Description:
This hands-on guide shows you how to use levels of edit to turn dysfunctional documents into healthy documents.
Brief description: For over 25 years, Kurt Ament has optimized technical publications for leading companies in science and industry, editing and indexing documents as well as developing in-house style guides, document templates, electronic forms, master glossaries, and master indexes. He is the author of three books on technical communication.
Review Quotes:
"Dysfunctional Documents: A 12-Step Recovery Program for User Documentation is a delightful handbook that takes a practical, step-by-step approach to identifying and correcting the underlying problems in document sets.... Each stage in the recovery process is framed as an actionable step. Concepts described in each step are clearly defined and examples bring the concepts to life. Although the book outlines specific steps toward recovery, the advice is general enough that any technical publications team can apply the advice in ways that suit their documentation libraries and their dysfunctions."
--Technical Communication
"Ament leads by example by presenting his material in the clearest, most approachable manner, a step-by-step approach laid out with an organizational clarity too often lacking in technical guides, and written in crisp, illuminating prose that on every page exemplifies the results of the process. While targeted to technical writers, Ament's concise, inviting guide will prove helpful to anyone who leads an editorial team, especially in its scrupulous advice on establishing types of edits and team-specific guidelines."
--Publishers Weekly