TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
IMHO, it depends how detailed you want your reviews guidelines to be.
My reviewers tend to be drawn from the non-technical writing pool [which is
everyone in the office except me :) ], so I have to account for poor
language skills (they tend to check for program to document accuracy) as
well as differences of opinion on word spelling (is it enrollment or
enrolment, e-mail or email...etc), punctuation and the like.
A style sheet clears most of this up by presenting guidelines that I use
when writing the document.
Read-Me First A Style Guide For the Computing Industry (Sun Technical
Publications, Copyright 1996, ISBN 0-13-455347-0) has a series of checklists
for reviewers to follow. I also use their template for a document-specific
style sheet.
Being a lone technical writer, I do not have the time available to me to
write a style guide that includes everything it should. Instead I use the
Microsoft Manual of Style and only document what I *don't* follow from its
pages or what is *not* included in its pages. I add to the style sheet on a
case-by-case basis. First time I use footnotes, I add a footnote section (I
haven't used them so far). Until I need to use them, however, I do not worry
about them.
The STC's Judging Evaluation Forms provide some samples on how to clinically
grade technical documentation. (See http://www.stc.org/judging_forms.html.)
These could be used to generate your own list of guidelines for reviewers.
Grammar, Punctuation and Capitalization, A handbook for Technical Writers
and Editors (See http://stipo.larc.nasa.gov/sp7084/sp7084cont.html) by Mary
K. McCaskill
Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia is also a good place to start if
you're unsure of your reviewers skills.
The website http://www.comtech-serv.com/ has some good references for
content management/structure - which may give you some more ideas on what
reviewers should be checking in your documentation.
Inspiring Reviewers to Review Your Document by Geoff Hart and
The Inspection Method: An Approach to Planning and Managing a Successful
Team Document Review by Donn Le Vie, Jr. (See http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/magazine/writing/docreviewshomepage.html
for these two articles and more) are great places to start.
Hope this helps.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Rebecca Downey Senior Technical Writer
ITG:NBM Matrox Electronic System
1055 St Regis, Dorval, Quebec, H9P 2T4
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Check out RoboDemo for tutorials! It makes creating full-motion software
demonstrations and other onscreen support materials easy and intuitive.
Need RoboHelp? Save $100 on RoboHelp Office in May with our mail-in rebate.
Go to http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l
Free copy of ARTS PDF Tools when you register for the PDF
Conference by May 15. Leading-Edge Practices for Enterprise
& Government, June 3-5, Bethesda,MD. www.PDFConference.com
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
