Referring to 4/F, I would like to share my views on the translation of “General Instruction - 一般指南”
Instruction is an uncountable noun and means teaching etc. (see Oxford Advanced Learner’s dictionary of Current English). When instruction is in plural form, instructions means an order, something mandatory, or something strongly recommended (i.e. 指令,指示,训令,批示,训词,批件 see http://www.sentbase.com/default.aspx?q=instructions ).
(There was a contractual claim in a building project, and the focus of argument was whether the “Site Instruction” issued by the Engineer was an order, which the Contractor had to follow. Unfortunately, the Engineer forgot to add the “s” after “Instruction”.)
For translating a technical paper, the difference between “instruction” and “instructions” may not be significant. However, when drafting something related to business (i.e. may related to commercial laws, contract law etc), we should be careful.
“General” is also an interesting word. It may mean 一般, but it is also used to describe something important, essential etc. (such as general manager, see http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/general)
I found that “general” is sometimes inappropriately translated as “普通, 一般”. For example, a university course “General Chemistry” is commonly translated as “普通化学”. However, I consider that “基础化学” may be better, as “General Chemistry” is in fact a compulsory course providing the fundamental and essential knowledge of chemistry that all science and engineering students should have in their university study.
It is widely accepted that “General Instructions” can be translated as “一般指南” (although sometimes it may be substantially an important, mandatory direction). However, is there any better translation?