active vs. passive voice

[Leonard C. Porrello]

I'm with Nina, and Janice may be right. I don't have strong convictions
one way or the other. It does seem to me that if the user didn't bother
reading both sentences before executing the task, he probably won't go
back to verify what happened against the text anyway. I'd argue, then,
that if he is going to read both sentences at all, it will be before
executing the task. Granted that, would you (Janice) still object to my
grammar?

I do like Janice's suggestion of front-loading warnings. At the same
time, I worry that, being out of context, the reader may not take them
in anyway.

Leonard C. Porrello
SoleraTec LLC
www.soleratec.com
 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+leonard.porrello=soleratec.com at lists.techwr-l.com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+leonard.porrello=soleratec.com at lists.techwr-l.c
om] On Behalf Of Nina Rogers
Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2008 2:43 PM
To: Janice Gelb; techwr-l at lists.techwr-l.com
Subject: RE: active vs. passive voice

I am a tech writer, so I shouldn't admit this, but ... while I'm pretty
good about reading manuals (and not just looking for how I could have
written them better, ha ha), I'm very bad about clicking buttons as soon
as I read that I'm supposed to click them. For example, if I were
sitting in a military aircraft, reading the manual instruction that
says, "Press the EJECT button to forcibly eject yourself from the
plane," I would never get past "Press the EJECT ..."

Nina Rogers, Technical Writer
Tax Development (Federal)
Drake Software

-----Original Message-----

One could equally assume that readers are doing the
action when you tell them to do so and that they they
read the result after they've performed the action.
(As we all know, sometimes users just perform actions
by guesswork without reading any documentation at all!)

I think it's dangerous to assume that readers read the
explanatory text before they commit themselves to
performing an action. I often ask writers to move any
warning or information that it's important for the
reader to know before performing an action to a location
prior to the imperative instruction to avoid a situation
where the reader clicks first and then finds out later
that this action wasn't appropriate for the situation.

-- Janice
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