Re: Humor as a communication technique

["Pilipovich, Kathleen" <Kathleen -dot- Pilipovich-1 -at- KMAIL -dot- KSC -dot- NASA -dot- GOV>]

        > Lisa Comeau wrote: "My fave was my grade 11
        > Physics teacher who discussed the principles
        > of accelleration and decelleration by using the
        > example of swinging a cat  over your head by it's
        > tail and then letting it go..."

        > Laurel Nelson wrote: "I found the above statement
        > very offensive. To me, cruelty to animals is not
        > funny even when it's imaginery. As some people
        > have said, you have to be very careful when
        > using humor. It's all a matter of perception."

I agree with Laurel and others. Be careful about humor.
You can turn folks off in a hurry. Anyways, the best
example I've seen of humor in a technical document
was the user guide for Norton Utilities v6.0 for DOS.
The procedures were straight forward and easy to
follow. Chapters 1 and 2 explained how hard drives
work and what can go wrong with them. He added
humor in different parts of those chapters that broke
up the technical information and kept the reader's
interest. I don't have the book any more so this won't
be an exact quote. In the section where he talked
about what causes a hard drive to fail, he says
head crashes, ....., and things that go bump in
the night. Very light, not offensive, and appropriately
placed - IMO.

Kathy Pilipovich
United Space Alliance
407-861-7723, USK-252