ABSTRACT
It is surely axiomatic that the aim of technical writing is to transmit information accurately, quickly and economically from one person to another. Then why do so many scientists and engineers make their writing so heavily unreadable? Obviously, their subject matter is sometimes complex and conceptually difficult; but frequently the 'unreadability' stems from use of a style that makes the reader's task much heavier than it need be. Scientists and engineers themselves complain about the heaviness of this style; but when I suggest that passive, impersonal, turgid expression is a millstone that the technical content need not carry, I am told that papers written in any other style would be unacceptable: 'It would be thrown straight back'; 'My boss wouldn't have it'; 'Editors insist that you write passively and impersonally'; 'You must make your work sound impressive'. Always there is anxiety that other engineers and scientists would not accept a departure from 'traditional' style. This seems to be true whether I am talking to young men and women, or to their seniors in higher management positions. The anxiety is always caused by a spectral reactionary group 'they'. I have believed for a long time that 'they' must really be a small minority. In hundreds of round-table discussions with individuals and groups of scientists and engineers, I have found wide agreement on what constitutes the most readable, the most effective style for scientific and technical writing. But this agreement has been hedged round with anxiety about what other readers will want or expect. So this book offers not only advice but also evidence to convince anxious writers that other engineers and scientists, 'bosses', 'editors' - 'they' - will accept, even prefer, the style advocated here. To obtain evidence of preferences for styles, I have run four surveys, asking readers to give their views on six different versions of a scientific or technical text. In each survey, the subject-matter of the six versions was held constant; only the style of writing was different. Readers were asked to read the versions in any order, and then to say which they found most comfortable to read, easiest to grasp, and simplest to digest. They were also invited to comment on why they liked some versions and rejected others. To obtain evidence of the style preferred in reports and papers, I ran three of the surveys with members of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, the British Ecological Society, and the Biochemical Society. In all three surveys, the majority of respondents voted for direct, active, judidously personalized writing. Active style had majorities of 28%, 41% and 18.5% over 'traditional' passive style. To establish what style is preferred in technical manuals, I gave
readers six versions of part of a manual describing a computer program. Again, the majority of respondents voted for direct, active, judiciously personalized writing. Active, personalized style had a majority of 27.8% over a traditional impersonal style. The versions on which the surveys were based, the explanatory notes that accompanied them, and the responses from readers are presented in the Appendices.
