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Subject:RE: Capitalization - current trends? From:KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 5 Mar 2001 09:53:31 -0500
Stephen,
If:
a) the commandment was not simply an oversight by
some marketing 'brain-trust' who simply has no
concept of referring to documents and sections
by title and,
b) that person does not seem to have superiors who
might be persuaded to think rationally and,
c) you'd still like to make your titles stand out, and
your cross references easy to pick out then,
find yourself a different font or color, or an attribute
like bold or italic to accomplish what Title Caps used to
do... or try superscripting each and every cross ref.
As long as it meets the "letter of the law", so to speak,
you'll make your point and your readers will still be able
to find their way around your docs.
If you catch flack, or if they simply revise their
commandments to "legislate" your *new* readability cues
out of existence, then respond with something like:
"A recent spate of corporate style edicts has banned
the use of widely-accepted standard aids to reading
and navigating in technical documents. These are the
cues that writers of English-language technical and
professional documentation have employed for many
decades and upon which readers have come to rely.
I am sure it is merely an oversight that your well-
researched replacement for those standard readability
and navigational cues was not defined in your recent
memos. Please correct this oversight. I will require
a minimum of a week to implement your new standard
across the document set before the next release, over
and above the normal documentation tasks. Please
respond as quickly as possible -- the next release
is Thursday.
Thank you for addressing this matter in timely fashion."
Circulate to friendly forces, as well as to those who
need it. Then print up a bunch of copies and leave them
lying around in printer-copier alcoves and in coffee
rooms all over the office.
Oh... I forgot to ask... you don't act on free advice,
do you?
/kevin
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stephen Anders [mailto:stephen -dot- anders -at- degree2 -dot- com]
> 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?
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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