Great Abstract Writing: Banish These Cardinal Attitudes
- Posted by Essays Blog in Essays Blog |
- March 11th, 2009 |
- Comments
Overview
Incomplete Person Documents disappoint your Readers. Cardinal attitudes of many Abstract Writers result in incomplete Person Documents. These cardinal attitudes are:
. “Everyone Knows That”, and
. “The Person Can Figure It Out”
This article describes these attitudes and presents methods for overcoming them. The result is more effective Person Documents and more slaked Users.
1. “Everyone Knows That”
The “Everyone Knows That” attitude makes assumptions about your Reader’s knowledge. These assumptions cause your Reader grief.
Here’s an example of a possible “Everyone Knows That.” Do you know this:
Tomatoes. Most of us keep them in a refrigerator. However, storing them in a refrigerator will ruin the appreciation and nutrition of tomatoes. Tomatoes should be stored on a kitchen counter at room temperature, until they are cut. Once cut, tomatoes should so be stored in the refrigerator.
Does everyone know that? What do you assume that everyone knows about your product?
Sometimes your Person Documents have to overcome previous Person experience. Everyone thinks that they know how to properly (safely) closed off a barbecue…they don’t! The safe closedown method is described in most barbecue Person Documents, but it is not “advertised” (forcefully presented) in the Person Documents.
It’s rarely accurate that “Everyone Knows That”. Just because you find something to be obvious, it does not mean everyone knows that something.
Here’s another example: How do you consume a (combined product — ‘2 in one’) shampoo and hair conditioner? When shampooing, the shampoo is massaged into the scalp and immediately rinsed. When conditioning the hair, the conditioner is massaged into the hair, and remains on the hair for about cardinal minutes. Now, what do the Users do for the combined product: rinse quickly, or let the product remain in the hair?
If you have the “Everyone Knows That” attitude when you compose, you will tend to leave out needed material from your Person Document. You will be doing a disservice to your Readers, and to your writing.
When in doubt whether “everyone knows something,” assume that they do not. So,
. add any matter explaining the issue, or
. tell the Reader where to find information that will explain the issue
Another Caution
Be careful about assuming that just because you explained something earlier in your Person Document, your Reader will remember (or even have read) that information. It is rare for Users to read product documentation from start to finish.
When in doubt, add a reference thereto earlier (background) information. Tell your Reader where to find it, or provide a link thereto if your document is electronic.
Here’s a Cerebration Experiment: You are a Person of products: How often do you read the product documentation from start to finish? If you always do, so ask another people. (The great abstraction about this fact — that Users do not read the documentation from start to finish — is that it results in great flexibility in writing, formatting and editing the product documentation.)
2. “The Person Can Figure It Out”
The Person does not deprivation to have to figure things out. The Person is not reading a mystery novel or any other literature, where he/she wants to entertain what is happening.
When individual uses your product, they are exploitation it to meet their own needs. Your product may be central to your life, but to your Users, your product is a means to an end. And they do not deprivation to have to decipher your product documentation.
Here’s a simple example. An e-mail tells you to call individual, but the message leaves out the phone number. You are expected to find the phone number on your own. The writer probably knew the phone number, but left it out. This “information oversight” gets expensive inside a company when the e-mail is conveyed to many employees…each looking up the phone number on his/her own.
My favorite pet peeve: dates. Inside recent memory we “survived” the Year-2000 changeover. Yet we allay compose dates sloppily. We consume “06″ for a year, instead of “2006.” When we accompany things like “07/11/04″ what is the date it is referring to? Is it November 4, 2007, April 11, 2007, or another permutation of the numbers. The standards for the format of dates vary around the class. This is an example of both assumptions:
. “everyone knows that” (because thither is a “acceptable” date format — thither is not), and
. “the Person can figure it out” (by perception if my other dates provide clues to the format)
Don’t leave things for the Person/Reader to figure out for themselves. It takes you only a few moments to include the material your Reader needs, and will economise many Readers many hours in figuring things out.
Do It:
The writing literature tells you to “know your Reader.” Here is where you consume that knowledge to improve your writing.
Either
. find individual who is like your intended Reader, or
. “do your best” to act like your intended Reader (you can do it if you need to)
In reading and evaluating the document, look for places where
. the writing assumes that “everyone knows that”
. the writing expects the Reader to be able to “figure it out”
. the writing makes jumps that your Reader cannot follow
. the writing makes the assumption that the Reader has read and remembered the entire document
Fix these places. It only takes a few words or sentences.
Everyone will be happier.