Re: Style Guide Elements?

[Jill R Shapiro <jsbz+ -at- ANDREW -dot- CMU -dot- EDU>]

I am a tech writer for a software development group. I'm currently in
the process of writing a style guide for our organization. Here is my
table of contents listing in its very rough form (pretty much a brain
dump at this point). Hope it's helpful. Also,I'd appreciate input.
Actually, the part I've found most helpful thus far is the word list in
chapter 6. I'd say that such a list is a necessity. (Sure saves time in
meetings!)
--Jill

About This Guide
What are style guidelines?
Why do you need style guidelines?
What's in this guide
Conventions used in this guide

CHAPTER 1       Using Templates
Conventions
Fonts

CHAPTER 2       Organizing the Document
Hierarchical structure
Parallel Structure
Highlighting techniques
Widows and orphans
Margins
White space
Illustrations and graphs

CHAPTER 3       Addressing the Reader
Primary and secondary readers
Tone
Group sensitivities

CHAPTER 4       Building Effective Sentences
Present tense
Active voice
Sentence organization
Noun/verb agreement
Plain language
Lists
Word choice
Jargon
Noun strings
Nominalizations
Split infinitives
Misplaced modifiers

CHAPTER 5       Spelling and Punctuating
Abreviations and acronyms
Brackets and parentheses
Numbers and bullets
Periods and commas
Apostrophes and quotation marks
Titles and capitalization
Dates and times

CHAPTER 6       Using Tricky Words (an alphabetical listing)

CHAPTER 7       Revising
Correctness
User testing


APPENDIX I      Sample Templates