What is Technical Communication?
2.8 Markdown and Style Guides
What is Markdown?
Markdown allows users to add formatting elements like headings, lists, and emphasis to plain text, making it easy to read and write while remaining readable even in its raw form. This makes Markdown a markup language that uses plain text formatting to create formatted text documents. Markdown is widely used for various purposes, including documentation, blogging, and online communication. As a technical communicator, you may use Markdown on various documents to indicate where headings, lists, and other information is included on a document.
It is also important to note that a company may use other markup languages, such as HTML 5 and CSS, to document where information and design may be included on a webpage. The type of markup language will depend on the document being formatted, whether it is a webpage or a plain text document.
In class, we will have time to practice using Markdown. For a way to practice Markdown outside of class, you can use the tutorial we will also access in class at this link: https://www.markdowntutorial.com/
Style Guides
Along with markup languages, a technical communicator has to follow whatever style guide a company uses. Chapter 6 discusses one of the more common style guides, the Microsoft Style Guide, but below is a list of style guides that many companies use and adapt from to create their own style guides.
- The Chicago Manual of Style
- Associated Press Style
- IBM Design and Style Guidehttps://google.github.io/styleguide/docguide/style.html
- Microsoft Style Guide
- Google Style Guide
It is important to learn the style guides used by your company, but the above style guides are often adapted in various ways by companies, so being familiar with some of these style guides now can be beneficial to you as you progress in your career.
