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Tim Altom wrote:
>
> I have to agree with John Posada here.
>
> At 12:44 PM 11/14/97 -0500, you wrote, in part:
>
> >What I'm getting a in a round-about way is that CMS and all of its
> >brothers are only guides. You ARE allowed to do things differently, you
> >ARE allowed to use your imagination, and not everything that CMS states
> We at Simply Written like to use the CMS for our basics, because it's
> well-considered, time-honored, and widely available. But there's no doubt
> that much of what's in there is just the publisher's preference. We change
> the CMS guidelines quite merrily when it's merited.
>
> As John P. points out (that I cut out, unfortunately) by the time you've
> gotten your wings in this business, you should be able to break rules when
> the situation demands it. For Simply Written, the only ironclad guideline is
> that once we've settled on something, we stick to it throughout the project.
> Consistency is real big around here.
Tim..per the line in my original message...
"what works for MY content, my audience, and me"
That was what I implied by "what works for .....me."
You can create the most beautiful style catalog anyone has ever seen,
but if it is too difficult to implement, you will end up: 1) departing
from it part way through the document, 2) taking way too long to get
anything done, and 3) having the reader missing the meaning of the
nuances and all they see is a complex document full of different point
sizes, numbered lists, attributes, and capitalizations.
Guides like the CMS have had many years to "get it right". Sometimes I
only have three days.
However, once you go pick a style, stick to it. One of the ways I've
used to do this is to start the document with a Conventions Glossary,
which for the most part, I reuse for every document (making changes as
needed, not creating it from scratch). To be honest, sometime half way
through a 200 page document, I'll start to forget those conventions. I
always have that glossary in the front of the document to help me brush
up on the formats.
--
John Posada, Technical Writer (and proud of the title)
The world's premier Internet fax service company: The FaxSav Global
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My opinions are mine, and neither you nor my company can take credit for
them.
HEY! Are you coming to the NJ TechWriter lunch? So far, about 10
of us are. Ask me about it.
