[authors] Heading capitalisation revisited

[Jean Hollis Weber]

Now that I'm home again and have access to my reference library, 
I pulled down a selection of books to see how software vendor 
manuals and commercial computer-related books handle heading 
capitalisation, and what my style guides say.

Several of my style guides and books on technical editing don't 
mention the topic at all (other than to say "don't use ALL 
CAPS"). My IBM style guide (1996) calls for sentence-style caps; 
no doubt my 10 years as a technical editor with IBM Australia 
influenced my preference for that style. In contrast, "Read Me 
First" (2nd edition, 2003), from Sun Technical Publications, 
calls for headline-style caps.

"Style manual for authors, editors and printers", 6th edition, 
published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd in 2002, is the 
official style manual for the Australian Government. It 
recommends minimalist (sentence-type) capitalisation in all 
situations, including headings. The book itself uses 
sentence-style caps for everything including the titles of 
chapters and parts of the book -- except for the second-level 
headings, which oddly are in ALL CAPS.

Most of the third-party computer books (from Que, O'Reilly, and 
others) use headline-style caps for headings; one exception is 
"Managing Your Documentation Projects" from Wiley Technical 
Communication Library, 1993. I don't have many user guides that 
came with software (mainly because most software doesn't ship 
with books anymore), but among the ones I do have, the following 
use sentence style caps for headings: Dreamweaver 4 (Macromedia), 
Quicken 6 (Intuit), and Acrobat 5 Classroom in a Book (Adobe).

None of this proves anything, other than that both heading styles 
are in common use and each is recommended by different style guides.

Cheers, Jean