Writing style
In order to promote consistency between the myriad authors of the
FreeBSD documentation, some guidelines have been drawn up for authors to
follow.
Do not use contractions
Do not use contractions. Always spell the phrase out in full.
“Don't use contractions” would be wrong.
Avoiding contractions makes for a more formal tone, is more
precise, and slightly easier for translators.
Use the serial comma
In a list of items within a paragraph, seperate each item from
the others with a comma. Seperate the last item from the others with
a comma and the word “and”.
For example, look at the following quote;
This is a list of one, two and three items.
Is this a list of three items, “one”,
“two”, and “three”, or a list of two items,
“one” and “two and three”?
It is better to be explicit and include a serial comma;
This is a list of one, two, and three items.
Avoid redundant phrases
Try not to use redundant phrases. In particular, “the
command”, “the file”, and “man
command” are probably redundant.
These two examples show this for commands. The second example
is preferred.
Use the command cvsup to update your
sources
Use cvsup to update your sources
These two examples show this for filenames. The second example
is preferred.
… in the filename
/etc/rc.local…
… in
/etc/rc.local…
These two examples show this for manual references. The second
example is preferred (the second example uses
citerefentry).
See man csh for more
information.
See &man.csh.1;
For more information about writing style, see Elements of
Style, by William Strunk.
Style guide
To keep the source for the Handbook consistent when many different
people are editing it, please follow these style conventions.
Letter case
Tags are entered in lower case, <para>,
not <PARA>.
Text that appears in SGML contexts is generally written in upper
case, <!ENTITY…>, and
<!DOCTYPE…>, not
<!entity…> and
<!doctype…>.
Indentation
Each file starts with indentation set at column 0,
regardless of the indentation level of the file
which might contain this one.
Every start tag increases the indentation level by 2 spaces, and
every end tag decreases the indentation level by 2 spaces. Content
within elements should be indented by two spaces if the content runs
over more than one line.
For example, the source for this section looks something
like;
...
...
Indentation
Each file starts with indentation set at column 0,
regardless of the indentation level of the file
which might contain this one.
Every start tag increases the indentation level by 2 spaces, and
every end tag decreases the indentation level by 2 spaces. Content
within elements should be indented by two spaces if the content runs
over more than one line.
...
]]>
If you use Emacs or
Xemacs to edit the files then
sgml-mode should be loaded automatically, and the
Emacs local variables at the bottom of each file should enforce these
styles.
White space changes
When committing changes, do not commit changes to the
content at the same time as changes to the
formatting.
This is so that the teams that convert the Handbook to other
languages can quickly see what content has actually changed in your
commit, without having to decide whether a line has changed because of
the content, or just because it has been refilled.
For example, if you have added two sentances to a paragraph, such
that the line lengths on the paragraph now go over 80 columns, first
commit your change with the too-long line lengths. Then fix the line
wrapping, and commit this second change. In the commit message for
the second change, be sure to indicate that this is a whitespace-only
change, and that the translation team can ignore it.