Writing Revisable Manuals–A Guidebook for Business and Government was written to help organizations prepare high quality manuals, quickly and inexpensively. There is a saying in technical writing that "You can have it good, you can have it fast, or you can have it cheap. But you can’t have all three." The goal of this guidebook is to show you how to have all three.
Focusing on revisable manuals—the kind you can update easily—this guidebook takes you step-by-step through planning, writing, and producing manuals. If you are working on a manual for your organization, or will be in the near future, this guidebook is for you.
The guidebook covers all types of revisable manuals, including policy and procedure manuals, computer end-user manuals, training manuals, and equipment operating manuals. While the contents of these manuals are different, the process of developing them is the same. The simple step-by-step process outlined in this guidebook is the same one used today by most professional manual writers. You don’t need to be the subject matter expert to write a manual—in fact, it’s probably better if you’re not. Just follow the steps outlined here and you’ll produce an effective manual that you and your organization will be proud of.
To make your job easier, we’ve included a series of downloadable templates that you can use on your word processor to produce professional looking manuals right away.
