Book excerpt: There are a lot of good books available to help people write better. They include dictionaries, usage guides, and various types of writers’ manuals – and professional writers ought to have many of those books on their bookshelves. But most architects and other design and construction professionals are not professional writers. Instead, they are people who spend a large part of their professional lives writing. That’s a big difference, and that’s where this book will help. The Architect’s Guide to Writing has been written not by an English major, but by Bill Schmalz, an architect who knows the kinds of documents his fellow professionals routinely have to write, and understands the kinds of technical mistakes they often make in their writing. This book is designed to meet the specific needs of design and construction professionals. It’s not going to waste their time with the things that most educated professionals know, but it will help them with the things they don’t know or are unsure of. It’s not a Chicago Manual-sized encyclopaedic reference that includes everything any writer would ever need to know, because architects don’t need to know everything. But what they do need to know – and what they use every day in their professional lives – has been assembled in this book.