On Friday 01 September 2006 11:35, Karsten Wade <kwade@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > We need to discuss our writing style approach; I think it's too late for > FC6, so we need to stick with what works for now. But Paul W. Frields > challenged me with the idea of empowering the user and having a specific > style to support that. > > In traditional tech writing, we try not to use pronouns yet keep an > active voice. It makes for a cleaner writing, easier to translate, and > has fewer assumptions implied about the reader, which helps to make it > more accessible. It also sounds less like marketspeak[1] and > cheerleader-writing[2]. > ... > > However, a blanket rule to "never use 'you'" might be wrong. At the > least, we can discuss here what we want to do. Perhaps we can break > some new ground, or at least join the 21st century. ;-D > First, I'd like to point out that I haven't forgotten about the Style Guide, and I fully intend to consider this thread when I resume work on it. I come from the camp of "never use 'you' unless engaging the reader directly" -- an approach that has served me well. As I work on the Style Guide, I intend to make it an example of the best case scenario for technical writing and avoid "you" altogether, but some documents, particularly how-tos and FAQs, will take a slightly different style, where "you" might sometimes be appropriate. Marketing materials, such as banners and flyers, are a whole different ballgame. Their styles are very different from the technical documents but are something we will sometimes tackle. I will try to cover some of the style variations in the Style Guide as it progresses. -- Patrick "The N-Man" Barnes nman64@xxxxxxxxx http://www.n-man.com/ LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/nman64 Have I been helpful? Rate my assistance! http://rate.affero.net/nman64/ --
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