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Subject:Re: Periods After Whole Numbers etc. From:WRONECKI Frederic DG <frederic -dot- wronecki -at- FRANCETELECOM -dot- FR> Date:Fri, 20 Sep 1996 11:52:25 +0200
Ian White wrote :
> The original purpose of the rigid IF...THEN construction is
> to ensure that even a machine can understand it. But we human readers
> react badly to writing that is mechanical and never varies, especially
> if there's a lot of it.
Ian, I'm afraid you're indulging into a "literary" vision of technical
writing : we're not writing poetry, but efficience.
A technical document must be thought of not as a "work of art", but as a
"device" which enacts the reader to perform an action. Thus the goal is not
to please the reader, but to have the lowest "error rate" when (s)he
performs the action.
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Frederic Wronecki
France Telecom, Paris, France
mailto : frederic -dot- wronecki -at- francetelecom -dot- fr
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