TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
I think the kind of consistency you're discussing is
very important, and that it's one of the things that
distinguishes professional writers from amateurs. It
adds value to the work, eases the burden of the
reader, and makes the work more useful.
Though I generally dislike human-to-computer
similes, I sometimes use one to explain the
importance of consistency to scoffers.
The human mind has some fabulous software. For
example, our Synonym Inference Engine (SIE) is
totally awesome. We can, as a background process,
determine that terms with twelve degrees of
separation are synonyms, based solely on context,
punctuation frequency, and humidity.
HowEVER, we only have 64K of RAM. And the SIE takes
48K, just idling. Forcing a reader to load and
launch the SIE has a tremendous negative impact on
the program we really wanted to run, Comprehension
2000.
