Idiot Audience

[DURL <durl -at- BUFFNET -dot- NET>]

Hi Tim
        Yeah, I did talk to about ten operators out of a total of maybe
24. (Had to sneak past mgmt to do it!!) They were all t'd off. The most
use the manual ever got was a
thumb-through to demonstrate how bad it was. The "8th grade reading
level" directive
should never have been used, IMO, in that particular environment. Would
have been better to say, "For operator with one year exp. who has his NYS
certification." Which I did in my stuff. Which is not to claim anybody
ever read mine cover-to-cover, either.
        On the basis of absolutely no research, I don't believe that
sentence length and number of syllables and words per sentence equates to
any meaningful reading level, once you're talking about adult readers.
(Don't have O re: kids.)
         I did a search a couple of years ago for
another metric. Somebody was working on one based on syntax, which makes
more sense to me. For example, active voice and compound sentences, using
a vocab that
the target audience knows, is going to be more readable than, say,
single-syllable, short complex sentences in passive voice.

        My audience would've found

        "The cat which I bought was eaten by the dog"

                tougher to comprehend than

        "Flocculation and sedimentation remove particles from raw water"

because of their work & the fact that more than half weren't recreational
readers.
        Further, I think contractions (also humor) can cause
usability problems in
some
audiences, for reasons having to do with source credibility, not reading
level.
        But you *almost* caught me! I admit to using a rhetorical device!!
BTW, what's your source for the 8th grade newspaper writing?!!!

        Mary (Home 1, Visitors 1)

Mary Durlak  Erie Documentation Inc.
East Aurora, New York (near Buffalo)
durl -at- buffnet -dot- net

On Mon, 17 Nov 1997, Tim Altom wrote:

> At 10:14 AM 11/17/97 -0500, you wrote:
> >
> I think there's a vast difference between "writing down" and writing to a
> level, although you're right that the distinction is often lost on the
> clumsier writer and/or boss. Newspapers, after all, are generally written to
> an 8th grade level, and PhDs don't avoid them because of that. In the
> example you cited, your audience may well have been too well-versed in the
> subject to take kindly to the phrasing. But when you say "Guess how many
> people read it," does that mean somebody checked to see how many read it? Or
> is your rhetorical question a vent of frustration? Did you get back numerous
> nasty comments from the field?
>
> Writing to the level doesn't mean "baby talk". That's demeaning even to new
> readers. It means shortening sentences, using fewer syllables, using
> contractions, friendly construction, and not making assumptions about what
> the user already knows. I've known a good many readers with advanced degrees
> who bubbled over on getting something truly readable that was actually
> pitched to a junior high school level.
>
> Tim Altom
> Vice President, Simply Written, Inc.
> 317.899.5882 (voice) 317.899.5987 (fax)
> FrameMaker support  ForeHelp support
> FrameMaker Conversions
> PDF Consulting and Production
>
> Posts: mailto:techwr-l -at- listserv -dot- okstate -dot- edu
> Commands: mailto:listserv -at- listserv -dot- okstate -dot- edu (e.g. SIGNOFF TECHWR-L)
> Archives: http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html,
> Subjects: JOB:, QUESTION:, SUMMARY:, ANNOUNCE:, or none of these.
>
>
>

Posts: mailto:techwr-l -at- listserv -dot- okstate -dot- edu
Commands: mailto:listserv -at- listserv -dot- okstate -dot- edu (e.g. SIGNOFF TECHWR-L)
Archives: http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html,
	http://www.documentation.com/, or http://www.dejanews.com/
Subjects: JOB:, QUESTION:, SUMMARY:, ANNOUNCE:, or none of these.