Re: Active versus passive

[John Posada <jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

> > > >        Click the Report button. The report is generated.
> > > > Is this also unclear?
> 
> I wrote:
> 
> > > It is only somewhat unclear, but worse, it is not
> > > as helpful as it could be.
> > 
> John Posada wrote:
> 
> > How is it somewhat unclear? "Do an action. This is the result."
> 
> It is somewhat unclear because you have only
> hinted at the causal relationship between the two events.

That's a joke, right?

> If you state the relationship explicitly (as in "to generate
> the report, click whatever") it will be MORE clear. Therefore,
> it is somewhat unclear as you have written it.

I apprciate you playing devil's advocate. However, I'm not writing
for someone out of the jungles who has never seen the written word. I
think for enough of a majority of people that I care about, if they
cannot make the tie between the two sentences, then, yes, they are
too stupid to use the software. There is such a thing as writing for
the user, and writing for someone who is too dense to be a user.
Chances are, if they cannot make the relationship between the two
sentences, it doesn't matter, because they didn't know how to turn
the computer on. 

I write instructions to be clear to the level of user our software is
targeted and I try my best to be as clear as possible. However, I
don't always write so that 100% of the people know WHY something
happens. I write so they can get something done. Do I care that they
don't know the motivation of the button and why it wants to create a
report? nah...I want them to know that if they press a button and
instead of a report being generated, their coffee pot turns on, that
something is wrong.

=====
John Posada, Senior Technical Writer
"I'm not flying. I'm falling...with style."
 -- Buzz Lightyear
mailto:john -at- tdandw -dot- com, 732-259-2874

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