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In my previous company, our marketing people issued a similar edict, and
they didn't even want to let you have an initial cap at the beginning of
section titles because they expected everyone to use a special font
instead.
I got entirely frustrated with the edict when writing training
materials, because most of us outside the Marketing department didn't
have the special font, and my draft training books looked illegible and
dorky. My solution was to follow their style edicts to the letter for
one of my smaller books, then take it to the VP and ask her to glance at
it for "look and feel." She found the weird titling and book references
so distracting that she asked me why I'd done them that way. I showed
her the memo, and she said, "Oh, that was only supposed to be for
MARKETING materials." I tactfully didn't mention that the memo had said
"all materials distributed to the public, news organizations, or
customers," and that it had specifically been sent to everyone remotely
connected with producing documentation or training. Instead, I got her
to agree to let me work with her staff on visual style guidelines, then
write a memo for her signature clarifying the edict.
It may not work in your case, but it's worth a try.
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+ Carol Van Natta +
+ Senior Technical Writer +
+ Unisys Corporation +
+ ITC-NRCS Fort Collins, CO +
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-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Anders [mailto:stephen -dot- anders -at- degree2 -dot- com]
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2001 5:29 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Capitalization - current trends?
In my company, the marketing and company ID people have put this in the
style guide:
"Never use capitals on any work except at the beginning of sentences and
headings,
unless it is a proper noun."
Thus I cannot use the usual 'Title Case' for books, chapters, figures
and
tables. One problem with this is that cross references get much harder
to
see.
Is this common style now? Is it workable/acceptable?
--
Stephen Anders mailto:stephen -dot- anders -at- degree2 -dot- com
IPCC 01, the IEEE International Professional Communication Conference,
October 24-27, 2001 at historic La Fonda in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.
CALL FOR PAPERS OPEN UNTIL MARCH 15. http://ieeepcs.org/2001/
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