Sort-of-fic: Excerpts from the Stargate Command Style Sheet for Mission Reports (Gen, G)
Title: Excerpts from the Stargate Command Style Sheet for Mission Reports
Genre: Humor
Notes: This is Penknife's fault, I swear. By the way, I welcome additions to this style sheet, if you have any thoughts on what this poor editor must see every day.
1) Report Length
Do not try any tricks with font size, margins, or line spacing to make your report longer or shorter. I have seen them all. Really. Even the one where you change the leading.
5) Voice
Reports must be written in the active--not passive--voice. That is, "my team blew up the enemy's bunker" is correct. "The enemy bunker was blown up" is only correct if you could not identify the culprit even under oath during a court martial.
On a related note, please use pronouns such as "I" and "we." "I took my team deeper into the temple," for example. If I read one more sentence like "the team went deeper into the temple," I will scream. At you.
6) Tense
Reports should also be in the past tense. You are giving a formal report of an event that occurred in the past, not telling the story over your third beer at Joe's Crab House.
Correct: We went west through the forest...
Incorrect: So we're going west through the forest...
(Exceptions may be made on a case-by-case basis for missions involving time travel or alternate dimensions.)
8) Numbers
Please spell out numbers from zero to nine. Numbers 10 and above should be numerals. If one more smartass asks me about imaginary numbers, I will not be responsible for my actions.
Equations should be set off from text with spaces and indentation. I will not edit equations, so you're on your own there. (But be aware, if you don't edit your own equations and McKay or Carter catches an error, you'll never hear the end of it.)
10) Titles
The military has official titles and approved abbreviations for a reason. You may not refer to Gen. O'Neill, the UN, or the president of the United States as TPTB. Or the Big Cheese
12) Punctuation
We use the serial or Oxford comma. For example: Gen. Hammond called the Pentagon, the White House, and the CIA.
Yes, I really care about this. And it doesn't matter if that makes me a geek, because you still have to get my approval on mission reports.
20) References
References should strictly adhere to Chicago style. Since I don't trust a single one of you to do that correctly, just give me as much information about where you found it as you can and I'll write the damn thing.
However, it is a rare occasion that a mission report will require a reference. (For technical briefs, please see the relevant style sheet.) This means that you had better have a damn good reason for putting one in.
I will no longer edit references to comic books, Heinlein novels, or episodes of Wormhole X-treme! Anyone who includes them from now on will find that their reports have been translated into Urdu.
21) Other Issues
Not every sentence needs to have multiple words in italics. Really. I swear that I'm going to kill anyone who insists on italicizing every single goddamn word in their report.
In a similar vein, once you start putting quotation marks around every "questionable" word in your report, it loses all "meaning." "Quotation marks" are only for--get this--quotations.
22) Spelling and Capitalization
Please check Merriam-Webster for hyphenation and proper spelling of more common words. You may use http://www.m-w.com if you don't have a dictionary in your office. Below is the SGC-preferred spelling for words that do not appear in Merriam-Webster. Pay special attention to the placement of apostrophes, as they are there for a reason. You may not simply throw in an apostrophe any old place.
Ancient
Asgard (Not "little grey men")
Asuran
DHD or dial-home device
GDO (Not "garage door opener." Why? Because it sounds dumb, that's why.)
Genii (Not "traitorous bastards," even if they are.)
Goa'uld
Jaffa
kree
Lantean system
MALP or mobile analytic laboratory probe (Not "canary in a coal mine.")
naquadah
Ori
Prior
Re'tu
stardrive (Not a generic term, even if it's lowercase.)
Stargate (Not "ring of the Ancestors" or "swimming pool".)
symbiote (Not "snake" or "junior" or whatever bloody term Gen. O'Neill has invented this week.)
Tok'ra
Tollan
tretonin
Wormhole X-Treme! (I live in hope that nobody will ever have to write about this again.)
Wraith (Not "vampires" or "ugly mo-fos". Yes, Mitchell, I'm looking at you.)
za'tarc (Not "brainwashed traitor" or "Carter's boyfriend")
zat'nik'tel (Two apostrophes. Put them in the right place or fear my wrath. And no "zat gun," please. Is this the Wild West?)
ZPM or zero point module (Yes, McKay, you can say "zed pee em," just don't write it.)
This entry was originally posted at http://mara.dreamwidth.org/80467.html, where there are
comments. Please feel free to comment either here or there.
Genre: Humor
Notes: This is Penknife's fault, I swear. By the way, I welcome additions to this style sheet, if you have any thoughts on what this poor editor must see every day.
1) Report Length
Do not try any tricks with font size, margins, or line spacing to make your report longer or shorter. I have seen them all. Really. Even the one where you change the leading.
5) Voice
Reports must be written in the active--not passive--voice. That is, "my team blew up the enemy's bunker" is correct. "The enemy bunker was blown up" is only correct if you could not identify the culprit even under oath during a court martial.
On a related note, please use pronouns such as "I" and "we." "I took my team deeper into the temple," for example. If I read one more sentence like "the team went deeper into the temple," I will scream. At you.
6) Tense
Reports should also be in the past tense. You are giving a formal report of an event that occurred in the past, not telling the story over your third beer at Joe's Crab House.
Correct: We went west through the forest...
Incorrect: So we're going west through the forest...
(Exceptions may be made on a case-by-case basis for missions involving time travel or alternate dimensions.)
8) Numbers
Please spell out numbers from zero to nine. Numbers 10 and above should be numerals. If one more smartass asks me about imaginary numbers, I will not be responsible for my actions.
Equations should be set off from text with spaces and indentation. I will not edit equations, so you're on your own there. (But be aware, if you don't edit your own equations and McKay or Carter catches an error, you'll never hear the end of it.)
10) Titles
The military has official titles and approved abbreviations for a reason. You may not refer to Gen. O'Neill, the UN, or the president of the United States as TPTB. Or the Big Cheese
12) Punctuation
We use the serial or Oxford comma. For example: Gen. Hammond called the Pentagon, the White House, and the CIA.
Yes, I really care about this. And it doesn't matter if that makes me a geek, because you still have to get my approval on mission reports.
20) References
References should strictly adhere to Chicago style. Since I don't trust a single one of you to do that correctly, just give me as much information about where you found it as you can and I'll write the damn thing.
However, it is a rare occasion that a mission report will require a reference. (For technical briefs, please see the relevant style sheet.) This means that you had better have a damn good reason for putting one in.
I will no longer edit references to comic books, Heinlein novels, or episodes of Wormhole X-treme! Anyone who includes them from now on will find that their reports have been translated into Urdu.
21) Other Issues
Not every sentence needs to have multiple words in italics. Really. I swear that I'm going to kill anyone who insists on italicizing every single goddamn word in their report.
In a similar vein, once you start putting quotation marks around every "questionable" word in your report, it loses all "meaning." "Quotation marks" are only for--get this--quotations.
22) Spelling and Capitalization
Please check Merriam-Webster for hyphenation and proper spelling of more common words. You may use http://www.m-w.com if you don't have a dictionary in your office. Below is the SGC-preferred spelling for words that do not appear in Merriam-Webster. Pay special attention to the placement of apostrophes, as they are there for a reason. You may not simply throw in an apostrophe any old place.
Ancient
Asgard (Not "little grey men")
Asuran
DHD or dial-home device
GDO (Not "garage door opener." Why? Because it sounds dumb, that's why.)
Genii (Not "traitorous bastards," even if they are.)
Goa'uld
Jaffa
kree
Lantean system
MALP or mobile analytic laboratory probe (Not "canary in a coal mine.")
naquadah
Ori
Prior
Re'tu
stardrive (Not a generic term, even if it's lowercase.)
Stargate (Not "ring of the Ancestors" or "swimming pool".)
symbiote (Not "snake" or "junior" or whatever bloody term Gen. O'Neill has invented this week.)
Tok'ra
Tollan
tretonin
Wormhole X-Treme! (I live in hope that nobody will ever have to write about this again.)
Wraith (Not "vampires" or "ugly mo-fos". Yes, Mitchell, I'm looking at you.)
za'tarc (Not "brainwashed traitor" or "Carter's boyfriend")
zat'nik'tel (Two apostrophes. Put them in the right place or fear my wrath. And no "zat gun," please. Is this the Wild West?)
ZPM or zero point module (Yes, McKay, you can say "zed pee em," just don't write it.)
This entry was originally posted at http://mara.dreamwidth.org/80467.html, where there are
comments. Please feel free to comment either here or there.