Re: "shorthand" vs. plain writing style

["Susan W. Gallagher" <sgallagher5 -at- cox -dot- net>]

Not true, Ned. Sorry to disagree. When we read, we go thru a series of
activities, some of which involve eye movement and others that involve 
cognitive processing. One of the biggies is congnitive parsing. Simply
put,  cognitive parsing is the act of anticipating the next word or part of
speech based on what's gone before. Leaving out words, then, provides
a larger cognitive load, not a lesser one, as our brains must re-parse
the phrase or sentence that does not meet our expectations, in effect,
filling in the words that the author saw fit to omit.

my two cents
-Sue Gallagher

---- Ned Bedinger <doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com> wrote: 
> > Effect on the readability and translatability
> > of the text?
> >
> Readability increases.  The omitted words are like a tax on the 
> reading-- they create cognitve overhead for the reader. They simply 
> aren't useful and are indeed hindering for instructions about such a 
> narrowly-defined context (a workshop manual for a particular piece of 
> machinery).  In this case, shorthand is fine, because the reader and the 
> author share the necessary vocabulary and concepts to communicate 
> efficiently about a procedure.  Beyond that, I think it is really all 
> about tone--shorthand instructions patronize the reader who has the 
> necessary background to understand the procedure.   They are respectful 
> of that shared knowledge, and speak directly to such a reader.

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