RE: Generally, what do you think of generally?

["Ackerson, Allan" <aackerson -at- logicon -dot- com>]

And how do ADVERBS help do that in technical writing?  

Cheers!
Al

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Baker [mailto:mbaker -at- omnimark -dot- com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2000 10:16 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: Generally, what do you think of generally?


Ackerson, Allan wrote

> Kill all adverbs in technical writing.  By definition, technical writing
is
> precise.  If you can't express a concept without generalizations become a
> novelist.

And while you're on, beat up the prepositions, cripple the pronouns, and
give the gerunds the flu.

Technical writing is a job title, not a writing style.

All we do is write how-to books. The diversity of subjects and audiences for
how-to books is far too broad to permit any generalizations about style or
appropriate language.

And, to be precise:

* Technical writing is not precise "by definition", it is precise "of
necessity", which is quite a different thing.

* You can't express a concept without generalization. A concept is a
generalization. (Webster's defines concept as "an abstract of generic idea
generalized from particular instances".)





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