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Subject:Re: anyone else in the same boat? (LONG) From:Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 22 Dec 2000 10:48:05 -0800
Lydia Wong wrote:
>
> - No the engineers don't care about your style guide, but you as a writer
> should. Don't spend a lot of time on this, though. Pick one, use it, and do
> your work. If your company doesn't have one, pick one that works for you and
> move on. (Chicago Manual is a popular choice, as is the Microsoft Manual of
> Style, depending on your product and audience.) Style guides help us be
> better writers, and someday when you get another writer, you'll have your
> style decided. One less thing to worry about.
One reason not to be overly concerned with style guides is that the
standards are likely to evolve and change over your first few
projects. Like grammar, a style guide is most useful when it is more
descriptive than prescriptive.
Also, a style guide only really starts to be useful when more than
one writer is on the job. A lone writer has less immediate need for
one. However, it's a good idea to keep notes against the day when
the number of documenters makes one useful.
--
Bruce Byfield, Outlaw Communications
Contributing Editor, Maximum Linux
604.421.7189 bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com
"When Laertes heard his Dad has been stabbed in the arras,
He came racing back to Elsinore tout suite, hotfoot from Paris,
And Ophelia, with her Dad killed by the man she wished to marry,
After saying it with flowers, committed hari-kari."
- Adam McNaughton, "Our Hamlet" ("The Three Minute Hamlet")
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