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I recently came across a wonderful essay on technical writing by Morris Freedman, who says that “technical writing calls for the same kind of attention and must be judged by the same standards as any other kind of writing; indeed, it calls for a greater attention and for higher standards.”
In other words, readers will be less likely to listen to what you have to say if your writing is without care and precision. It’s a fairly lengthy essay, so I’ll boil it down a bit.
There are seven, overlapping, sins that frequently occur in writing; these errors are seen in technical writing more than elsewhere, but can be applied to just about anything you are writing from fiction to stereo instructions. One should be aware, when proof reading that these errors occur in groups rather than on an individual basis.
The following list outlines the details of these Sins:
“Sin 1: Indifference.” This is the use of “shortcuts of expression, elliptical diction, sloppy organization, brining up points and letting them hang unresolved, improper or inadequate labeling of graphic material, and the like.” Through your apathy, you’ve shown the reader “an attitude of disrespect: Caveat lector – let the reader beware.” You can avoid this sin by taking the time to be clear and concise.
“Sin 2: Fuzziness.” Fuzziness of communication is the use of “vague words, meaningless words” or using the “wrong words” all together. “The reader uses his own experience to supply the meaning in such writing.” In order to avoid this sin: “use concrete, specific words and phrases whenever you can, and use only those words whose meaning you are sure of.”
“Sin 3: Emptiness.” This “is the use of jargon and big words, pretentious ones, where perfectly appropriate and acceptable small words are available.”
“Sin 4: Wordiness.” “Sin 4 is an extension of sin 3.” This is the use of “more words than necessary to do the job.” To avoid committing these sins, simply reverse the mechanism: say what you have to in the fewest and clearest words possible.
“Sin 5: Bad Habits.” This is “use of pat phrases, awkward expressions, confusing sentence structure, that have, unfortunately, become second nature.”
“Sin 6: Deadly Passive.” This is the use of the passive that “takes the life out of writing, making everything impersonal, eternal, remote and dead.” Writers will often use this sin as a way to make “their subject seem weightier, and their accomplishment more impressive.”
“Sin 7: Mechanical Errors.” This sin is “the easiest one to recognize, the easiest one to deal with quantitatively, so to speak, and the easiest one to resist. These are dangling participles and other types of poorly placed modifiers, and ambiguous references amongst others.
“The seven sins of technical writing are to be avoided not so much by a specific awareness of each, accompanied by specific penance for each, as by a more general awareness, by an attitude toward subject matter writing process, and reader that can be best described as respectful.” …The only aids depend on are… a good dictionary, …any of the several volumes by H. W. Fowler, and occasional essays, here and there.”
“Technical writing must be as rationally shaped as a technical object. …It is pointless for the design engineer to use three bolts where one would do. …Technical writing – informative writing of any sort—should be clean, as functional, as inevitable as any modern machine designed to do a job well.”
Brad
