Trimming

One of the things I've noticed lately is how much I've been trimming out extra words. Sometimes these extra words show up as little intros to sentences; for example, in some topics a large percentage of sentences include a phrase like "you need to…" and then go on to give an instruction. In most cases those sentences are better starting just with the instruction:

Wordy:

To start the application, you need to double-click the .exe file.

Better:

To start the application, double-click the .exe file.

 

Sometimes the introduction to the topic starts off unfocused, and doesn't really get underway until two or three sentences in. It's as if the writer wants to warm up the reader with some background information, or other information that might have some interest, before getting to the point of the topic. Since what we do is mostly reference, the extra tidbits just tend to obscure the useful information, or just make it harder to use because of the extra cognitive burden of weeding out the unnecessary words. I think it's better to do the weeding for the reader.

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 27, 2006
  I always felt that "editing" meant "removing words without affecting the meaning" -- but from what I've read, sometimes it's Microsoft's editing process that actually ADDS words to your text.
  
  http://blogs.technet.com/jeanie_d/archive/2005/09/22/ErrorMsg.aspx
  
• Anonymous
  January 29, 2006
  >doesn't really get underway until two or three sentences in
  
  aka "throat-clearing."
  
  Blake: the point of all that editing was to try to make the message actually useful, as in, ok, there's an error. What am I supposed to do about it? If the error message is sufficient in itself an doesn't send the user to the documentation, it's a good error message. In theory, making this text longer obviates the need for any text about this problem in the documentation.
• Anonymous
  January 30, 2006
  Sometimes editing is removing words without affecting the meaning, sometimes it's adding words to clarify the meaning, sometimes it's changing words for the same reason. There's also another level, where we look at how all the information is arranged. At that level, we try to improve the flow of the information so it can be read more easily; that includes making sure related information is grouped together appropriately and that each idea leads to the next as much as possible. It's often harder to do the higher-level editing with error messages, but we still have to think "if I was the person who got this message, would it help me?"
• Anonymous
  August 15, 2006
  With enough practice you'll be Ernest Hemmingway.