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Subject:RE: How formal or informal From:"Cindy Parker-Mart" <cparker -at- fuse -dot- net> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 8 Mar 2001 21:26:13 -0500
Wow, I've posted twice in a one day...
Summary, Jo wants to know if it's ok to write more informal documents
particularly for programmers who use English as a second lang.
This poses a more broad question to me. Most of the documentation I produce
is web-based. I have taken the informal approach on everything except the
actual procedure and sometimes not even in that case. I find that a more
'conversational' tone works extremely well for my customers. I am wondering
if that is incorrect. I reserve the formal writing for proposals, letters
to customers and in certain places in our user manuals. Is this correct or
am I getting lazy? I think Jo is on target. Whatever works to convey the
message to the user is most certainly appropriate in my opinion. I don't
get excited about the hard and fast rules anymore. My goal is to
communicate and that's it.
I'm really looking forward to this thread. Perhaps I've been out of school
to long or I've adapted to meet the changin' times.
Regards,
C.
Cindy Parker-Mart.
Information Engineer, Online Architecture
ZoomTown.com
IPCC 01, the IEEE International Professional Communication Conference,
October 24-27, 2001 at historic La Fonda in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.
CALL FOR PAPERS OPEN UNTIL MARCH 15. http://ieeepcs.org/2001/
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