English Usage Guidelines and Recommendations

KDE documentation is written in standard US English (rather than any other regional variety of English). We have a set of standard forms of certain words (such as “email” instead of “e-mail”) to improve consistency across all documentation. Work is underway to expand and formalize this list, but for the moment, it is located at http://www.kde.me.uk/index.php?page=Consistency+rules. There are also standard names for KDE widgets, which are listed in Appendix B

A good way to catch simple errors is to read the text out loud, or have someone else read it to you. Passages that don't flow easily or have obviously awkward construction of the type you may miss on the screen, will usually become blindingly obvious when you hear them. This is especially the case with detecting really long sentences, as you will run out of breath and turn blue.

Some tips about writing readable sentences:

Remember, we have also an active proofreading team, and there is always someone to help you with grammar, so just write and have fun!