Re: Style Guide Survey

[Betty Keddy <bkeddy -at- MC -dot- COM>]

Nea,

I've
been a tech writer for ten years, and "The
Chicago Manual of Style" has been one
of my guides throughout those years.  I've
recently joined a  technical communications
group in a new company, and all of us in
the group follow that guide.  Also, we use
Strunk & White's "Elements of Style"
 and "The American Heritage Dictionary."
  We also follow industry standards such
as ANSI C, POSIX, IEEE, etc.  

One
thing I've found to be true over the years
is that each new job requires learning new
technology and new tools.  The reference
books that I use most frequently are those
necessary to learn something new.  In my
current job I'm learning UNIX, FrameMaker,
and the Macintosh computer.   The following
books are very helpful:

-- UNIX in
a Nutshell (Daniel Gilly and O'Reilly &
Associates)
-- Using FrameMaker (Frame
Technology)
-- The Little MacBook (Robin
Williams)

Some text books that I continue
to use as references are the following:

--
Software Engineering:  A Practitioner's
Approach (Roger Pressman)
-- The C Programming
Language (Kernighan & Ritchie)
--
Programming in ANSI C (Stephen Kochan)
--
Form and Substance:  An Advanced Rhetoric
(Richard Coe)

Non-writing jobs I've
done over the years are the following:

--
Helped develop a company's Intranet and
served as Webmaster 
-- Project lead a
cross-functional team to develop that Intranet
--
Did lots of HTML coding
-- Served on various
company committees 
-- Mentored and trained
other writers
-- Desktop publishing when
I was the only writer in a software group
--
Magazine librarian for the software development
group

Good luck with your survey.
I hope you will publish the results.

Regards,
Betty
Keddy
Senior Technical Writer
  
Nea
Dodson wrote:
>Hello
folks, I'm Nea Dodson.  I'm working on a
style manual for work and a
>tech writer's
handbook in my spare time.  I'd really like
to have the input
>of the collective
wisdom/experience of the folks on this list
for both
>projects.  So, if anyone
out there would like to answer a few questions:
>
>1)
 What professional style guides do you use
(such as Chicago/Turabian, MS
>Manual,
GPO, APA, etc.)?
>
>2)  Do you
have a favorite dictionary?  If so, which
and why?
>
>3)  What reference
books do you consider absolutely essential?
>
>and
4)  what non-writing jobs have you been
asked to do as part of your job
>(such
as desktop publishing, teaching, web page
coding, etc.)?
>
>Thanks in advance,
>
>Nea
>
>
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>From: Nea Dodson
<NeaDods -at- AOL -dot- COM>
>Subject:
   Style Guide Survey
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