richard Holmes

Learn about APIs

• Postman Academy By Postman. I highly recommend this resource. Taking all or any of the courses in this series will help you understand APIs and how to use Postman.
• An introduction to APIs by Zapier. This course breaks down APIs for beginners.

Building Documentation site

• How to create a documentation site from scratch By José A. Blanco
• How to build a docs site By Michael Currin

Doc-as-code

• Docs as Code: A Development Approach to Documentation By Ukeje Chukwuemeriwo Goodness
• What Is Docs as Code and Why Does It Matter? By Kristopher Sandoval
• Documentation as Code: why you need it and how to get started By Swimm Team

4c Documentation Model

• Documentation ystem by Divio
• How the Docs are Structured By Gatsby

Getting Started Guide

📰 Getting Started Guide retrospective: The good, the bad, the ugly – By Kate Mueller

Articles and Blogs

🪄 21 Tips to write better posts for devs.

Guides and FAQs

• ReadTheDocs - Writing Documentation Guide.

Style Guides

When deciding how to create content, it is important to pay attention to some companies that already have amazing styleguides to guide you. A list of remarkable style guides you can get inspiration from are:

• Microsoft.
• Google provides editorial guidelines for writing clear and consistent Google-related developer documentation.
• Diátaxis - A systematic framework for technical documentation authoring.
• Gitlab Style Guide.
• Alistapart Style Guide.
• Gatsby StyleGuides.
• The FreeCodeCamp Publication Style Guide.

Extra:

• How to write your style guide as a Technical Writer By Segun Olumide.

Defining Tone Of Voice

• Monzo.

• Microsoft's brand voice: Above all, simple and human.

• Atlassian Design System - Voice and design Principles.

• Shopify Voice and Tone.

Tools

Technical Writing Tools

• Learn Adobe frame maker.
• Learn Adobe frame maker.

Productivity and Content Planning

• How I use Notion for my Article and Content Ideas By Dillion Megida.
• Feedly lets you get the news you want all in one place.

Grammar

• Grammarly helps you write mistake-free in Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and any other app you use.

Plagiarism Checker

• Quetext's plagiarism checker analyzes your text to identify plagiarism, resolve other writing issues, and easily build citations.

Paraphrasing Tool

• Quillbot Helps you rewrite and enhance any sentence, paragraph, or article using state-of-the-art AI.

• Wordtune is an AI-powered writing companion that understands what you’re trying to say, and suggests ways to make your writing clearer, compelling and authentic.

Graphics

• Create cover images for your articles and blog posts using Canva.

• Make drawings, highlights, blurs, on Screenshot.

• Mermaid lets you create diagrams and visualizations using text and code.

CrossPost

→ CrossXpost

AI Tools

• Phind
• Chat GPT

Extras

→ To check trends.

→ Headline analyzer

→ Americans with disability act.

→ Writing in plain language.

→ Inclusive writing for everyone.

→ Passive voice detector.

Best Practices - Developer Experience(DX)

✨ The 7 Sins of Developer Experience By Christiano Betta. This resource gives you an insight into Developer Experience.

✨ Developer experience in terms of API design.

Community and Newsletters

• Technical Typers community.
• Reddit.
• Non Technical in Tech.
• Linkedin Technical Writing Group.

Newsletters📬✉️

• The everything technical writing newsletter By Linda Ikechukwu.

• Dentry Newsletter By William Imoh: Receive entry-level and intermediate roles in software engineering, design, and product management.

Podcasts🎙🎙

• Thenotboringtechwriter Podcast By Jacob Moses.

• Technical Marketing Handbook.

• 10 Mins Tech Comm.

• API THE DOCS podcast.

Books📘📘

• Open Technical Communication!.

• Docs for Developers; An Engineer’s Field Guide to Technical Writing.

• The Mayfield Handbook of Technical and Scientific Writing.

• Writing Handbook by Julian Shapiro.

• Technical Writing 101: A Real-World Guide to Planning and Writing Technical Content By Alan S. Pringle, Sarah S. O'keefe.

• Docs for Developers

Build your Portfolio

What a Technical Writing role entails

• Sample of Technical Writer responsibilities.

These are my recommendations for building a Portfolio

• Create your Blog and publish as you learn. The first two options don't require you to be technical to set things up;

  • Hashnode
  • Dev.to
  • Create a more personalized website using Wix, Webflow, or WordPress.

• Contribute to Open source Projects.

  • Technical Writers Guide to Contributing to Open Source By Edidiong Asikpo.

• Create Your Resume and Cover Letter

  • Cover Letter Template By Dillion Megida.
  • Careers.google - How we hire

Find Jobs

• Content Writing Jobs: Hand-picked writing opportunities to work from home, remotely, freelance, full-time, part-time, contract and internships.
• Pocket Writer Job boards List.
• Smashing Magazine.
• CSS Tricks.
• Educative.io.
• Sitepoint.
• Vonage Learn.
• Civo.
• Airbyte.
• Circleci.
• Ambassador.

More Learning Resources📘

📘 This page links to the topics that have been covered by conference talks or in the newsletter for the 'Write The Docs' community.

📘 Handling empty characters.

📘 If you are new to tech and need a basic introduction to computer science. Here are a couple of my favourite resources to get you started: Harvard CS50 course.

📘 Learn Markdown.

📀 Seeing your docs through different eyes: Mapping doc users experiences By Aaron Collier.

📀 What do you look for when hiring technical Writers By Dawn Davenport.

📀 Code Samples In Documentation By Brian Murray.

📀 Blog Promotion Checklist By Karl Hughes.

Learn Git - Version Control

📘 Learn Git in a Month of Lunches.

📘 GIT PURR! Git Commands Explained with Cats! By Tomomi Imura.

📘 A Visual Guide to Version Control By Better Explained.

SEO for Technical Writers

🖊 SEO for beginners: An Introduction to SEO Basics.

🖊 Search Engine Optimization: A Beginner's Guide from Ahrefs.

🖊 The Beginner's Guide to SEO: Rankings and traffic through search engine optimization.

Other Technical Writing Resources

🔗 Resources on Technical writing covering Transcription, Word Processing, Defi Content Writing, Ux Writing, NFT Content Writing.

Upskill

As a technical writer, you might find yourself learning on the job. Below, you'll find links to platforms that offer both free and paid courses. I encourage you to spend some time reading and upskilling. Happy learning.

🔗 Edx 🔗 Google Digital Skills

Final Notes

Hey stranger, I plan to update this as much as possible. You can contribute if you find something you learned from and think we, too, can learn from.

I am glad you have taken this path, and if you want to talk, send a DM on Twitter.

Happy Learning!!!