Re: Dropping the you? The Asian response to imperative voice.

[Monica Cellio <cellio -at- pobox -dot- com>]

> In the text above, "users" is not referring to the reader,
> it's referring to the reader's users. 

Right.  This is a case where we are addressing the reader (second person)
and talking about the reader's users.  (I made up the specific example
on the fly, but this is the type of reader I'm writing for.)  I wondered 
how people who prefer imperative styles would speak to the reader in that 
case without sounding stilted.  You can write "it is recommended..." and 
"the users" instead of "we recommend..." and "your users", but that 
doesn't read as well to my eye. 

> I believe the wording under discussion is whether to say
> "user" when talking to the reader directly (e.g., "This
> feature enables the user to..." vs "This feature enables
> you to...").

If I'm reading a manual that describes a task I'm trying to perform,
I find constant uses of "the user" a little off-putting, as if this
is a theoretical discussion.  No, if I'm trying to get DocBook to
format my darn table correctly, a theoretical discussion is the last
thing I want. :-)  So this reader would prefer second-person or imperative
over "the user".

Monica


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