Style Guides

[Yves Barbion]

Hi Christina

These may help:

   - The Apple Publications Style Guide:

   http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/APStyleGuide/AppleStyleGuide2006.pdf
   - The Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications:
   http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/books/6074.aspx

Indeed, pick one or two and remain consistent. Also, pick the style guide
which is the most appropriate for your audience (at least, if you know your
audience). For example, if I know that the majority of the users will be Mac
OS users, I'll give preference to the Apple Style Guide.

Of course, the Apple and Microsoft Style Guides contradict each other on
some topics. Apple says: "log on, log off: don't use; use log in and log
out". Microsoft says: "Use log on to and log off from. Do not use log in."

Good luck.


-- 
Yves Barbion
Documentation Architect
Adobe-Certified FrameMaker Instructor
Scripto
Belgium


On Sun, Mar 9, 2008 at 3:52 PM, Christina Dubach <christinadubach at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi guys,
>
> 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?
>
> Basically, I'm a newbie and need all the help I can get.  Can someone
> point
> me in the right direction?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Christina Dubach
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