Have questions about the tech writing process? Check out:

Technical Writing 101: A Real-World Guide to Planning and Writing Technical Documentation

Style guide

A style guide is essential for a successful project. Many of our clients have their own style guidelines, which we follow to ensure that our work matches what they produce in-house.

However, some clients do not have internal style guides. We have developed our own style guide to ensure our work on their projects is consistent. Putting the style guide on the web eliminates distribution problems and ensures that we always use the latest version.

Our guidelines are divided into two sections:

• Mechanics and usage: These guidelines explain when to use bold type, when to capitalize, and so on.
  Mechanics and usage has earned StudyWeb's Excellence Award.

• Word usage: This section lists words that are frequently misused. Avoid using the words marked with the .

In general, we follow the styles outlined in The Chicago Manual of Style. Because some projects have additional guidelines, we have flagged project-specific rules with different colors (contact Alan for information about the color for your project).