Re: Hiring Publications Managers

[Dick Margulis <margulis -at- fiam -dot- net>]

Kevin,

I agree with you. However Kelley's style is direct. Some people believe 
it is rude to say what you mean when there is an alternative of being 
indirect, and those people took offense. Many of those same people take 
offense at things I write from time to time, as well. Now, personally, I 
think that's their problem, not yours, Kelley's, or mine. But 
professionally, I take these occasions as an opportunity to think about 
writing style, word choice, diction, as it relates to this particular 
audience--or rather this significant subset of the general audience.

I'm still learining--painfully slowly--how to set forth an opinion on 
anything more significant than the best way to copy a graphic in 
Acrobat--without unintentionally hurting someone's feelings. (I have no 
problem with hurting them intentionally; it's only the unintentional 
hurting I'm trying to get a handle on.)

This is the same issue we deal with when we discuss localization issues. 
We've had discussion on this list of whether the US informal, second 
person style of procedure writing is acceptable in, say, Japan--or even 
the UK. Well, here we act as if we are among friends and can say what we 
think without regard for such niceties, but we find out, time after 
time, that some of our friends are more easily offended than you or I.

As I said, it's an interesting problem in audience analysis. There are 
days when I raise my dudgeon and refuse to eviscerate my prose to make 
it inoffensive, and I pay the consequences in terms of vituperative 
flames. But on days when I want to avoid paying that price, I try to 
reread what I've written from the point of view of someone with an 
indirect style. (As I said, I'm not very good at this, but I practice.)

Dick

Kevin McGee wrote: