Merchant’s Style Guide:
A Guide to the Form and Style for Technical Writing
Technical communication needs to be effective for both internal communications and crucial external communications (for example, business partners and customers). Readers need to quickly navigate corporate documents to find the information they need and, once found, to easily understand what they read. This is especially true for international readers. Thus, the writing must be clear and consistent. Use Merchant’s Style Guide for all writing assignments for my technical writing classes. Updated: April 1, 2020. Changelog: added cover and title page annotated examples.
COES Equation Guidelines
Use these guidelines from the College Of Engineering and Science (Louisiana Tech) for using equations in your documents.
Memo Letterhead Template
Use this letterhead template (MS Word .docx file) below for all my English 303 memo writing assignments. The letterhead is already properly formatted.
College of Liberal Arts Logo
Use this logo for the cover page in my English 303 white paper or technical report writing assignments.
Style guides also help an organization establish and protect a consistent brand identity. Sometimes the standards for the brand are not in a style guide but in a separate document such as the example below.
Identity Standards Manual for Umbrella Corporation
[This identity standards manual is an imaginary one, but based on my research of many real-world identity standards. It is used for illustrative and instructive purposes only. Merchant’s English 303 Students: this is for illustrative and instructive purposes; use Merchant’s Style Guide above for formatting your assignments, including font color and logo use.
“Umbrella Corporation” and logo are trademarks of Capcom Entertainment, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Used with permission; all Capcom intellectual property used for Mr. David M. Merchant’s English 303 classes at Louisiana Tech University are to be used for educational purposes only.]
Mr. David M Merchant 
