Hello @all, Lou Iorio <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> schrieb:
> Jean Hollis Weber wrote: > > > 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"). > > What are these style guides, and what style capitalization does each > use? What is the reason for asking? Why are you still complaining? There was a decision, made by the main editors and/or the funding members of this page (I'm not sure, this was, before I joined the group) and these people decided, that they want to use the sentence-style capitalisation. It doesn't matter, if the heading capitalisation is more common or not. The decision is made. And the same style is used in all our books / userguides, we're writing. Do you want to change the style and probably cause more mistakes in these documents? > As does the Chicago Manual of Style. These are the first two style > guides cited in the > OOAuthors style guide. The third is a general reference to "MLA > guidelines", which > appear to me to focus on research papers and scholarly writing. I > would not include this > in the style guide, but in fact, they also use headline > capitalization. And? Why can't we rely on a style guide, which focus on research papers and writing for schools? Don't we want to teach the reader how to use the software? Sorry, but this isn't an argument for changing the styleguide. You have to mention other, really important points, before you can convince me. > > > > > "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. > > Again, pretty obscure. A search on Amazon comes up with: > "Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers", Australian Govt Pub > Service; > 5th edition (March, 1997). Is the Wiley version available anywhere? Again, that you can't buy this guide isn't a reason for changing the style in our chapters. > > > > > 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. > > My point was simply that headline style capitalization is much more > common. I strongly disagree with you. This might be possible in English books. But your wording is in that way, that it is everywhere the same. And this isn't true. I have here different German O'Reilly books and they use here "sentence style". > > I don't see what place a government style guide has in computer > documentation, > or a ten-year old IBM style guide for that matter. Why should we use the Chicago Manual? What is the reason for using this style guide instead of the guide, we had already chosen? There's no special benefit in using one or the other style. > I will admit that before I became aware of sentence-style > capitalization, I would > have sworn I did not have any books that used it. I would have been > wrong. > > Final point: the OOo help system uses headline capitalization. Having > different style > in documentation for a single product seems wrong to me. It might be wrong, but would you want to change all our documents? Really? If yes, I wish you a lot of fun by doing this. I guess, you'll have to do this all of your own, because most members won't help you. And, let me add this: The discussion about this topic starts to be annoying to me. I've ignored your first emails about this, but when you started again to complain and fighting for the other style, I thought, that I'll answer you once. I remember, that you've stated in one email, that you will use the style, we had already chosen. So please do it in that way. For me, there's no benefit in discussing, which style we use or not. I say sorry, when I was too harsh at any point or you feel personally attacked. That wasn't my intention. (And, please consider, that English is a foreign language for me - it's possible, that I've chosen the wrong words.) Sigrid
