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Re: Can style trump grammar rules?

Subject: Re: Can style trump grammar rules?
From: "William Sherman" <bsherman77 -at- embarqmail -dot- com>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 12:24:12 -0400


----- Original Message ----- From: "Laura Lemay" <lemay -at- lauralemay -dot- com>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2014 12:09 PM
Subject: Re: Can style trump grammar rules?




... In technical writing our purpose is to solve our customer's problems. The customer is often already annoyed when they consult our work, so our goal is to present the information as clearly and unobtrusively as possible. The more the reader has to think about what you're trying to say, the less you are solving that reader's problems. Design-for-design's sake in tech writing is unwelcome. It is what a long-absent techwr-l list subscriber once called, derisively, "font fondling."


Truer words were never spoken. I've told people frequently, people don't read our books for fun, they read them because their world has just fallen apart, someone is on there back to fix things, and they are desperate for any information that will help them out of a jam. They don't need fluff; they need answers.

I read this the other night on a website about F-14 fighters.


I'll never forget manning my jet late one night in March with LT Mark "FUN" Mhley following me; briefing me on how to employ JDAM. As I finally finished the preflight, I turned to FUN and said "Brother, I need the Reader's Digest version. Remember, I'm attention deficit, it's dark, and I have DCAG (Deputy Commander of the Air Group) in my trunk. Make it fighter pilot-proof!" And he did.

http://www.fencecheck.com/content/index.php?title=Remembering_the_F-14


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