Mamishev A., Williams S. Technical Writing for Teams: The STREAM Tools Handbook

IEEE Press/Wiley, 2010. — 254 p. — ISBN: 978-0-470-22976-7.Business processes change continuously, becoming increasingly automated, especially in such areas as customer interaction, order handling, and marketing. Collaborative teams are now formed across continents, and everyone — from individuals to small businesses to global corporations — has to operate in this increasingly interconnected world to maintain their competitiveness. The field of research and development is no exception: the processes of producing and managing knowledge change as new information technology tools become available. One of these processes, the production of manuscripts — journal articles, conference papers, technical reports — is one of the most important activities in scientific and technical organizations and this process, too, has become highly automated.
Recognizing these changes, our goal for this book is to provide technical teams with tools that allow them to streamline their collaborative writing activities. Ultimately, this approach will not only increase the overall productivity of the group but will also enhance the quality of the output, the creativity in the organization, and the ability of team members to interact with each other.
In this book, we cover several key areas of manuscript generation: writing, editing, proofreading, formatting, and fi le management. Unlike most other writing manuals, we place specific emphasis on teams rather than on individual writers. Therefore, we address such areas as team dynamics, training, separation of duties, and workflow, while also focusing on the tools that will help team members collaborate more successfully.
One example of a team centered approach is the way we tackle writing quality. Becoming a great technical writer is a lifelong process. The rewards of writing well are great: winning large technical bidding contracts, getting your work published in highly respected journals, rapidly developing and protecting your intellectual property. With all due respect to many who have preceded us, like Strunk and White, we feel that today we have an opportunity to improve writing by focusing attention on specific areas that need improvement rather than discussing writing in general.
In short, this book presents a system that enables collaborative authors to unlock the potential of teams in creating the highest quality documents in a minimum amount of time.Quick Start Guide for STREAM Tools.
Document Design.
Using Bibliographic Databases.
Planning, Drafting, and Editing Documents.
Building High-quality Writing Teams.
Assuring Quality Writing.
Concluding Remarks.File Template for a Short Single-column Report or Paper.
File Template for a Double-Column Paper.
File Template for a Thesis, Book, or Long Report.
IEEE Template with STREAM Tools Enabled.
PowerPoint Slides for Teaching STREAM Tools Basics in 30 Minutes.
F Ten Commandments of STREAM Tools