Re:Lessons Learned from “On Writing Well”
by TheOtherHobbes on Thursday January 26, 2017 @05:01AM
(#13490089)
It's slightly stylised 19th century English, which is very different to 21st century English. We don't use run-on sentences peppered by parenthetical clauses nearly as much as we used to, so I'm not surprised some readers may find it dense.
For more modern English, I think George Orwell is very hard to beat.
For blog posts, Paul Graham is always worth reading - not so much for the content, which is often debatable, but for the style, which is reliably lucid.
But it's always a good idea to match the social register and jargon level of the target audience. Professional writers often work on a range of gigs and know how to mould English into a range of styles and voices to reach different audiences.
So I'd be skeptical of any suggestion there's a One True Style for online content or technical writing. There are certainly common standards and traditions, but they may be out of date or too company-specific to apply generally.
For more modern English, I think George Orwell is very hard to beat.
For blog posts, Paul Graham is always worth reading - not so much for the content, which is often debatable, but for the style, which is reliably lucid.
But it's always a good idea to match the social register and jargon level of the target audience. Professional writers often work on a range of gigs and know how to mould English into a range of styles and voices to reach different audiences.
So I'd be skeptical of any suggestion there's a One True Style for online content or technical writing. There are certainly common standards and traditions, but they may be out of date or too company-specific to apply generally.