While creativity, flexibility, and storytelling are necessary skills for technical writers, technical writing is not creative writing. In other words, readers of technical writing are not seeking to be entertained but to get information quickly and easily. Therefore, technical writers must learn to communicate complex ideas simply and clearly. This article will briefly cover the principles of correctness, characters, and actions as taught by Joseph M. Williams in Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace.
Correctness
Through essential grammatical rules, writers can help readers know what words to expect, but sometimes, rules can get in the way of clear communication. Williams defines three main categories of grammatical rules: real rules, standard rules, and invented rules. In this article, we will discuss two types of invented rules.
Few notice the violation of rules categorized as folklore, and even fewer care. Folklore includes rules such as:
- Don’t start sentences with and, but, or because.
- Use which, not that.
- Use since and while only to refer to time, not to replace because or although.
Other invented rules are categorized as options, or rules few notice when you break, but some notice when you choose to follow it. Choosing to follow the rule will earn you bonus points from grammar police, but choosing not to follow it is totally fine. This includes rules such as:
- Don’t split infinitives.
- Use whom as the object of a verb or preposition.
- Don’t end a sentence with a preposition.
Because few follow every single grammatical rule—real or invented—unfamiliar rules can cause confusion instead of enhancing understanding. In addition, rules don’t necessarily keep a sentence from becoming convoluted, and sometimes they even create convoluted sentences. As a general principle, keep in mind that correctness should be used to enhance clarity—if following a rule creates confusion, break it.
Character & Actions
Every good story has clear characters taking action. While technical writing is not creative writing, it is storytelling. Often, sentences are hard to understand because characters and their actions are lost amid wordiness and nominalizations—turning a verb into a noun. For example, discovery is a nominalization of discover, and resistance is a nominalization of resist. There are four situations where you would want to use nominals:
- In a subject that refers to a previous sentence
- To replace an awkward The fact that…
- As the object of a verb
- When it is so familiar it is practically a character (ex: freedom)
Otherwise, avoid nominalizations.
Issues with active and passive voice can also confuse actions and characters. Where active voice features the characters and their actions, passive voice features the object and the action taken against it, hiding the actor—who is often the main character. Just as with nominalizations, passive voice has its place. You should use passive voice if:
- the actor is unknown.
- you want to hide the actor.
- the actor is unimportant.
Generally, unless passive voice makes the sentence clearer, use active voice.
To revise sentences with unclear characters and actions, try these steps:
- Identify action – what is the verb? What action is being taken?
- Identify subject – who is doing the verb? Who is the actor?
- Identify object – who/what is being acted upon?
- Reform – subject + verb + object
As a last tip, make sure to put your characters and actions close together in the sentence. Tell a good story—let your actors act and your verbs be verbs.
Conclusion
When it comes to clarity, the most important principle is to be deliberate about the choices you make. Choose to follow the rules (or not), choose to let your verbs be verbs, choose to tell a good story, choose to write with clarity.
Further Resources
Writing for Clarity training – https://byu.box.com/s/he7a2vlsfbv2umybdkgl8wahi4jgdlgi
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/mechanics/sentence_clarity.html
https://www.skidmore.edu/writing_guide/style.php
https://www.bu.edu/teaching-writing/resources/sentence-clarity-characters-and-actions/