Company style guides often include:
·
Writing rules
·
Company-specific terminology
·
Rules on formatting
STE includes:
·
66 writing rules
·
Guidelines on company-specific
terminology (nouns and adjectives known as “Technical Names”)
·
General vocabulary (approx. 900
approved words as well a large number of commonly used words that are not
approved in STE)
The main difference between STE and the average corporate style guide thus is the addition of general vocabulary, while providing for flexibility regarding company- and industry-specific terminology – a very powerful concept that greatly facilitates adaptation to a company’s specific requirements.
As STE was developed by people from
different companies (including for example Boeing and Airbus), countries (USA,
Canada, various European countries) and professional background (writers,
linguists and engineers), the rule set and vocabulary are rather well-balanced
rather than to reflect the views of a single person or company. Moreover, the
rules and vocabulary were validated against actual content from relevant
manuals.
Since development of the specification
started some 30 years ago, it has seen regular updates, in part based on change
requests from users in the field. The current release is Issue 6, released in January 2013. The specification is maintained
by ASD (formerly AECMA), the AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association of
Europe.
About the author
Dr. Frans Wijma has a background in electrical engineering and linguistics.
He has been working as a consultant with customers
in various industries worldwide and is widely regarded as the leading
expert in Simplified Technical English, aviation documentation
and multilingual documentation, providing training and consultancy
services to customers worldwide. In addition, he is a regular speaker at
language and industry events, fluent in 10 languages and a commercial
pilot.
Over the years, Frans Wijma was responsible for the development and implementation of STE checker tools for compliance with ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English (Simplified Technical English, formerly AECMA Simplified English).
He has also worked with the checker tools MAXit (Smart Communications),
BSEC (Boeing Simplified English Checker) and acrolinx IQ.
Frans Wijma was the project manager for many
translation and development programs for customers worldwide, including
Boeing, Embraer, Black & Decker, Rolls-Royce and Fuji Heavy
Industries.
In 2001, Frans Wijma was presented with the prestigious Pride @ Boeing award in recognition of exceptional performance in supporting the development of the multilingual Longbow Apache IETM for Korea.
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You may be interested in the following links:
www.shufrans-techdocs.com for all technical documentation and publication needs.
www.asd-ste100.net for Simplified Technical English expertise.
www.asd-ste100.solutions for Simplified Technical English training & consultancy services.
International training workshops can be found here:
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