Style Guides and Style Manuals

Subject: Style Guides and Style Manuals
From: "Anu Biswas" <anu -dot- biswas -at- macro-soft -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 12:28:33 +0400


Hi all

Am back on the list after a long break and it seems a bit intimidating
to firstly get a grip on the action in the tech writing community and
second, to post mails without sounding completely rusty. Yet I am
determined to start again!


In the last digest I received, Kirk Turner wrote -


I am in the process of editing a very long and
complex manual. Does this sound right?
...
I hate to question the venerable Chicago
Manual of Style, but this looks odd. Is there a more authoritative
source
for technical manuals? Have I interpreted the Chicago heading
hierarchy correctly? Maybe it is just fear of failure clouding my
vision.
Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.


Creating style guides is usually a mix of borrowed guidelines, styles
unique to your company, plus a chunk from users (sometimes). Recently I
created a template for a big Middle Eastern airline and found that a
couple of meetings with their corporate communication team was well
worth it and pretty mandatory. The company had strict guidelines on
fonts, colors, and images. While this may not always be the case, it is
prudent to get inputs from external communication teams. A sample of the
final product for all sections, reviewed by technical, business,
functional teams can help refine and fine tune the document/style guide.
Though the writing team eventually owns the style guide, I found that
what seemed perfectly logical, and aesthetic to me received some
excellent feedback when I circulated it to relevant groups.


Again, online manuals have so many useful features to explore that
heading hierarchy problems can be solved in many ways. Popups, secondary
windows, See also etc etc. Classifying information as Procedural,
Conceptual, and Reference may help identify where and how it can be
displayed and consequently eliminate/reduce the old approach of
differentiating information chunks via headings.


While browsing, I found an interesting site:
http://www.asu.edu/lib/noble/library/style.htm with links to APA style
guides, general style manuals and lots more.

Anu Biswas


PS: Is there a difference between a style guide and a style manual? Or
is it irrelevant?





^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Try WebWorks ePublisher Pro for Word today! Smooth migration of legacy
RoboHelp content into your new Help systems. EContent Magazine Decision-
maker review (October 2005) is here: http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l

Doc-To-Help 2005 converts RoboHelp files with one click. Author with Word or any HTML editor. Visit our site to see a conversion demo movie and learn more. http://www.componentone.com/TECHWRL/DocToHelp2005

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archiver -at- techwr-l -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Send administrative questions to lisa -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.



Previous by Author: RE: what do you call your department?
Next by Author: Re: David Pogue's column - New York Time
Previous by Thread: Re: Opening CHM files from withing a CHM - on a CD - looking for work around
Next by Thread: Kadov tag?


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads