A Guide to Technical Literature Production [book review]

This paperback by Emerson Clarke is crammed with the type of really useful information often promised but rarely delivered in our literature. A "must" book for the publications manager, this, and especially for someone new at it. There are organization charts and job descriptions aplenty, and any administrator concerned with setting up a publications department will find down-to-earth suggestions on work-area layout, organization of writing and production groups, personnel training, scheduling, filing systems, and costestimating. If the publications manager is the book\´s best audience, the technical writer is its star. The author discusses methods of recruiting, interviewing, evaluating, encouraging, organizing, criticizing, and rewarding the technical writer. The book falters in the "Evaluating the Writer" chapter, which includes a suggested test of the writing skill of a prospective technical writer. There is more than enough paydirt in this handbook to please anyone in the publications business.