Technical Communication

by Mike Markel

The best-selling tech comm book on the market, Technical Communication offers comprehensive and accessible advice on planning, designing, and drafting documents for a broad range of situations and applications. For eight editions, it has been known for its thorough coverage, student-friendly tone, model interior design, and abundant samples of the techniques and guidelines discussed throughout the book. As always, Mike Markel keeps pace with current technologies and the realities of technical communication today.

Genres: Reference, School, Textbooks, Writing, Nonfiction, Education, Academic

736 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

I am the author of eight books in the Detectives Seagate and Miner Mystery series: Big Sick Heart, Deviations, The Broken Saint, Three-Ways, Fractures, The Reveal, Players, and Swerve. For more information, please visit my site: http://mikemarkel.com.

I'm looking forward to meeting people on Goodreads.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about as good as it gets when discussing boring-ass technical documents. The author's tone is casual, not pendantic. The real-life models throughout the text are excellent: they aren't all perfect, but that's the point. They are real and good for pointing out their strengths and weaknesses. One warning- the book is now out in a 9th edition. I found the web recourses provided by Bedford-Martin's to be incredibly useful, but they match up with the latest edition of the book.

[Travis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although this book was very boring one might wonder how interesting could a book on this subject possibly be?

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

výborně! tady je všechno a ještě hodně navíc :)
i přes extrémní rozsah a ukecanost (což u technické komunikace nesnáším) se to čte dobře. stovky dobrých rad, postupů a vše vysvětleno i s příklady.
ideální kniha, ke které se budu často vracet.
pokud bych měl vybrat jednu knihu o techcomm, tak asi tuhle - víc není potřeba.

[Ember DeBoer · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best course texts on the subject of Technical Communication I've come across. Current and full of applicable and helpful examples. My students seem to be loving it this semester. A course text that's not a waste of money? Score. :)

[Blane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful and straightforward guide and excellent examples on how to improve one's technical writing skills. Good practice exercises, too.

[Brian Garber · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read this for a required writing course that I took online. Course was dumb. Book wasn't great.

[Alexius · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring subject but author does a solid job explaining the concepts within the textbook. Unfortunately, many of the examples used in this book are outdated.

[MeiLing · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, I would say this book is useful. I had to read through this book for my professional English writing class for college, and found the information about citing sources to be helpful. However, much of the information about communicating through technology is outdated and isn't the best source for learning modern day bussiness and professional writing practices. I'm sure there are better textbooks out there, but students will find some of the information in here to be helpful.

I had access to this textbook online by renting it on Chegg.com for one full semester at an affordable price.

[Brecken · Rating 3 out of 5]

I went into my Technical Communications class already "done" with it. I had no intention nor belief that I would gain anything substantial or noteworthy from a course and it's corresponding book about "technical communications" as a student studying things far from such...but I was humbly taken by surprise. My bitter attitude soon evaporated as the world of technical communications was unraveled before me and I absorbed it like my biology teacher's definition of osmosis. It was actually...fulfilling...to draft lab reports (sigh, another addition to my large collection), memos, proposals, recommendation reports, executive summaries, and more. I found myself proud of (and very much so wanting to show off) my innumerable mass of words and graphs that I so precariously placed into crisp, clean, numbered and outlined pages. The immense level of thought, time, preparation, and execution that goes into a technical document made me appreciate and respect those writers' abilities a little bit more, as it also helped me to develop more and sharpen as a human being.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now, we didn't look at all the chapters in class, but I have found this to be really helpful!

I like how it gives you examples and explains the topics you're studying very well (sometimes too well!). I wish that some of the chapters could have been shorter, but that's merely a formality that can be ignored if you want to write better or just want a refresher.

Conclusion

If you're taking some kind of professional writing course, technical writing, or just want to learn about grammar, etc. more, then read this.

I know that I'll be using this again in the future. It's rare that a $90 textbook is worth rereading, but this one is.

[Mitchell Hahn-Branson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't read every word of this book yet, but the chapters I have read have been tremendously valuable in helping me plan a career in technical writing. Markel is easily a good enough writer to make the subject matter interesting and accessible, and his exercises at the end of each chapter genuinely reinforce comprehension of the material with challenging real-world examples. I expect to find this book useful far beyond the scope of my class work.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is really outdated and is not really practical for the modern world. I mean, some of these things are useful, because some things do not change with the passing of time. All technological reference about modern technology is outdated. Seriously outdated. Some of the things do not even make sense to me, because it went out of style years ago. The book is okay, but not okay when it comes to technology. Do not read it for that. You would be wasting your time.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Markel constructs a comprehensive and accessible introduction into the elements of technical communication. His ample use of examples provide useful models for anyone to analyze and/or mimic when constructing technical documents of his or her own. The text does not expect a linear reading. Skipping around is expected and easy. In a word: useful.

[Hannah Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used this as a textbook for an english class and it was very helpful! I am horrible when it comes to writing papers and similar documents. When I used "Technical Communication", it was one of the most helpful guides that I could use forever! Now, whenever I have an assignment that is similar to any document in this textbook, I know where to go ;)

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book used for a class I teach.

This book is O.K. There are definitely some areas that could have been better covered. I ended up supplementing information in this book with information from Kitty Locker's Business and Administrative Communication.

[Ken Ficara · Rating 2 out of 5]

http://steelbrassnwood.livejournal.co...

[Drew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Repetitive

[T · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this for a graduate class in technical writing. It was okay. More or less, it provides a good foundation for the subject. Nothing particularly memorable.