education - What is the best way to learn technical writing?

I have a moderate level of skills in technical writing (TW) having gone through graduation in engineering. I was wondering what would be the best way to sharpen my knowledge. I am also interested in asking this especially for my juniors who have an opportunity for a fresh start.

Do we learn TW by:

1. getting a good text book and reading it? There are so many of them; which one should I choose?



2. taking a class and doing the homework?


3. reading technical articles and imbibing their style?


4. writing and referring to textbooks occasionally?

Sometimes, I find students and colleagues that do not have good technical writing skills i.e. they lack conciseness, clarity and completeness. I also do not adhere to this sometimes. So how do you improve your technical writing skills when you have already learned the "wrong" way. I want to let my students focus on that and at the same time help my colleagues. You may suggest me a book or some specific guidelines.

Answer

Personally, I'm heavily in favor of #3 as a way of learning anything and everything to do with writing. I too spent several years studying engineering and have done my fair share of technical writing. If you're not a horrific writer to begin with, I feel you should have no trouble picking up the style and voice of technical writing by reading it.

However, I should note there is a little more to it than that-- you can imbibe the style just by reading it a lot; it'll get in your head. But the content you can't get subconsciously, not as easily anyway. You need to actively think about what you're reading. Why were the report's components placed in the order that they were? What did the author treat in depth and what did they gloss over? How did they start, and how did they conclude?

Once you know the voice of technical writing, understanding questions such as these will tell you what to say with it.