How should important terms be emphasized in documentation?
- by John Rasch
Software will often introduce and formalize concepts that may have ambiguous definitions in the real world. For example, in an attendance tracking system, an Occurrence refers to an Excused Absence, an Unexcused Absence, or a Tardy.
In technical documentation (both in helper text and in user guides, etc), should these concepts be proper nouns, and as such, should they be capitalized in usage?
In other words, which of the following examples is more appropriate:
After an Occurrence has been created,
it may be converted into an Excused
Absence once the Approval Form has
been uploaded.
or
After an occurrence has been created,
it may be converted into an excused
absence once the approval form has
been uploaded.
