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Subject:Re: Choosing a base style guide From:Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com> To:Kelly Smith <KellyMJSmith -at- gmail -dot- com>, techwr-l List <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Thu, 16 Oct 2014 13:17:31 -0700
When you're writing about software, the MS Manual of Style is much
better than any general style guide.
It's my primary style guide. I occasionally refer to Chicago when MMS
doesn't cover something.
I ignore much of MS's guidelines on writing procedures, the advanced
users I write for don't need long, wordy descriptions of UI
navigation.
On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 3:28 AM, Kelly Smith <KellyMJSmith -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I've started a new job where tech writing is my only duty. In the past I've
> always had other roles (QA, business analysis etc.) I'm working with the
> other new tech writer (we both started last Monday in different branches of
> the IT department) and we're trying to decide on a base style guide.
>
> We'll be writing docs for disaster recovery, test planning, FAQs, and
> business processes among other things. This company has never had tech
> writers before, so we kind of have free rein.
>
> My question is, does anyone have strong opinions about a good, general
> style guide? We are leaning roward CMS because we're both familiar with it,
> but wondered if something like the Microsoft manual of style would be
> better suited to the more technical documents.
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