Online Technical Writing Textbook: Reference Works

Note: This resource lists few hardcopy titles. Lists of those are available in Beer, McMurrey. Guide to Writing as an Engineer (Wiley, 5th ed. or later)

Big Numbers

1024    yotta   Y
1021    zetta   Z
1018    exa-    E
1015    peta-   P
1012    tera-   T
109     giga-   G
106     mega-   M
103     kilo-   k
101     hecto-  h
101     deka-   da
10−1    deci-   d
10−2    centi-  c
10−3    milli-  m
10−6    micro-  µ
10−9    nano-   n
10−12   pico-   p
10−15   femto-  f
10−18   atto-   a
10−21   zepto   z
10−24   yocto   y

Online Technology Libraries

Online Books Page. You can browse online books by subject or by Library of Congress call number.
Wikibooks —Subject: Engineering
IEEE Xplore: Browse Books
IEEE Xplore: Browse Journals
Grainger Engineering Library
LibDex. Public libraries worldwide. Browse by country.
WWW Library Directory
LibWeb Library Servers via WWW
Centers, museums, & institutes. Indiana University
National Libraries and Research Centers: The Library of Congress Catalog. Try clicking Research Guides.
The British Library
NRC-CISTI, Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information: Science and innovation

Library Cataloguing Systems

Library of Congress
Dewey Decimal System

Source Documentation, Citations

The IEEE and APA documentation styles are the most commonly used technical communication

Modified IEEE Documentation
APA Documentatuion
MLA Documentation
CSE Documentation

Note: Some technical writing courses may default to the MLA style, which is primarily for language and literature source documentation. Check with the instructor if MLA is acceptable.

Standards

Standards. IEEE
Catalog of American National Standards American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
Index of Specifications and Standards (print resource). DOD
MIL-STD-40051/1Preparation of Digital Technical Information for Interactive Electronic Technical Manuals. DOD

Patents

Patent Searching Tutorial. University of Texas, McKinney Engineering Library. Penn State University, Schreyer Business Library’s Patent Search Tutorial
Patent Searching for ME: Part 1. Brian Mathews. Georgia Tech Mechanical Engineering. YouTube, July 22, 2006
Official Gazette of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)

Online Discussion Groups

Engineers Place for News and Discussion
UrbanWorkbench
The Art of Engineering
We Know Engineers
Engineering Ethics Blog
Mechanical Engineering Blogs 2026
Engineering Blogs

I'd Rather Be Writing blog. Tom Johnson
Best Technical Writing Blogs 2026: Top Sites for Writers
TECHWR-L. Helping the world explore Content Management & Technical Communications
Technical Writing Blog. ClickHelp
Cherryleaf Blog

Technology-Related Dictionaries, Encyclopedias

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Engineering. 2nd ed., 2003
Engineering Subject Guide — Handbooks. Requires a Univ. Conn. login.
University of Vermont Libraries: Research Guides
Electrical Engineering Dictionary 2000 ed.
Dictionary of Civil Engineering. n.d.
Dictionary of Architecture & Construction. 4th ed., 2006
AI Glossary/Dictionary. MIT, 2025
Glossary of mechanical engineering Wikipedia
Automotive Engineering Terminology List. Wins award for worst web design.
Encyclopedia of software engineering. 2011

Professional Societies

American Society of Civil Engineers
American Society of Mechanical
American Academy of Environmental Engineers
American Chemical Society
Society of Automotive Engineers

Write the Docs. Best US tech comm society.
Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators. ISTC, UK
Techwriter.pl. Poland
TechCommNZ . New Zealand technical communication.
Australian Society for Technical Communication.
STC India
a href="https://www.technical-communication.org/technical-communication">tekcom–Europe. German technical communication

Cheatsheets, Quick Refs, Codes

HTML Cheat Sheet Everything HTML!
Another HTML Cheat Sheet
HTML Color Names
HTTP Status Codes
CSS Cheat Sheet
Cascading Style Sheets Cheatsheet
Tailwind Cheat Sheet

UTM codes

Python Cheat Sheet
Perl Quick Reference
JavaScript Cheat Sheet

Codes for the Representation of Names of Languages
HTML UTF-8 Characters
Unicode Characters

A-Z Databases. Austin Community College (Austin, Texas)

Periodic Table of Elements

Conversions

CloudConvert. Convert anything to anything.

Epoch & Unix timestamp conversion tool. Epoch seconds: seconds since Jan. 1 1970.
World Clock. timeanddate.com

Google Maps
Google Earth
exabrupto. Translates to many human languages.

Abbreviations, Numbers vs Words

A quick-reference guide to engineering acronyms and information. Engineering Institute of Technology (Australia)
Engineering Abbreviations and Acronyms: The Complete Reference Guide. EngineersUniverse, 2006.
Mechanical Engineering
Electrical Abbreviations List. Mech Lab
Common Abbreviation Used in Civil Engineering. Civil Enginering Portal

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