Desktop Publishing Guidelines for the California State Department of Education

Abstract

These guidelines have been developed to assist California State Department of Education staff members in organizing a manuscript so that it is clear, and will require a minimum of rewriting, editing, and keyboarding before it is sent for publication. The intention is to give staff members a better idea of what is expected of them as authors, and to teach them to prepare their manuscripts more efficiently and economically by avoiding delays caused by improper utilization of their electronic publishing equipment. The guide is divided into four major sections: (1) "Guidelines for Writing and Editing," which includes general and specific tips about points of style and organization; (2) "Guidelines for Using Desktop Publishing," which discusses issues to consider before using desktop publishing and general instructions for designing, keyboarding, and illustrating the manuscript, as well as specific instructions about how to prepare word processing files for editing and electronic page layout; (3) "Laws, Regulations, and Adopted Procedures for Publishing," which is a collection of excerpts from "The Department of Education Administrative Manual"; and (4) general and final production checklists for documents preparation drawn from "The Chicago Manual of Style." Three appendixes contain sources of training and information; a guide for compounding and hyphenating; and bibliographical and footnote forms for a variety of situations. (SD)