From owner-freebsd-doc Thu Jun 14 5:14:19 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from nef.ens.fr (nef.ens.fr [129.199.96.32]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9CFB437B401; Thu, 14 Jun 2001 05:14:07 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from Rahul.Siddharthan@lpt.ens.fr) Received: from corto.lpt.ens.fr (corto.lpt.ens.fr [129.199.122.2]) by nef.ens.fr (8.10.1/1.01.28121999) with ESMTP id f5ECDw604053 ; Thu, 14 Jun 2001 14:13:58 +0200 (CEST) Received: from (rsidd@localhost) by corto.lpt.ens.fr (8.9.3/jtpda-5.3.1) id OAA18730 ; Thu, 14 Jun 2001 14:14:51 +0200 (CEST) Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 14:14:50 +0200 From: Rahul Siddharthan To: Murray Stokely Cc: "Bruce A. Mah" , John Baldwin , Eric Ogren , freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG, Chern Lee Subject: Re: Style/Grammar/Writing Guidelines Message-ID: <20010614141450.G13153@lpt.ens.fr> References: <200106132316.f5DNG2365398@bmah-freebsd-0.cisco.com> <20010613165807.A45984@meow.osd.bsdi.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <20010613165807.A45984@meow.osd.bsdi.com>; from murray@FreeBSD.ORG on Wed, Jun 13, 2001 at 04:58:07PM -0700 X-Operating-System: FreeBSD 3.4-STABLE i386 Sender: owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Murray Stokely said on Jun 13, 2001 at 16:58:07: > On Wed, Jun 13, 2001 at 04:16:02PM -0700, Bruce A. Mah wrote: > > Appropriate, yes, but not required, IMHO. I seem to remember from my > > technical writing class in college that this could be (is?) something > > of a religious issue. (Well, that's not what the instructor called it, > > Read through the handbook and then read through any other printed > technical publication. There is a huge difference and it becomes > apparent very quickly that the Handbook is nowhere near being ready > for shelf-exposure. We're not talking about minor grammatical nits > here (as your professor was), we're talking about very major ones. Bad grammar should be corrected. Saying "you" and "your computer" need not be. I vastly prefer the existing paragraph which Chern Lee quotes to his modified one. At the same time, for a publication quality book, I agree that the overall "look and feel" should be consistent: it will look strange if one paragraph is chatty and the next is stiff and starchy. But I think this is better fixed by one person, or two or three people, going through the whole thing pre-publication, rather than by imposing a "style guide" on everybody. And I'd vote for a chatty "look and feel" myself, over a stiff and starchy one. - Rahul. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message