On 1/14/2012 11:00 AM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
There are certainly times when reducing how much "you" is used reduces the
amount of text at no extra cost, but there are other times, when it's far more
natural to use "you," and it can become harder to produce sentences without
completely reworking that section of text if "you" is removed. And honestly,
it just seems overly picky to me. Sure, it can reduce the word count, but I
really don't think that it does all that much to improve the quality of the
text, and it can require quite a bit more work, since it tends to be unnatural
to avoid "you" in the way that technical writers like to.
You and I are going to disagree on this.
But I will add that excessive use of "you" in technically minded books tends to,
in my mind, reduce the book a grade in quality. This is not a decision I
consciously make, it's just that it doesn't read like a professional technical
book would. In fact, it took me a while to figure out why I didn't find certain
texts to be professional sounding.
Like I said, it's like wearing jeans to a wedding. It doesn't matter how nice
the jeans are, or that jeans are appropriate in other contexts. It doesn't
matter how you feel about it.
Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style" rule 17: Omit Needless Words
> and it can require quite a bit more work,
This is not an issue. The whole of the document can be fixed in a handful of
minutes.
