RU17: Method of Text Presentation

Readability/Usability/Quality

2-99 (June 1999)

by Gordon Farrington

RU17: Method of Text Presentation

A problem that sometimes occurs, when authors ask my advice about the method of presenting an instruction, is that they use words that I think will not necessarily be understood by people whose mother-tongue is not English.

This is especially true where the words are traditionally generic to the engineering domain, and I advise people to try and avoid using them.

Consider the instruction #1 below:

You must apply a layer of XXX to:
- all male and female threads
- all thread undercuts, splines and bolt shanks
- all interfaces of mating parts
- all cavities and voids.
Do not apply the product to chrome parts lubricated with grease or painted surfaces.

The words/terms I am wary of in this instruction are:

undercuts
shanks
voids.

Now, in this case, the instruction is covering virtually the whole of the object, and excluding only a couple of areas. I therefore thought it might be better, simpler and just as understandable, to reverse the thought/writing process with that in mind, as follows #2.

Apply a layer of XXX to these areas and parts of the YYY:
- all attached parts
- all fasteners and their threads
- all the joints of mating parts
- especially those areas that do not have easy access.
Do not apply XXX to painted surfaces, or parts or areas that have greased, chrome surfaces.

Would those members who use English as a foreign language advise which of the above instructions they prefer. Other comments are, of course, welcome.

The replies produced the following statistics:

Prefer Para. 1

Prefer Para. 2

No Preference

2

9

4

Those preferring #1 obviously had a good command of English engineering terms as well as the language, and were used to reading such terms.

Those not specifying a preference were either not in the same engineering domain, wanted to debate the pros and cons of audience analysis, or were totally non-committal, with regard to the intent of the original question.

Those preferring #2 generally stated ‘better understanding’ as the main reason for their choice. These replies represented 60% of all replies and 82% of the replies specifying a choice. Provided that you can get your meaning across to your audience, without causing ambiguity or losing important meaning, do not include terms that you suspect are specific to your domain/locality.

If you do, you run the risk of baffling your audience with ‘technocratese’.

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