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Alan Alda <alan4077alda -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote:
>
[snip]
> The current guide has a sentence,
> "Ensure that <b>Display</b> is checked, or click on it
> to clear it, as required"
> Assume that this sentence occurs in such a context
> that the reader understands what is being said. As you
> may have noticed, the above sentence contains "click
> on". I have recently started technical writing, but
> have already read at several places that "click on"
> should be avoided and simply "click" should be used
> instead.
> Now heres the corrected sentence:
> "Ensure that <b>Display</b> is checked, or click it to
> clear it, as required"
> Somehow, the earlier sentence with the "click on"
> sounds better to me. It seems to me that simply
> "click" is better when you are saying "Click Ok..."
> but when are are saying "click it", it does not sound
> very good, at least to me.
>
In our style guide, "click" is preferred to "click on" because
the "on" is redundant. In either case, the action is a click
of the mouse button and the user will be clear on what to do
regardless of whether the word "on" is present. I agree that
the "it" in the sentence above sounds awkward but that may
be because the sentence itself is a bit awkward. You could
really remove that "it" from the sentence and retain the
meaning.
>
>I have considered revising
> the entire sentence in different ways, one of which
> is:
> "Ensure that <b>Display</b> is checked, or click
> <b>Display</b> to clear it, as required (as required
> is linked to a page which describes when it may be
> required to do so)"
>
I agree with your decision to completely redo the
sentence. Not knowing why the user is selecting or
deseleting the check box makes this a bit difficult.
However, i'd vote for something like:
"Selecting the Display check box displays XXX.
Deselect the check box to hide XXX."
*********************************************************************
Janice Gelb | Just speaking for me, not Sun.
janice -dot- gelb -at- eng -dot- sun -dot- com | http://www.geocities.com/Area51/8018/
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