Over the past year, I’ve worked on and off documentation for WordPress. I started contributing during a freeze around launch to help developers transition to the new platform. I found writing documentation is something I enjoy, plus rewarding to help and educate people. Though it’s not a primary part of my job, I’ve continued to find time here and there to keep contributing.

In this time, I’ve read various resources on technical writing and documentation. These are my notes, both to help me remember later, but also as a tool to help me think about writing now.

As used to author Heaven's Vault, 80 Days and Sorcery!: produce interactive scripts by writing in pure-text with ink markup.

The Pulitzer prizewinner shares his advice for pleasing readers, editors and yourself.

BLUF is a military communications acronym - it stands for “bottom line up front” - that’s designed to enforce speed and clarity in reports and emails.

As used to author Heaven's Vault, 80 Days and Sorcery!: produce interactive scripts by writing in pure-text with ink markup.

Da Propp a Campbell-Vogler, passando attraverso le 12 tappe, gli archetipi e i generi letterari.

Best practice and tips & tricks to write scientific papers in LaTeX, with figures generated in Python or Matlab.

Which options are preferable:

1. More coffee is always better. [XY]
2. More coffee is always better [XY].
3. More coffee is always better[XY].
4. More coffee is always better.[XY]
5. According to [XY], more coffee is always better.
6. According to XY[XY], more coffee is always better.
7. According to XY [XY], more coffee is always better.
8. According to XY, [XY] more coffee is always better.
9. According to XY,[XY] more coffee is always better.
10. According to XY, more coffee is always better [XY].
11. According to XY, more coffee is always better. [XY]

Patience and empathy are the basis of good documentation, much as they are the basis for being a decent person. Here's a how-to for creating better open source project docs, which can help your users and grow your community.