Monday, February 13, 2012

Publications guide and Style guide


What is a Style guide?
A style guide is a book that outlines the necessary rules a writer must follow for any kind of documentation. The rules the writer has to follow may be simple things like grammar and punctuation or something more than this like citation, layout, and format.

What is a Publication guide?
A publication guide is information set that deals with the guidelines the writer should follow to submit the project.  In a wider sense the publication guide covers the set of rules the writer should follow to complete each topic successfully and also the information on what the writer should not do on that particular topic.

A style guide is just a part of the publication guide.

What do you include in a Publication guide?
A Publication guide may include the following:
  • Steps for publication planning
  • Logo and icons used in writing
  • Illustration guidelines
  • Legal agreement and disclaimer statements
  • Copyright information
  • Documentation process
  • Documentation tips
  • Dictionaries, naming conventions, Glossary
  • Template guidelines
  • Help  on project back-up, project file location and so on
 Why is Publication guide required?
A Publication guide is a framework or a reference to help future contributors to accomplish the task successfully. These guidelines may help the newbie or those who or not familiar with the project.
Looking at this from the company perspective, it saves money and time of the writers as they do not have to reinvent the wheel.  A publication guide covers a wider range of documents like the newsletter, marketing publications, brochures and so on

Punch line
 A style guide is a set of stylistic guidelines of a publication and publication guide is a documentation of documentation

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