ICS 139W • David G. Kay • UC Irvine

Supplementary References

Each of these references supplements the course material in some way. These additional materials are not required in the sense that we don't have any exams on their content nor do we use them directly for our assignments. Nonetheless, they are valuable for various reasons and we recommend that you acquire any that match your needs and interest. We haven't made them available in the UCI Bookstore; you can get the ones you want just as easily on line. If you'd like to suggest additions to this page, please feel free.

• Writing guides: See the course syllabus for pointers to a variety of writing references. there are also online resources on the UCI Writing Center site).

• Writing for Computer Science, second edition, by Justin Zobel. This guide gives mechanical advice but also addresses writing research papers and giving oral presentations.
• The MIT Guide to Science and Engineering Communication, second edition, by James Paradis and Muriel Zimmerman. This brief guide describes the various forms of scientific and technical writing, including sections on oral presentations and document design.
• Visual & Statistical Thinking: Displays of Evidence for Decision Making, by Edward R. Tufte. This reprint of Chapter 2 of Tufte's book, Visual Explanations, describes two situations where the way information was presented had life-or-death consequences.
• The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, second edition, by Edward R. Tufte. Tufte presents evidence that "PowerPoint, comparied to other common presentation tools, reduces the analytical quality of serious presentations of evidence."

• Ethics and professionalism:
  • Codes of ethics:
    • Software Engineering and general ACM
    • American Medical Association and American Bar Association

• Broader topics that relate to writing:
• Caring for Your Wrists, by TidBITS Publishing. A two-page poster with good advice on avoiding repetitive stress injuries.
  
• Typographic Design for Computerized Text, by David G. Kay. Two pages on the basic principles of typographic readability.
• Strategies for Effective Classroom Communication in English: Some good advice for developing your ability to speak in a language you didn't grow up with.