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

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

University of Texas, McKinney Engineering Library. Patent Searching Tutorial: www.lib.utexas.edu/engin/patent-tutorial/tutorial/pattut.html Penn State University, Schreyer Business Library’s Patent Search Tutorial: www.libraries.psu.edu/instruction/business/Patents/index.html Brian Mathews. Patent Searching for ME: Part 1. Georgia Tech Mechan- ical Engineering. YouTube, July 22, 2006. www.youtube.com/watch?v= pQmuE5kzkzo Official Gazette of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) at www.uspto.gov/go/og/index.html.