[austechwriter] Re: How useful is the Chicago Manual of Style for Australian conditions?
- From: "HALL Bill" <bill.hall@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2003 08:50:40 +1000 (EST)
I have followed Chicago since long before I migrated to Australia. However,=
the better international style manual is the CBE Editors - originally focu=
ssed on biological journals - but much better organised and written than Ch=
icago.
Lets hear it for the M-W Third International. I own a copy and have online =
access to the Oxford English Dictionary via the Monash Uni library. OED is =
an excellent reference if you have access to it, but there is no comparison=
with M-W. If you really want to understand the usage of a word, its histor=
y and thoughtful comparisons to related terms there is no better source - u=
nfortunately, M-W is at home, it is not portable and I don't have electroni=
c access... so I use OED for most requirements.
Bill Hall
Documentation Systems Analyst
Head Office, Engineering
Tenix Defence
Nelson House Annex, Nelson Place
Williamstown, Vic. 3016
Australia
Tel: +61 3 9244 4820 (Direct)
URL: http://www.tenix.com
Mailto:bill.hall@xxxxxxxxx
-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Hudson [mailto:cruddy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, 4 August 2003 7:20 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [austechwriter] Re: How useful is the Chicago Manual of Style
for Australian conditions?
The main thing about CMS is it is COMPREHENSIVE. So, to maintain a simple
style guide, one purchases CMS and says in thy holiest of writs:
Where there is no specific ruling, consult CMS.
Then, just state your differences. A _whole_ world simpler and much more
effective.
Essential books, most stuff by JoAnne Hackos - especially the managing your
doco projects one.
Sun Tzu's Art of War - strategic planning.
A book of five rings - Miyamoto Musashi - tactics
If you are office bound and permanent, fork out the 100 bucks through Amazon
for the world's biggest stand-alone book - M-W 3rd Int dictionary. It will
give you a good idea of just how big you can go in print if you really need
to. However, it is has two main uses. The first one is dead easy, when the
programmers invent a whole new grammar in their interface labelling, or some
impressive dude is just dunderheadedly sticking to their "its a word and I'm
using it", you very casually sidle up to this ENORMOUS MONSTROSITY and
casually start flicking therough the pages to the appropriate area and point
it out. The sheer size of the book shuts EVERYONE up, if it aint in there,
its not worth being official usage. There's plenty of legal words to draw
from, run along now and behave :-) The second usage is even easier. When
programmers (or SMEs) get recalcitrant you accidentally slam it on their
fingers. Your changes are made so quick it is not funny, and the next time
they see you with the dictionary in hand they start panicking. It is that
look of fear in a coder's eyes that I live for, being a gun tech writer :-)
My free Computer Art Primer from the www.raycomm.com site. Get it into you,
great book, covers everything you will ever need to know about graphics. Its
usually #1 in the search engines on that exact phrase :-)
If you do S&M a thesaurus and a book of quotes are good.
The Non-designer's design book is ok. By Robin Williams who also writes a
stack of similar stuff.
Eric Partridge, Usage and Abusage (Penguin). Do not try and read it, use it
as a reference when you get stuck and you know it just doesnt look right.
The weak verbs are dealt with comprehensively etc. Naturally I completely
and utterly ignore this book when posting and instead try to employ the
greatest possible variations in those 137 ish (I dunno, ask Jill) different
conjugations, employable by an industrious typist as I do.
Beginner Word users, www.wopr.com and check out Woody's books for the
products you love to hate.
Beginner's VBA - dunno, lots of choices, dont really like any of em :-) Use
Amazon search and read the comments. MS Office Apps VBA help is good too.
Intermediate Word or VBA users - my spellbooks from the url below
Advanced VBA - VBA Developer's Handbook by Ken Getz and friend.
Steve Hudson
Word Heretic, Sydney, Australia
Tricky stuff with Word or words for you.
Email: steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Products: http://www.geocities.com/word_heretic/products.html
Spellbooks: 728 pages of dump left and dropping...
-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Cave
Sent: Monday, 4 August 2003 4:17 PM
Hello,
I was wondering if you could comment on the usefulness of
the Chicago Manual for Style for Australian conditions.
I have done some tech writing for software companies in my
role of Support Engineer, and looking to do further work
as a technical writer.
A related question would be "What books do you consider ESSENTIAL
in the tech writer's personal library?".
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