The Official Publication of the STC Technical Editing SIG
Kathy Underwood
If you read what most pundits have to say about the subjunctive mood, you would be convinced that this little verb mood will soon pass into history along with “thee” and “thou.” Webster’s Concise Dictionary of English Usage (2002) provides this perspective:
Continue reading “The Technical Stylist: The Subjunctive Is Dead! Long Live the Subjunctive!”
Andrea Wenger
In response to popular demand (by Carolina Communiqué’s new editor-in-chief, Sheila Loring), and with input from members of the Technical Editing SIG, I’ve compiled a list of ten grammar and usage errors sometimes seen in technical communication. Avoid these errors to improve clarity and simplify the job of the reader—and the translator.
Kathy Underwood
“Rules may obviate faults, but can never confer beauties.”Samuel Johnson
Here’s a quiz for you grammar and language buffs: What grammatical principle (1) permits you to ignore syntax for the sake of sense and (2) gets you a bingo (50 extra points!) in Scrabble?
The answer is synesis (\ˈsi-nə-səs\), which Webster’s defines as follows:
a grammatical construction in which agreement or reference is according to sense rather than strict syntax (as anyone and them in “if anyone calls, tell them I am out”)
Synesis is sometimes calleda subcategory of notional agreement or notional concord (because of its following the notion of the meaning rather than the form or class of the word in question). The agreement in question is that Synesis concerns agreement between a verb and its subject or between a pronoun and its antecedent. While the practice is more common in British English, it turns up in American English more frequently than you might expect. A simple example of synesis would be “Eight years is a long time.” Here, we end up treating the notion “eight years” as a single unit, not a collection of units. In other words, we’re treating it just as we would the word “decade.”
But we more frequently follow synesis when we use certain “nouns of multitude,” such as amount, majority, bunch, group, a lot, percentage, and the like (Garner, 1998). The syntax in question most often consists of the noun of multitude plus the preposition of and a plural noun. An example would be “A small group of the swimmers were able to avoid the attacking sharks.” Conventional syntax (what Webster’s Concise Dictionary of English Usage calls “school-grammar agreement”) would tell us to match the verb to bunch, which is singular. But synesis—sense—tells us to match the verb to swimmers, even though it’s the object of a preposition.
I should note that not all usage commentators agree with the concept of synesis—even when they use it themselves. But the trend has persisted since around the tenth century (in Old English), so I think that we can count on its continuing influence. Bryan Garner has aptly characterized the phenomenon: “The problem lies just outside the realm of logic, in the genius of the language.”
But what, you may ask, do I do about the linguistic anguish caused by our having no generic third-person singular pronoun in English? When should synesis be preferred to “school-grammar”? Controversy continues over these topics. But for a thorough and helpful discussion of bias-free language and issues with pronouns, see the chapter entitled “Grammar and Usage” in The Chicago Manual of Style. I believe that it’s the closest we have to a consensus view at this time.
Andrea Wenger
Verbs are the most important tool in a writer’s toolbox. They can make a sentence powerful and direct, or weak and meandering. In technical communication, verbs help us clarify who must act and when. But verb usage guidelines for descriptions differ from those for procedures. The context affects audience needs.
Verbs have five properties:
Chapter 5 of The Chicago Manual of Style offers a good refresher on these terms.
A verb’s number is a purely grammatical consideration—the verb must agree with the subject. The other properties, though, are a choice the writer or editor must make. In technical communication, there are good reasons to choose one over the other.
Most task-based writing uses active voice, imperative mood, present tense, and second person to convey what the reader must do. People who aren’t technical communicators sometimes feel uncomfortable writing in this way. So they send us source material that reads “The door must be opened,” when they mean “Open the door.” They feel rude telling people what to do. But “Open the door” doesn’t sound rude to readers. It sounds clear. Readers like clear.
Here’s a procedure that doesn’t follow the recommended verb usage. Note that it is inherently unclear:
To remove the power plant, the operator must open the enclosure door. Then he can lift the protective cover. The captive screws securing the power plant are loosened. This will allow the power plant to be removed.
This wording raises some questions:
The following wording, which uses the recommended verb properties, eliminates these questions:
”To replace the power plant, follow these steps:
Some technical writing is not task-based, however. When you’re writing or editing descriptions, different guidelines apply. Description may be in active or passive voice; in past, present, or future tense; and in second or third person.
Description is generally written in the indicative mood. Its purpose is to inform, not to instruct. Descriptions can appear on their own or within a procedure. Consider the following:
”Select File > Print.
The Print dialog box opens.”
The sentence “The Print dialog box opens” is not written in the imperative mood because it isn’t an instruction. Rather, it describes what the software does.
You could also use the passive voice in this case: “The Print dialog box is displayed.” In The Global English Style Guide, John R. Kohl writes, “Passive voice is appropriate when the agent of the action is unknown or unimportant.” So don’t put yourself through convolutions trying to recast a sentence just because it uses passive voice.
Present tense is not required in description. However, as Kohl writes, “Use the simplest tense that is appropriate for each context.” In technical communication, verb phrases like could have been installed and will not have been reset confuse readers and tax translators. But it’s not wrong to say You must accept the terms of use before you can continue. Despite the use of auxiliary verbs (also called modal verbs), the sentence is clear and direct.
The above example (You must accept the terms…) uses second person. In description, however, third person is more common: The X45 limit switch is a rugged device designed for use in dusty environments.
The proper use of verbs is key to good technical communication. Once the verb is right, chances are, the rest of the sentence will fall into place. If your time is limited, focus on the verbs first. Well-chosen verbs are a gift to the reader.
Andrea is a senior technical writer at Schneider Electric. She blogs about grammar, style, and other writing topics at andreajwenger.com. She can be reached at andreajwenger at gmail dot com.
Kathy Underwood
In 1986, Robert Connors and Andrea Lunsford started to research and document the most commonly found “errors” in the work of college composition students. They came up with their list of “Top 20 Errors,” which informed their work on the Second Edition of the St. Martin’s Handbook, published in 1992. While concern remains that focusing on specific surface errors can distract students from larger issues such as organization and quality of argument, for the weary teacher, it’s a great boon to be able to give students a specific list of taboos.
Similarly, the weary technical editor can opt to provide a list of common errors to an equally weary and beleaguered technical writer. Of course, a corporate “top 20” list is usually a mix of common usage errors as well as departures from company-specific practices. An example would be the use of the serial comma, which is one of the many issues about which usage pundits have no true consensus.
The Department of Technical Editing at SAS uses their own locally derived list that we call “Frequently Marked Editing Issues” (affectionately known as “feemies”) to prompt both writers and editors to recognize all-too-common surface errors. To encourage compliance, the Editing Department provides all writers and editors with a little ring-bound flip book (about 4 ¼ x 5 ½) called the “SAS Style Guide Feemie Flipbook” with each “feemie” printed on one page of card stock. Each card states the usage issue and gives illustrative examples. Where appropriate, further explanation is provided and links are given. On our online SAS Style Guide, these are, of course, live links. (Our style guide, unfortunately, cannot be accessed outside our intranet.) For example, we have a long table with the American English equivalent of certain Indian English and British English terms (we standardize to American English).
Here are a few of our other top “issues”:
| Issue |
|---|
| Choosing between and punctuating that and which |
| Long noun phrases (aka, “noun stacks”) |
| Use of that to show that a noun clause will follow |
| Putting relative clauses close to what they modify |
| Clarify what each prepositional phrase is modifying |
| Use of in versus on and vice versa |
To me, one of the most helpful items has to do with preposition choice. It seems like everyday there’s another flavor of dialog box or window. And the usual guidelines about how to decide whether something is “in” or “on” some other thing aren’t always that helpful in cyberspace. On our style guide Web site, we add this statement: “We emulate Microsoft in our choice of prepositions to use in conjunction with components of user interfaces. “In” generally refers to a position within limits, and “on” generally refers to a position in contact with something.”
Another very useful category to include on a “feemie” list is tagging. Should a given item be formatted as <code> or as <codeBlock> or have no tag at all? Particularly, if writers in your company use multiple authoring tools or are transitioning from one tool to another (SGML to XML, for example), everyone will welcome a “frequently confused” list to guide their tagging.
Do you and your colleagues maintain similar lists of “frequently encountered” errors or usage taboos in your workplace? I would be interested to hear about your experiences with this kind of document. Please write to me at kathy.underwood@sas.com.
Connors, Robert, and Andrea A. Lunsford. “Frequency of Formal Error in Current College Writing, or Ma and Pa Kettle Do Research.” College Composition and Communication, 39:4 (1988): 395-409.
Lunsford, Andrea A., and Karen J. Lunsford. “’Mistakes Are a Fact of Life’: A National Comparative Study.” College Composition and Communication, 59:4 (2008): 781-806. Available at http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/lunsford/PDF/Lunsford_article_Mistakes.pdf.
Williams, Joseph M. “The Phenomenology of Error.” College Composition and Communication, 32:2 (1981): 152-168.