Re: Dropping the you? The Asian response to imperative voice. (was: Re: you or he/it)

Subject: Re: Dropping the you? The Asian response to imperative voice. (was: Re: you or he/it)
From: Monica Cellio <cellio -at- pobox -dot- com>
To: TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 22:12:51 -0400 (EDT)

> Sean Hower noted: <<no one has suggested that you could simply adopt a
> style that uses neither you nor the user. That would eliminate this
> entire discussion. For example: You can use the color picker to set the
> background of your pages. can be rewritten as Use the color picker to
> set the background color for pages.>>

The imperative can work well for direct, procedural material. I'm
having trouble imagining how it would work when writing more open-ended
documentation, such as when giving advice about the alternatives available
to the reader. How would you rewrite something like this (in a
sys-admin or programming manual)? "If most of your users are located
in one facility, we recommend using the standard client-server
configuration. If most of your users are in remote locations, or if
any have slow or unreliable network connections, we instead recommend
using the multi-server configuration with the following modifications
[...]."

I generally find the second person to be the least-awkward approach,
even when writing for translation. But I also take to heart the
comments about negative feedback being hard to get; thanks for the
tip.

Monica Cellio
Senior SDK Developer
I don't represent my company (which is why I don't name it).

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Follow-Ups:

References:
re: you or he/it: From: Sean Hower
Dropping the you? The Asian response to imperative voice. (was: Re: you or he/it): From: Geoff Hart

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