Posts Tagged ‘Writing Style’
Conversational Style in Communicating Technical Information - Image: healingdream / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Do you think it is ever appropriate to use the word you in technical documents?
At one company, where I was working as a contract freelance writer on a technical-writing project, the company’s lead technical writer decreed that no one was to use the word you in any technical document. Ever. Under any circumstances. For any reason whatsoever. He considered it too unscientific and non-technical.
For example, we were supposed to write: After the user enters the data, he or she should check the form before clicking the Submit button, instead of: After you enter the data, check the form before clicking the Submit button.
Technical Style
The first example sentence illustrates technical or scientific style, which is impersonal and presents content in a way that largely avoids personal pronouns (no you allowed, for example) and does not directly address the reader. This style favors the passive voice (which also helps avoid those pesky pronouns) and promotes nominalization (a process in which verbs are turned, sometimes illegally and indecorously, into nouns).
If you have ever read texts overflowing with words like optimization, monetization and the like—nouns created from verbs by the writer—then you are familiar with the technique of nominalization.
Technical style is frequently used in processes and procedures, which place the emphasis on the sequence of the action rather than on giving directions to the reader. In other words, a step is described, not written as an order or directive. Thus, the user is addressed indirectly and impersonally in the third person as he, she, one, the operator, the technician, the user, and so on.
All of that is supposed to sound more technical and scientific—as well as more objective and authoritative, in the opinion of some.
Conversational Style
The second example sentence shows conversational style, in which you write to readers as though you are speaking to them. This style approves of using personal pronouns (you, for example) as well as the judicious use of contractions (don’t instead of do not).
As a bonus, conversational style encourages the use of the active voice, which adds conviction and liveliness to writing, and is almost always more concise than the passive voice. Readers find “action verbs” appealing, because such verbs are direct and show motion.
Using a conversational tone in technical communication can be quite effective and very engaging, as long as you don’t overdo it. Specifically, “not overdoing it” means to refrain from writing in a colloquial or chatty manner, using slang, and attempting to be humorous.
Conversational style is often used when writing directions, because you are telling the reader how to complete an action. Thus, the writer addresses the reader as you. For example: You must not enter a space between the numbers in this field. When writers use the command form of a verb, however, the you is not explicitly stated: Use only clean tools.
Striking a Balance
So, to you or not to you, that is the question.
In my opinion, it is preferable first to define and understand your audience, define the purpose of the document and understand your company’s communications objectives for the document, and then decide on a case-by-case basis whether to use the word you (and by implication, a more conversational style).
Given those parameters, I’m pretty certain you won’t be able to decide to “always” or “never” use the word you. It’s more likely you’ll find it necessary to strike a balance regarding its usage.
Even if your company has a style guide that addresses this issue, I’ll bet there will be times when its rules about when to use the word you will need some tweaking. What matters, after all, is how well you communicate with your audience, your customers, and if you have to bend a rule or make an occasional exception, then so be it. (Just be sure to discuss it with your manager first, of course.)
What do you think? Has the issue of using the word you in technical documents ever become a bone of contention in your company? Elizabeth Lexleigh LexPower The Write Ideas
What Is Technical Writing?
Posted on: June 21, 2010
In recent decades, technical writing has been particularly associated with engineering, computer hardware and software, and scientific fields in general.
However, we all know that technical content may appear in many other types of writing, such as science fiction. Newspapers, magazines and other media may also publish articles or videos that deal with technical subjects. Should we include those in the category of “technical writing”?
And what about the earliest cuneiform tablets unearthed in Sumeria (now part of Iraq) that document agricultural information, astronomical knowledge, medical procedures and business practices? Are those 6,000-year-old clay tablets examples of technical writing?
Consider the plans for the vast harbor-works of Pharos, the lighthouse island off what eventually became Alexandria (Egypt), which were drawn up by Cretan and Phoenician marine architects near the end of the third millennium BCE. Do those count as “technical writing”?
Or do we insist that “technical writing” has only become a valid practice since the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, when the modern scientific revolution began?
If we define technical writing as follows, then I think, as the examples above suggest, we could argue that technical writing has existed since writing was invented:
- Focuses on the technical details of any field or subject
- Has a specific purpose, which informs the entire document
- Addresses a well-defined audience
- Contains content worth reading
- Gears the content to the particular audience
- Values facts (which can be verified) and accuracy
- Uses a simple but varied style
- Has a consistent logical organization
- Maintains an objective, impartial tone
Would you agree with this definition? Would you add anything? Must all of these attributes be present for material to be labeled as “technical writing”?
I’d like to hear what you think. Elizabeth Lexleigh The Write Ideas LexPower
LexPower 
What Do Metaphors Say?
Posted by: lexpower on: June 22, 2011
Can we imagine any part of our life without using a metaphor? Do we need metaphors to create meaning? (Click image for credit and source)
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All is connected, all is real, and all is metaphor.
Do you think this statement is true?
Recently I ran across a website of metaphor examples. According to its author, the site is based on the idea that metaphorical relationships can be considered to be “universal” in scope: a sort of Rosetta Stone between disciplines, if you will.
A related view is that metaphors provide a set of tools to compare two (seemingly) unlike things that are alike in at least one important way. Pick the tool of your choice – simile, analogy, personification, and others – and use it to explore and better understand the unknowns.
Then there’s this definition: “A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea … Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via association, comparison or resemblance.”
And what of visual metaphors? Cognitive metaphors? Root metaphors?
If you follow some of the links in this post, you will see that metaphors of all kinds appear to be an indispensable key to understanding as well as creating our reality. They also allow us to connect to other forms of reality and to live beyond the boundaries of our own space.
Could we write, or communicate in any way, without metaphors?
Can you think of any aspect of your life that is metaphor-free?
If you were deprived of all metaphors, could you exist?
Do you think humans are responsible for creating metaphors, or do we just notice all the connections around us and attempt to describe their interfaces and correspondences?
In a recent post titled Language: The Government Wants Your Metaphors, I discussed IARPA’s Metaphor Program, which seeks to “exploit the fact that metaphors are pervasive in everyday talk and reveal the underlying beliefs and worldviews of members of a culture” in order to “characterize differing cultural perspectives associated with case studies of the types of interest to the Intelligence Community.”
Although analytically and intellectually admirable, at least as a mathematical construct, such a project may ultimately prove too daunting to be practicable, because what metaphors say is so complex, interlocking and interrelated that it seems quite a challenge to untangle all the possible meanings and connections. And never mind that all of those qualities are dynamic.
If, as some suggest, metaphors are the foundation of our conceptual systems, then apparently we require them in order to think and act.
And if we can only understand or experience one thing in terms of another, that is, by using metaphors, then what don’t metaphors say?
Now it’s your turn: Do you think metaphors are the engine of communication? Could language itself be construed as a form of metaphor for life? Without communication of all kinds would life exist? Thanks for leaving your comments! Elizabeth Lexleigh LexPower The Write Ideas