Trees, maps, and theorems

What Hacker News says

1. apwheeleJan 2025
   I feel the same way, and a good follow up book about more general communication is Trees, maps and theorems by Doumont, https://andrewpwheeler.com/2016/12/05/review-of-trees-maps-a...

   That said, I think it is possible my refusal to do cheeky ppt slides with smart art and fill them with graphs of real data instead has stunted my career growth into management.

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2. apwheeleSep 2022
   Also recommend Hubbard's How to Measure Anything. Background in social science & stats, so was familiar with the decision making logic before reading, but think the book is more straight forward than any other reference. (Similar in spirit is Tetlock's Superforecasters, but I think Hubbard will be easier for most people to relate to.)

   My other mentions would be Algorithms to Live By (Christian and Griffiths), and Tufte's Visual Display of Quantitative Information (with a follow up of Doumont's Trees, Maps, and Theorems. Tufte I really enjoyed.

   Thank you for the Deming reference -- will need to put that and Performance modelling on the list!

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3. 532nmJun 2022
   A neat guide for good technical writing goes as follows:

   1. Tell the 'WHAT' (i.e what you have built/observed/intend to do/etc.)

   2. Explain the 'SO WHAT' without which the WHAT is almost meaningless (i.e. that it reduces operating costs by X/.../etc.)

   I often find myself focusing too much on the WHAT, neglecting the SO WHAT. However, the succinct phrasing helps me to also keep the SO WHAT in mind.

   (I first stumbled upon this way of phrasing things in the neat little book 'Trees, Maps and Theorems' by Doumont)

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4. vaminSep 2017
   If you want actionable, I highly recommend Jean-Luc Doumont's "Trees Maps and Theorems." It's like a way more practical, actionable version of Tufte's work. Probably my favorite book on communicating with data. He's a great speaker as well, do take the opportunity to see one of his talks if you can (I believe some are on YouTube).
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5. GarnetFlorideJan 2026
   Warning: opening a can of worms. Ann Blair is a great source on general, but there are so many facets to this topic here's a list that I have read or am going to read.

   * The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen * The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin * Too Much To Know: Managing Scholarly Information Before the Modern Age by Ann M. Blair * Communicating with Slip Boxes: An Empirical Account by Niklas Luhmann * Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design * Writing the Laboratory Notebook by Howard M Kanare * Paper Machines: About Cards & Catalogs by Markus Krajewski * A System for Writing by Bob Doto * Building a Second Brain By Tiago Forte * Index, a History of the by Dennis Duncan * Forgetting Machines: Knowledge Management Evolution in Early Modern Europe by Alberto Cevolini * The Filing Cabinet: A Vertical History of Information by Craig Robertson * How to Take Smart Notes by Sonke Ahrens * Filing and Database Systems by Jeffrey Robert Stewart, Judith A. Scharle, Judith Scharle Greene * Organizing from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern * The Library: A Fragile History by Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen * The Extended Mind by Annie Murphy Paul * Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention by Johann Hari * Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World by Irene Vallejo * Filing by Jeffrey Robert Stewart, Judith A. Scharle * How Romantics and Victorians Organized Information by Jillian M. Hess * A Writer's Notebook by W. Somerset Maugham * The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll * The Medieval Scriptorium by Sara J. Charles * Chance Particulars by Sara Mansfield Taber, Maud Taber-Thomas * The Great Mental Models Volume 1- General Thinking Concepts by Parrish, Shane; Beaubien, Rhiannon * The Product is Docs by Christopher Gales * Antinet Zettelkasten by Scott P. Scheper Articulating design decisions by Tom Greever The Card System at the Office by J Kaiser * Systematic Indexing by J Kaiser * Commonplace Books and the Teaching of Style by Lynee Lewis Gaillet * Magic and hypersystems : constructing the information-sharing library by Harold Billings. * The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on our Capacity for Processing Information by George A. Miller * The Commonplace Book by Elizabeth Smither * The Oxford Handbook of Expertise * Trees, maps, and theorems: Effective communication for rational minds by Jean-luc Doumont * Applied Secretarial Practice by Rupert P. Sorelle and John Robert Gregg * The Card Catalog by Carla Hayden * What is a Document by Michael Buckland * The Commonplace Book by Ann Blair * Make Better Documents by Anil Dash * A Core Calculus for Documents by Will Crichton and Shriram Krishnamurthi * The Craft of Research by Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams * Information by Anthony Grafton * The Card Catalog by Carla Hayden * Files: Law and Media Technology by Cornelia Vismann * Living Documentation: Continuous Knowledge by Cyrille Martraire * Living in Information by Jorge Arango * How to Write a Technical Paper: Structure and Style of the Epitome of your Research† by Georgios Varsamopoulos * Information Development: Managing Your Documentation Projects, Portfolio, and People by JoAnn T. Hackos * Information Architecture: For the Web and Beyond by Louis Rosenfeld, Peter Morville, Jorge Arango * Software Technical Writing: A Guidebook by James (jamesg.blog)

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6. matiaszNov 2014
   I'd like to see a LaTeX template in the style of Jean-luc Doumont's book, Trees, maps, and theorems (http://www.treesmapsandtheorems.com/).
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