atw: Re: Guides and manuals [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Hi Howard,

I've always though of an operator guide (I just hate the term "user", too
many negative connotations) as being a brief, handy quick reference
booklet, whereas a manual tends to be an all encompassing view of a
product or process, for inclusion of many sets of tasks and steps, plus
some in-depth reference material.

Note that, by way of comparison,  "Girl Guides" are usually quite
compact and provide little guidance at all as to how girls operate.

They are, however, Web aware in that they install cookies wherever
they go.

(Reject those cookies and you will experience a multi-tear application.)

Nobody, however, seems to have written a usable Woman Manual
(Womanual?) yet.  Perhaps because they are purportedly from Venus
and a suitable WAN does not yet exist to gain access to their data. ;-)

Cheers,

Michael Granat
Write Ideas
www.writeideas.com.au

At 11:34 19/04/2006, you wrote:

This may seem like a ridiculous question for an experienced tech writer
to be asking, but I'm wondering if there's any general agreement on the
distinction, if any, between a 'user guide' and a 'user manual'.
Wikipedia talks about 'a user guide, also commonly known as a manual'.

Generally I've called what I've written 'user manuals' and thought of a
user guide as something much shorter, but I haven't ever seen a
definitive proclamation.

Surely someone on this list must have an answer to this question. Who
knows, maybe I'll get an answer we can all agree on. Or is that being a
tad optimistic?

Howard


----------------------------------
     Howard L. Silcock
      Technical Writer
 Common Services SOE Program
Network Infrastructure Development
    Department of Defence
      109 Kent Street
      Deakin ACT 2600
      (02) 626 58395
----------------------------------



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