Re: The Microsoft Style Guide is Online and Free

Subject: Re: The Microsoft Style Guide is Online and Free
From: "Peter Neilson" <neilson -at- windstream -dot- net>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2018 09:42:38 -0500

Cynic's Brief Guide to Good Style ...

- Good technical writing is unambiguous and has been tested, at least slightly, on a representative sample of the target audience. Perhaps it is even useful.

- Bad technical writing follows explicit rules even to the detriment of its intended purpose.

I've seen and done both.

Beyond the issue of style lies the actual enhancement of the product. The writer discovers blunders in the specifications or in the code, or possibly proposes unrequested documents that seriously increase sales, revenue or even profitability.

On Wed, 07 Mar 2018 09:19:51 -0500, Matt Danda <mdanda -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote:

I skimmed the style guide. My first impression is that it seems to be a lot less Type-A than previous style guides. It's kind of like they're giving up and saying, "Here's a few pointers, take 'em or leave 'em, but just keep it consistent."

Not sure having serious editorial expertise really matters any more.

-Matt


Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2018 15:23:05 -0800
From: Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>
To: TECHWR-L Writing <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Subject: Re: The Microsoft Style Guide is Online and Free
Message-ID:
<CAN3Yy4B+afOrPU-ghqqmuCPraSitZE_3jcdB87XxSS40w7nBzg -at- mail -dot- gmail -dot- com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

Thinking more about this, no one who distributes a PDF like that is
qualified to publish an editorial style guide.

I don't think anyone with serious editorial expertise was involved.
Looking at the LinkedIn profiles of the three main people, one has a
branding / corporate communications background and the other two are
techies.

On Sat, Feb 17, 2018 at 10:11 AM, Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com> wrote:
... The PDF is garbage, just a machine-generated dump of the web version,
with all the links pointing to the web site.
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Re: The Microsoft Style Guide is Online and Free: From: Matt Danda

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