Haramundanis presents her view of how to produce effective technical documentation to technical writers in the computer industry. She takes the unique, but essentially correct, position that technical writing is not scientific writing but instead is much like investigative reporting. She enlarges on this basic theme with chapters that define her subject, describe a typical career in the field, state the precepts of technical documentation, and tell how to gather and package information. The final three chapters give specific information and advice about graphics; discuss presenting information; and, finally, give a roundup of writer’s tools that have not previously been mentioned.

The last third of the book consists of appendices of up-to-date reference material, including a glossary; an excellent bibliography; lists of societies, conferences, journals, Internet resources, and standards; and descriptions of the two currently fashionable markup languages, HTML and SGML. Every chapter includes clearly marked, useful tips and ends with exercises for the student. The type is attractive and the lines are well spaced. The pages have plenty of space for marginal notes, and the book lies comfortably open on the desk. The index is splendid.

The author knows and understands both her subject and her readers and is an effective writer and teacher. She has produced a book that I can recommend unreservedly not only to technical writers of documentation but to all readers of Computing Reviews, regardless of their professions, who write anything: email, short notes, letters, reviews, theses, fiction, or historical memoirs. Whatever you write will be better if you do it the Haramundanis way.