Re:Good writing is a business advantage
by KineticLensman on Wednesday April 29, 2020 @11:57AM
(#23020717)
> you need good words to describe the objects/systems that you are building
Totally agree! And I would add, once you have come up with a word (or label), stick with it. There is nothing worse, in technical writing, than an author who keeps using different terms for the same thing in a single document. It leaves the reader with the task of keeping track of what is being described, and thus makes the doc harder to read.
I think there are several reasons for this:
* authors showing off their extensive vocabulary
* authors trying to add novelty by using new synonyms
* authors who haven't checked other parts of the doc to see what was said elsewhere.
In technical writing, the author's job is to communicate as consistently as possible to reduce the cognitive burden on the reader.
Totally agree! And I would add, once you have come up with a word (or label), stick with it. There is nothing worse, in technical writing, than an author who keeps using different terms for the same thing in a single document. It leaves the reader with the task of keeping track of what is being described, and thus makes the doc harder to read.
I think there are several reasons for this:
* authors showing off their extensive vocabulary
* authors trying to add novelty by using new synonyms
* authors who haven't checked other parts of the doc to see what was said elsewhere.
In technical writing, the author's job is to communicate as consistently as possible to reduce the cognitive burden on the reader.