DocumentCode
762946
Title
A World without People Using the Personal Pronoun to Improve Technical Writing
Author
Cohen, Gerald I.
Volume
12
Issue
3
fYear
1969
Firstpage
79
Lastpage
82
Abstract
We shall never improve the general quality of technical and scientific writing until it is liberated from the unwritten rule that prohibits the use of personal pronouns. This superstition made possible¿if not inevitable¿the development of the "technical style" of writing, the most unreadable and unnatural prose in the literature of the English-speaking world. Many of our problems in technical writing¿verbosity, obscurity, pomposity, awkwardness, and a dozen other ills¿could be relieved or eliminated if writers would accept the idea that personal pronouns are as much a natural part of communicating ideas on paper as they are in talking. Will that day ever come?
Keywords
Analytical models; Arithmetic; Books; Fires; Humans; Industrial accidents; Performance analysis; Speech; Systems engineering and theory; Writing;
fLanguage
English
Journal_Title
Engineering Writing and Speech, IEEE Transactions on
Publisher
ieee
ISSN
0018-9405
Type
jour
DOI
10.1109/TEWS.1969.4322408
Filename
4322408
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