RE: Style Guides

["Suzanne Chiles" <suzchiles -at- gmail -dot- com>]

Christina,  

It's hard to say without knowing more about your company and your duties,
but I'll throw out some general advice:

If you're documenting software that runs on Microsoft Windows systems, I'd
definitely go with the Microsoft Manual of Style for that. 

For general writing: reports, processes, general training materials and so
forth, the Chicago Manual of Style should cover anything and everything that
might come up, as well as many, many issues that the MMOS doesn't cover.
MMOS is a style guide for writing about software; it sounds like you'll be
doing other types of writing as well and CMOS is, in my opinion anyway, the
gold standard.

Good luck with your new job and congratulations on your graduation!

Suzanne

> I graduate with a BA in technical communication in two months.  I have a
job
> preparing a small finance company (around 100 employees) for their first
SAS
> 70 Audit. I found the dialogue about "log in" "log out" and "log on" "log
> off" very interesting.  Someone mentioned choosing a style guide and
> remaining consistent.  I searched for style guides, read descriptions, but
> there were so many...
> 
> I am the only writer in the company, and will probably remain the only
> writer for a while.  The departments I will be documenting are:
> programming, accounting, billing, collections, data entry, due diligence,
> cashiering, etc.  Should I combine several style guides and create my own
> guide?  Or is there one style guide that would be perfect for my position?
> 

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