Posts by Monica Cellio
For fiction that can accommodate different POVs, dividing those up per author not only addresses this problem but can be a feature. For cases where you want a unified voice, if you can't get a toug...
I and one or more co-authors, sometimes geographically distributed, are working on a set of related documents. Sometimes I will make a change in my part that affects someone else's part; this coul...
Any text-based "markup" format -- LaTeX, HTML, various XML schemas like DocBook, etc -- will serve you better than binary formats like Word, Pages, FrameMaker, etc. (I am aware that some of these ...
The second sentence feels grammatically incorrect because it's not a sentence; it's two fragments joined by a semicolon. That doesn't make it wrong, but that's probably why you're reacting that wa...
There are two general approaches, depending on the amount of detail you need from the "other" concept. If you don't need a lot, write about subject A, and when the first interaction with B hits ad...
Books compiling previously-published articles are not new. The usual challenges there are selecting and organizing your material and editing it for a different audience. Compiling material that i...
Movies and television shows can have ensemble casts; why not books? I've seen this in SF/fantasy books where the ensemble is the members of an adventuring party, the crew of a ship, etc; often the...
Edited based on comments: Given the following function declaration: f_get_vend_code(v_nut_id varchar2) return varchar2; I would write the description as follows: This function takes a nu...
Our ~1500-page documentation set contains numerous screen shots and related graphics (schematics, flow diagrams, etc). Sometimes the user interface changes and we have to update all the affected g...
For inconsequential changes you can just edit it. For anything substantial ("I meant to say I disagree with..."), I've often seen an explicit notation: "Edited to add: ..." "Edit: ...", or the lik...
I am an experienced technical writer specializing in API documentation. In my experience, in order to be successful a technical writer needs enough technical aptitude to (1) understand the users' ...
There are different kinds of technical writing, differing in the "technical" part. The logical place for you to start, coming from a programming background like I did, would be with programmer-fac...
Either of those is fine ("&" is just another way to write "and") and will be understood. Another formulation you'll sometimes see is "Aug 4-5, 2011", but this is better for things that are con...
It would be bad style to publish documentation that did that, but since a wiki is designed to be edited by many people who will each have their own quirks and don't usually consult house style guid...
There is no rule that you have to produce an equal volume of words in order for your correspondent to appreciate you. In fact, if you quote every sentence individually, inserting "I agree" or "goo...
A link to the name is generally expected to link to the person, not to an article. I generally agree with @Craig Sefton, except that I would make "claims that pigs can fly" the link and not just "...
Any single-sourcing scheme is going to require some up-front setup in exchange for easier generation of multiple formats later. This Wikipedia page provides a starting point for process and tools.
As Viktor said, FrameMaker is probably the best widely-used tool for doing what you're trying to do. Another (Windows-only) tool that I'm using now is Madcap Flare, but it's pretty pricy. Other...
