Re: Tech Writer Resources?

[Michele <michele -at- krautgrrl -dot- com>]

While my answer was techwhirler and everyone probably thought I was 
being facetious, I was and I wasn't. During college and for a year after 
I was a journalist. During that time I referenced the AP Style Guide. 
During graduate school I used the Chicago Manual Style, esp. for 
footnotes and what not.

My bookcase includes:
CMS 12
AP Style Guide
Microsoft Manual of Style
University of Minnesota Style Guide
MLA Handbook
New York Public Library Writers Guide
Strunk & White (all versions)
The Transitive Vampire

I have not opened ANY of those guides in over five years. I read 
voraciously on the web (journalism, fiction, blogs) and regular hard 
copy fiction and nonfiction books. I see trends in the writing I read 
and implement them into my own writing. And my writing is always 
well-received by clients. I don't know if it's just that I've memorized 
the Style Guides initially and just know what to do, or because I've 
been writing and publishing since I was seven that as year after year 
goes by my writing gets better and better, so perhaps my lack of Style 
Guide utilization is simply that I am incredibly intelligent and don't 
need them.

I believe all those guides are available for students (which is good, I 
needed them when I was a student) and for non-writers that need to write 
for work. I believe that true writers don't need every bloody Style 
Guide out there, or need to purchase every iteration of the CMS.  I 
believe that if you've been writing for ten years or more you don't need 
a guide, you already know all the nuances of English.

What I do use  religiously are: techwhirler and m-w.com

Michele

---------------
Michele E. Davis, Writer
Kraut Companies
612-824-3516
612-309-6903 (cell)
www.krautgrrl.com
www.krautboy.com
and the uber geek empyre


David Loveless wrote: