RE: Individual vs. Departmental Writer's Voice

Subject: RE: Individual vs. Departmental Writer's Voice
From: "Kathy Mizell" <KathyMizell -at- mfpoer -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 14:38:44 -0500



Elizabeth Estep :
>snip/The question:
Assuming that two modules are writing to the same general audience
(accounting clerks and accountants), is it appropriate for a
departmental
editor to make edits to keep two separate manuals (say one for an
Accounts
Receivable module and one for an Accounts Payable module) consistent in
tone
and type of language?

We've two writers making the following arguments:

1 - Only the types of style as defined in the departmental style guide
(i.e.
punctuation, limited passive voice, bulleted lists formats) should be
enforced. Anything else is "individual writing style" and should be
allowed
because otherwise a) the writer is stripped of creativity, and b)
there's a
negative impact on the writer-editor relationship.

2 - Manuals should be consistent in terminology, phrasing, and
organization,
except where differences are required based on the audience. The editor
should edit manuals aimed at the same audience to sound as much as
possible
as if they were written by the same person.

=================================================

I definitely vote for argument #2. It's always been my understanding
that a consistent voice is one of the reasons we use editors. It does
take away some creativity but the manuals/documents are not being
written for a writer to express their creativity....it is being written
to pass information and instructions to someone else.

my 2 bits.

Kathy Mizell
kathymizell -at- mfpoer -dot- com



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