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As a technical editor for my company, I have researched this some. I was
looking specifically for standards for writing software specifications.
I found the IEEE Standards Style Manual, which I thought would help, but
that's about how to submit standards to their organization for
incorporation. There is also the IEEE Recommended Practice for Software
Requirements Specifications (sponsored by the Software Engineering
Standards Committee of the IEEE Computer Society.)
There are a lot of "standards" out there, and it doesn't hurt to
research them all, not just IEEE. Try NISO too. But ultimately it may
rest with which standards your company wants to follow, and how
strictly.
(Disclaimer: I speak for myself only.)
Claire
>>One of them mentioned IEEE. I haven't been asked to comply with any
particular standards at this company, but their questions made me
wonder... Am I behind the times? Are there technical documentation
standards out there that are considered "industry standards" for
software *in general* that I'm just not aware of? Their questions left
me feeling a little puzzled. It would be different if the company
claimed to be ISO9000/whatever compliant, but that is not the case.
And a secondary question... Is there any significant advantage to
choosing
and following a standard such as IEEE for user documentation? Has anyone
adopted a standard like this of their own volition and had great success
with it? Or would voluntarily adopting a standard like this just add a
bunch of overhead?
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