RE: Disagreeing with house styles

["McLauchlan, Kevin" <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Julie Stickler
> 
> On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 5:27 AM, Sion Lane <slane -at- ubq -dot- thrupoint -dot- net>
> wrote:
> >  howeverthis is the preferred usage according
> > to the house style guide, which specifically says 'do not use
> > voicemail/website'.
> 
> Yep, in questions of style you suck it up and follow the style guide
> since there's often not a "right" or "wrong" answer, just a choice
> made for consistency's sake.  I guarantee you, there are probably
> people in the company that would feel the same way about your chosen
> spellings.
> 
> Why yes, I have sat through department meetings where we discussed the
> minutia of style for three or four hours without reaching a consensus.
>  I've decided that there I much prefer having a editor hand down the
> style guide than argue the fine points of style, spelling,
> capitalization, and grammar with someone who is more worried about
> being "right" than being consistent across a team of writers.
> 
> Choose your battles.  This one doesn't benefit your customers, so let
> it go.

HOWEVER... maybe you could put something into the metadata of your 
documents, to the effect that "Certain choices of terminology, spelling 
and usage in this document are the result of adherence to a mandated 
style guide, and do not necessarily reflect the sensibilities 
or competence of the writer(s)."  For customers or others, it's just 
another of many, many disclaimer-things they'll ignore - probably 
won't even see, especially if you don't let it transfer from the 
source to the PDF format.

But at future employment interviews, when you hand over your samples 
for examination by a potential employer, you can point out that 
hidden disclaimer to indicate that you did indeed already know that 
certain aspects of your docs are... er... quaint, but were beyond 
your control.  It beats back-pedalling and making excuses after 
somebody calls you on the peculiarities.  And it beats being 
silently discarded as a contender, never knowing that that's 
what lost you your shot and never having a chance to reply.

As for an editor to hand down a style guide, where do I 
get me one of those? I haven't had a real editor this century. 
Not in the budget.

 - k


The information contained in this electronic mail transmission 
may be privileged and confidential, and therefore, protected 
from disclosure. If you have received this communication in 
error, please notify us immediately by replying to this 
message and deleting it from your computer without copying 
or disclosing it.


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

Create and publish documentation through multiple channels with Doc-To-Help.
Choose your authoring formats and get any output you may need. Try
Doc-To-Help, now with MS SharePoint integration, free for 30-days.
http://www.doctohelp.com

---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- 

To unsubscribe send a blank email to
techwr-l-leave -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/archive%40web.techwr-l.com


To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com

Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.techwhirl.com/email-discussion-groups/ for more resources and info.

Looking for articles on Technical Communications?  Head over to our online magazine at http://techwhirl.com

Looking for the archived Techwr-l email discussions?  Search our public email archives @ http://techwr-l.com/archives