61–70 of 327 posts
Writing clearly is like playing Tetris. Sentences should be presented with clauses that drop down and slot together efficiently. At the earliest available opportunity you drop in a block that completes the line and points are won/made. This can also make for rather dull writing and I appreciate the irony in this paragraph: > However, at first you may still find yourself writing the odd long sentence, especially when…
More interesting link here: https://plainlanguage.gov
Writing clearly is like playing Tetris. Sentences should be presented with clauses that drop down and slot together efficiently. At the earliest available opportunity you drop in a block that completes the line and points are won/made. This can also make for rather dull writing and I appreciate the irony in this paragraph: > However, at first you may still find yourself writing the odd long sentence, especially when…
Don't make your readers hold parts of the sentence in their head. Reorder or split sentences until it can be avoided. In other words, use a really small buffer. "You must fill form 331 unless you are over 60 years old, in which case you must fill form 445." "You must fill form 331. If you are over 60 years old, you must fill 445 instead." "If you are over 60 years old, you must fill form 445. Otherwise, you must fill…
This problem is further exacerbated by the wide variety of temporal arithmetic possibilities any such workflow might adopt.
The solution is to either combine the forms, or (in an interactive context) ask the user if they were born before 1960, then give them the right form.
English vs. business English. Pre-boarding is just boarding. Pre-booking is just booking. Pre-prefixing everything. Sigh. "Please revert" - you mean 'reply', not 'return to a former state'. "Ping me" - ugh. And my favourite.... "Learnings" - you mean lessons. "What drivings have you been on?" ... "What journeys have you been on?"
“Ping me” really threw me for a loop the first time I heard a non-tech say it in an obvious non-tech way. It literally has no other meaning outside of the ICMP echo utility; and the onomatopoeia of hitting glass. How did it enter the Business world?
Plain English has been a 'super power' for my report writing ever since it was drummed into me by a former CEO and MD at a finance and economic consultancy I worked at after University. "Style toward Clarity and Grace" by Joseph M. Williams is, imho, the most thorough, yet comprehensible, guide to how to write in Plain English. It goes beyond short 'do this, don't do that' guides by explaining why, and how, English c…
Writing clearly is like playing Tetris. Sentences should be presented with clauses that drop down and slot together efficiently. At the earliest available opportunity you drop in a block that completes the line and points are won/made. This can also make for rather dull writing and I appreciate the irony in this paragraph: > However, at first you may still find yourself writing the odd long sentence, especially when…
Personally I really dislike that example text. Starting a paragraph with However doesn't seem right. It ties the paragraph too intimately to the previous one, from which it should stand apart. Similarly, sometimes it may be ok to begin a sentence with But , but in this instance it doesn't read quite right. I'd have preferred: > At first you may still find yourself writing the odd long sentence, especially when trying…
> Starting a paragraph with However doesn't seem right.
If I were to do this, my paragraphs would become at least 3 times as long. Because much of my writing is complex enough that it takes about half a page to make the 'basic argument' and another half a page to explain the exceptions to the basic argument. I would put both half-pages in separate paragraphs. And I do think it makes sense to start the second paragraph with however. It clearly signals to the reader that:
* The previous point is finished (end of previous paragraph)
* Reading this paragraph without having read the previous one doesn't make sense.
I don't think my second point there is bad. The second paragraph deserves to be split from the first to delineate the arguments. It allows the reader time to drop all but the conclusion of the previous paragraph from their mind. But the second paragraph still depends heavily on the first.
I think the difference is, that simple or basic English only uses the 1000 most common words.
English vs. business English. Pre-boarding is just boarding. Pre-booking is just booking. Pre-prefixing everything. Sigh. "Please revert" - you mean 'reply', not 'return to a former state'. "Ping me" - ugh. And my favourite.... "Learnings" - you mean lessons. "What drivings have you been on?" ... "What journeys have you been on?"
“Ping me” really threw me for a loop the first time I heard a non-tech say it in an obvious non-tech way. It literally has no other meaning outside of the ICMP echo utility; and the onomatopoeia of hitting glass. How did it enter the Business world?
Acronyms are a plague, especially in technical documents. These documents may include a glossary, which it better than nothing, but if an acronym is only used once or twice in a document, why not use the full name instead?
Here is a couple of anecdotes:
- I once overheard a heated argument between a project manager and some over guy who criticized his work. Turned out, they weren't talking about the same project at all, only their acronyms where the same.
- In a report that explained why a particular proposal was selected over its competitors, one of the positive points was that their proposal was clearly written, understandable, and didn't contain any acronym.