style: audience
Subject:
audience
From:
"Joy Y Goodreau" ####@####.####
Date:
10 Apr 2002 21:28:01 -0000
Message-Id: <OF6F750109.53C40172-ON85256B97.007455B8@pok.ibm.com>
Okay, by now everyone should have joined the list. The discussion on the
formatting and content of the style guide should probably be moved to this
list and off of the discuss list. Whether or not to have a style guide or
alternatives will probably still be discussed on the discuss list, but
there is no sense in bombarding everyone with the nuts and bolts of the
working to the discuss list.
I would tend to agree with Ami that it is important to define who we are
writing this for and what the goal is before we gather all of our content.
For my point, I would like for this to be different from other style
guides. One of the fundamental break thoughts in technical communication
was the move to task oriented documentation in the 70s. All these studies
have been done on how readers are able to better execute based on task
oriented documentation, yet style guides are usually done by topic area,
modules, or indexed by proper names of grammar.
I sent you the several examples of style guide because, quite frankly,
there was not a guide like I would like to see for the LDP. My idea of the
style guide for here is a document that is usable by the techies. Now,
there are questions as to whether or not techies will pick up a document
and learn how to make their writing better. That is a totally valid point.
I would like to test the heck out of what we come up with.
In some ways I feel like I am giving you vague visions of the "techies
guide to documentation style" or whatever, but i think there is a real gap
here that we can fill for something that is just not out there, probably
because style guides are written by people who already understand the
language.
Having shared what I see the vision of the style guide, where do you see
yourself fitting in? What do you like about style guides that we can
translate into a more user friendly guide for our writers? How can we make
it task oriented? We don't want to re-invent what has already been done
well in its own way in other places, how can we create a document that is
not a barrier to technical people but a useful tool?
I can't wait to hear your opinions :)
joy
Joy Yokley Goodreau
Linux Information Developer
LDP Collections Editor
Ofc. (512) 838-4118
T/L 678-4118
####@####.####
