Spelling, Grammar, and Word Usage


I feel like I shouldn’t even have to include this section, but I’m continually amazed at how many reports and printouts I receive in the mail or see on websites that have spelling and grammar problems. (And that doesn’t include signs I see, marketing brochures, and on and on.)

Nobody is perfect. But that doesn’t excuse you from having spelling and grammar problems in your reports. Book publishers, for example, know that nobody is perfect. Although I consider myself a good writer, I know that I still make mistakes, and that’s why the publisher has a staff of editors who will go through this book with a fine-tooth comb, fixing the problems. Yes, occasionally problems squeak through in a book. But a book is big. A one- or two-page report isn’t. Don’t allow grammar and spelling errors into your reports. It cries out, “Unprofessional!”

Remember the Usual Gotchas

We all have our pet peeves, but the two biggest errors I see again and again in reports, in web pages, in advertisements, and on signs are the your versus you’re and its versus it’s. (In fact, I’m not kidding; just today I saw “it’s” when “its” was intended.) You know the rules for these four words; I’m not going to insult your intelligence by reiterating them here. (And if for some reason you’ve been left behind, I suggest you go look up the difference as soon as possible and start using the correct terms.) Everyone makes these and similar errors on occasion. I recommend that you get a copy of the little book The Goof-Proofer: How to Avoid the 41 Most Embarrassing Errors in Your Speaking and Writing by Stephen J. Manhard (Fireside, 1999). In fewer than 100 pages, you’ll learn to steer clear of the most common “gotchas.”

Also, if you’re serious about learning the ins and outs of good English usage, then I suggest you pick up a copy of the classic book The Elements of Style, fourth edition, by William Strunk, Jr., and E. B. White (Allyn & Bacon, 2000). Even if you’re not serious but do any writing whatsoever, you should own a copy. Everybody should. Add to that The Elements of Grammar by Margaret Shertzer (Pearson Higher Education, 1996), an excellent reference for the points of grammar, punctuation, and capitalization.

In truth, there’s no shortage of books on usage, style, and grammar, but with the three short volumes described here, you’ll have everything you need to look professional in print.

Avoid Talking Shop

Remember that your work is filled with shoptalk. When you’re with your coworkers, you’re perfectly allowed to say, “The problem is the UDP packets weren’t making it to the DNS server, preventing the client system from being able to resolve the IP addresses.” But if you’re dealing with customers and laypeople, that’s the last thing you want to say. (Yes, we all like to impress people, and confusion is always a good start, but let’s keep the confusion off the reports that our customers will read.) Instead, say, “The computers had trouble connecting.” Good enough, and it allows customers and laypeople to understand the problem.

Note

Of course, if you’re dealing with corporate customers, they may require a technical answer. In that case, go for it.

We’ve all been faced with the situation where somebody wants to know what we do for a living. We’re very aware that these people see us as some kind of high-tech superhuman with brain abilities that far surpass anything they could ever dream of. We can comprehend things that they’ll never understand in a million years. (Hey, I’m on roll here!) In their eyes, we can leap tall buildingswell, you get the idea.

Yet, at the same time, they really would like to have at least some idea of what we do when we drive to work everyday. The skill of translating our technical knowledge into simple terms is exactly the skill you need to put into place when designing reports for laypeople.

Here’s an example:

  • Real answer: I developed the portion of the software package that resolves IP addresses by sending out UDP packets to a DNS server.

  • Perfectly good answer: You know how when you’re online and you type in www.cnn.com, and somehow your computer is able to take that name and from there figure out how to connect to CNN’s computer? I wrote the part of the software that helps the computer figure that out.

There’s always an easier way to express something. You can even make it simpler, depending on how much detail you want, for example: I wrote the part of the software that helps your computer figure out how to connect to another computer when you type in www.cnn.com.

Tip

Not yet convinced? Then think of it this way: If Albert Einstein can explain his theory of relativity to the general public in a mere 157 pages—as he did in his book Relativity: The Special and the General Theory (Crown Publishing, 1995)—then we can certainly explain our jobs to our in-laws in simple language.

What is the key to simplifying everything? I removed the shoptalk. I got rid of the junk about IP addresses and UDP packets and DNS servers. People don’t know what they are, and they certainly don’t want a lesson first. Imagine if, when asked what you do on your job, you answered, “Well, in order to understand what I do, let me first take a few moments to explain to you how information travels about the Internet using two different protocols, one called TCP/IP and one called TCP/UDP.” Blah, blah, blah. I can see the listener’s eyes glaze over. In other words, don’t fall into the engineer’s trap of explaining how to build a clock just because someone asked the time of day. Or for that matter, if somebody asks a simple question, don’t answer with, “Okay, but first I have to take a half hour to teach you a bit.

Tip

Remember, even some words you use every day might be shoptalk. In the phone world, for example, the word usage is part of our everyday language, and it’s easy for me to forget that it’s not a common word everybody knows. Or, in the publishing world people refer to front matter for the introduction, table of contents, and all that other good stuff that comes at the beginning of a book before the first chapter. And, of course, the computer world is filled with shoptalk, as you already know.

And on to reports. While all this information I’m giving out might help make your life easier when meeting people at a singles bar or when talking to Aunt Emma at the annual family reunion, a more practical use of this is in the world of reports. If you are sending out reports to customers, keep your information in plain English. Don’t say:

Total usage during cycle

Instead, say something like this:

Here is the total amount of time you spent on the telephone for this month.

Notice several things:

  • I used a complete sentence.

  • I chopped the shoptalk.

  • I allowed myself to use the slightly less-accurate term month, even though a billing cycle isn’t always an exact month. Customers are okay with that.

Now you might not be able to fit that whole sentence on the report if you’re really tight for space. In that case, you can forgo the complete sentence. But don’t allow the shoptalk back in. You might write this, for example:

Total phone time for the month

This is every bit as clear as Total usage during cycle and far easier to understand. And for every thousand people who understand the bill more clearly, you will save yourself possibly hundreds of support calls from confused people.

RULE

The goal is to communicate to the users, and doing so means speaking their language, which is probably different from yours. Attempt to capture the way the users would express an idea.




Designing Highly Useable Software
Designing Highly Useable Software
ISBN: 0782143016
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 114

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