RE: [Fwd: Re: Avoid the Semicolon in Tech Writing?]

["Anameier, Christine A - Eagan, MN" <christine -dot- a -dot- anameier -at- usps -dot- gov>]

Eric Dunn suggested:
> Why not do an informal study. Give several people
> (ideally typical readers of your manuals) the example
> given in another post.

The "A; B, C, and D; E" example is a case where I would always use a
bulleted list--not a semicolon. The potential for confusion is just too
high there, especially if it's in a context where we're asking the
reader to interpret and act on those instructions.

For me, a better example would be a case where the semicolon joins two
clauses:

"The Foo department answers incoming calls about the Whizbo application;
questions on policy are redirected to the Bar department."

In this case, "questions on policy" are implied to be part of the
"incoming calls." If you separate this into two sentences with a full
stop in between, you're giving fewer clues to the reader. The world
wouldn't end--the paragraph would be intelligible--but you'd lose an
opportunity to nudge the reader in the right direction. 

You could recast the whole thing as "The Foo department answers incoming
calls about the Whizbo application and redirects policy questions to the
Bar department." But I prefer the semicolon version: it keeps the focus
where it should be. The single-sentence version emphasizes that the Foo
department redirects policy questions--as well as answering incoming
calls and perhaps making coffee for visitors and hosting the company
picnic. It's just one of the many valuable services of the Foo
department. The semicolon version, on the other hand, differentiates
policy questions from other calls and emphasizes that *those* questions
are redirected.

Did any of you trip over the colon I used a couple sentences ago?  I
didn't think so. <g>

Sure, some of the subtleties may be lost on *some* readers, but not all
readers--and those who don't get the subtle nudges surely aren't going
to stop and stare at the semicolon. I don't see how they can be both (a)
ignorant of the meaning of punctuation and (b) fixated on the meaning of
punctuation, to the point where they're derailed by an unfamiliar mark.

Christine
(on digest; thanks for cc'ing me)