Tech Biz Writing

Coherence
We all know people who ramble on in conversation, jumping from one idea to another, seemingly without connection except a vague chain of association. We call this incoherence as nothing seems to hang together. Texts too need to be coherent, otherwise we would hardly call them “texts” at all. There must be a flow of meaning and subject matter, with a clear linkage from sentence to sentence, and paragraph to paragraph. We don’t always remark on it when it’s there. But when it’s absent we know we’re with the fairies in the foliage.

A technical writer, especially, must be coherent: texts describing the use of electronic or mechanical equipment pose a danger to the user if they are not absolutely clear.

Cohesion
Cohesion is much more complicated to deal with and we will spend the rest of this section on this vital task in all written, or spoken, texts. Cohesion breaks down naturally into three main areas:

* Referring words which allow the writer to refer back or forward without repetition -
- pronouns
- determiners
- auxiliary verbs
- signpost words
* Ellipsis which enables the writer to refer back while missing out sections of text without confusion.
* Sentence adverbials which allow extra cohesion through the use of:
- conjuncts
- disjuncts.

Cohesion, then, is the process by which we fix or glue sentences together by the subtle use of grammar and vocabulary. Both choice of words and pattern of text are used for this essential, and usually unconscious, process. Repetition of a sound-bite or key word or phrase is a favourite trick of orators, sometimes effective, often irritating.

Grammatical devices, such as:

* anaphoric deixis - referring back, and
* cataphonic deixis - referring forward

are a central means of achieving cohesion in linear texts.

We will begin then with -

Referring words
Words which refer back are:

* Pronouns — which refer back to -
nouns
noun phrases
other pronouns; as in: “The man turned the corner, but his steering was faulty and he hit another vehicle.”
* Determiners — which imply or state a reference back; as in: “She bought three goldfish and a budgie. The budgie was blue.”
* Auxiliary verbs — which can stand in for a whole verb phrase; as in: “He had promised them all computers for Christmas, but was unable to do so because he had lost his job.”

Ellipsis
Pronouns and other words enable the writer to refer back, or forward, without repeating words or phrases. It’s possible to avoid repetition of a verb, for example, by using an auxiliary: “I have played many more instruments than she has.” where has stands in for the verb phrase have played.

There are several ways this can be done:

* Contrasting subjects
“Peter shaves more often than I do.”
* Contrasting objects
“He played rugby with more verve than he did cricket.”

Sentence adverbials
Conjuncts and disjuncts link different parts of a text together. For example:

* Adding and listing
“First we went to London. Then we headed north. Finally we went back to Brighton.”
Similar sentence adverbials include: meanwhile, next, last, soon, besides, also, as well, and many more.

Tracing simple grammar from a single character or word to the building of texts, is a useful exercise for all writers, whether technical or not. It will make you a better writer in the end, if you follow the time-honoured conventions, and avoid the glaring faux pas of the novice.

Next: 65. Proofreading

Question mark
a) The question mark is used after every direct question: “Will you?” It is followed by a capital letter. It is not required for indirect questions: “They asked me why I had done it.”

Exclamation mark
A rag-bag of a mark, which most editors dislike as it has an amateurish quality about it. However, it is used quite a lot in a variety of guises. We can’t cover them all here, but essentially it expresses surprise, astonishment, large emphasis. It should never be used more than once adjacently since a gentleman is never that surprised about anything!

Apostrophe
Another contentious issue: in today’s educational climate apostrophes are often dropped, especially by sign-writers. Unfortunately this trend has been passed down to many of our school children who may well grow up in a world without them. They are used to show the possessive case, e.g.: “John’s book”. In the plural it goes outside the “s”: “The girls’ cases”. But, “Jesus’s parable”. There is a growing tendency to drop the final “s” in the latter case, though this is an ugly construct in speech. “Jesus parable” is now commonly heard, even among clerics. Lazy speech and texts are all around us. It can cause ambiguity, so be careful whichever method you choose.

Dashes
The hyphen is the best-known of the dashes by far, and to prove it we have just used one. Its utility is extensive, but the rules for its use are sometimes vague. For editing professionals, however, the difference between it and two other dashes are essential knowledge. The en and em dashes are the preserve of compositors, printers and copyeditors. We will examine the hyphen first:

a) Hyphen connect words that are closer in usage than the rest of the syntax. There are no hard and fast rules which apply here, e.g.: motor cycle, but motorway, and motor-cyclist. It’s just a matter of convention in most cases.

Just to be awkward, the New Oxford Dictionary of English drops all the hyphens from its list of motor words. So, motorbike and motor car are given, but motor-cyclist is given as motorcyclist. Why should those people over at OUP be more right than anyone else? You’re on your own, I’m afraid. It’s all a matter of taste.

But to be consistent with current usage it’s probably just as well to use a single authority, such as the NOD. The American tendency to draw two words together in one is gaining ascendancy and will probably be the norm before long. Not so very long ago we used, to-day as standard. It looks rather odd now unless you read a lot of books written before the last war.

Nouns made up from phrasal verbs — verb + adverb — tend to be more predictable… but not always: set-back, but feedback, for example. Words which are used in American usage more than British English will almost always appear as a joined up word/phrase.

Perhaps the most predictable are various collocations which don’t have a hyphen normally, but which are hyphenated when used as an adjective. J.B. Priestley’s “A tremendous wrapping-up-and-throwing-away gesture.” is an extreme example. The difference is illustrated by “The twenty-first century.” But, “Twenty-first-century blues.”

The Oxford guides give page after page of examples. If you wish to become a hyphen-geek, or even a Hyphen Geek, or perhaps a hyphengeek, please feel free to consult these excellent tomes. Right now we’ll move on to a more interesting aspect of dash science, the en and the em.

b) The en rule differs from the hyphen in that it joins words when movement or opposition is meant. It often substitutes for to, as in: “The 1939–45 war”, or versus, as in “The Chelsea–Leeds match”.

But, if a joint position is mean, then: “The Chelsea-Leeds proposal” has a hyphen. For joint authors, Smith–Evans, an en is right. For a double-barrelled name, Smith-Evans, a hyphen. The difference in print: - (hyphen), – (en). The en is slightly longer. The em, which we will come to next, is longer again: —

c) The em rule marks an interruption in a sentence’s structure, either singly or, as a parenthetical pair: “I don’t think —though you may disagree with me — that it’s the right answer.”

Quotation marks
These enclose quotations of direct speech. Modern usage is for single quotation marks, rather than double, but the old system is still in use in some newspapers and books — as well as this course.
In a case like: ‘“That’s great,” she said,’ the comma after great is regarded as a full stop.

Quotation marks, enclosing roman type, are usually used for chapters of books, titles of articles in periodicals, poems, not published separately, &c.
Titles of whole books and periodicals are usually printed in italic type.

Parentheses
Are used to enclose:
a) Definitions, special authorities, references, translations &c.

b) Remarks made directly by the writer: “Binky (as I always called him) rang the bell.”

c) Interruptions to a speech, by an audience, for example.

d) To left, instead of a full stop.

e) Words which are optional to the sentence: “There are (seemingly) a lot of problems.”

f) Square brackets [ ] enclose corrections, comments, interpolations (by an editor, for example), notes or translations, which are not in the original text.

Punctuation is an essential conveyor of meaning, and adds considerable sophistication and flexibility to a text. Used properly, and with care, it bestows cadence and elegance to any piece of writing. Even technical writers, who are not known for their exquisite prose style, can increase the authority of their work — and their reputation — by a good knowledge of the art of punctuation.

Next 62. Creating texts - Part 1

Tedious thought it may seem, the only way to master punctuation properly is to go through the elements of it one by one. The rules are not quite as onerous as most of us remember from our schooldays. In fact they’re great fun if we approach them in the right spirit of enterprise.

To command the dizzy heights of superior punctuating, only twelve elements need to be learned. Grasp these and you are in control. One hour of your time and you’ll be master of the dot in dotcom, if nothing else.

Enough of the pep talk, let’s get down to business.

Full stop
Or “point” in American. This minuscule entity ends all sentences which don’t end with a question mark or exclamation mark. The next character is usually a capital letter.

It can also be used for abbreviations: etc. or e.g.

After a quotation, the full stop goes inside the quotation marks if the whole sentence is the quote; outside the quotation marks, if the quote is only a part of the sentence.

Comma
Of all the objects in the world of punctuation, the comma is the most problematical. Placing this curiously attractive little entity in a sentence is a minefield of rules and, even worse, opinions. The old-school, rather disciplinarian approach, was to place a comma at every point where there was a natural pause for breath. Nowadays, whole texts seem to rush by with scarcely a comma to be seen. The latter solution is clearly unsatisfactory because it results in much ambiguity of meaning. The following is a fairly comprehensive guide to comma usage using the system suggested by Oxford University.

a) Between similar qualifying adjectives: “An abstemious, taciturn woman.”
But if there is no similarity, there is no comma: “A dull grey shirt.” Just think list. Abstemious and taciturn are a short list of qualities pertaining to the woman. Whereas dull and grey are different qualities; indeed a form of grey might well be described as dull. It’s clearly not a list.

b) Separating items in a list: “Books, CDs, and videos.” The comma after CDs is sometimes omitted. It’s often known as the “Oxford comma”.
Exception: “A black and white picture.” Where black and white form a recognisable phrase rather than a list. Black and white could be changed to monochrome. “Books, CDs” is not reducible because it is a list.

c) Separating co-ordinated main clauses: “Residents to the left, visitors to the right.”
Exception — when they are closely allied: “Listen to me and you might learn something.”

d) For parenthetical words/phrases: “If you do go, however, you may regret it.” Or “The man, who was not strong, soon gave up.”
Exceptions — restrictive relative clauses: “People who are short should wear high heels.”

e) Following participial or verbless clauses. “Having gone for a walk, I felt a whole lot better.” “The concert over, the audience left.”
Exception — “My daughter Mary.”

f) A separating comma is used to avoid misunderstanding: “From the houses above, the church seemed very small.” Otherwise you would read: From the houses above the church…followed by the meaningless “seemed very small.” These nuances can be very important, especially in technical writing where unclear instructions could lead to danger.
Exceptions: do not use a comma to separate a verb from an object that is a clause: “They thought, that they had it made.” is wrong, as is a comma used to separate a phrasal subject from its predicate: “A man with great strength, should always be careful of others.”

g) Use after words which introduce quoted speech: “He shouted, ‘Watch your back!’”

h) In letters following Dear Susan, Dear Sir, &c., and after Yours faithfully, etc.

But it’s not necessary following a number in an address, e.g. “10 Downing Street”; or between month and year in a date, e.g. “October 2001”.

Semicolon
A comma is the least emphatic break in a sentence. If there is a need for a more distinct break, but not sufficient for a new sentence — always a hair-line decision — a semicolon is mustered. Usually the semi will divide clauses of equal importance and similar grammatical construction, e.g. “Waking is a pleasure; sleeping on even better.” It may also be used in a sentence where commas are already employed, but where a stronger break is called for, e.g. “They approached quickly, though with some trepidation, and took stock of the situation; but decided it was none of their business.”

Colon
a) The colon connects two grammatically complete clauses where the second represents a step forward from the first, or gives further explanation, e.g. “The idea had widespread support: the merging of the two groups would improve finances.”

b) To introduce a list: one, two, three. Or after expressions, “For example”, “the following”, &c.

c) For an emphatic, formalized introduction to speech, “He emphasised: ‘Don’t do it!’”

Next: 61, Punctuation — Part 2.