Re: Preferred Sentence Structure

[David Artman <David -at- DavidArtman -dot- com>]

   I was going to demure.
   I, however, have An Opinion about see and refer to. The former should
   always be in the current deliverable context ("see this other topic");
   the latter should always be reference to a topic outside of the current
   deliverable ("refer to this website/other publication").
   I don't have CMS on me, but I think that's the rule.
   Regarding the initial question about sentence structure: I am
   conflicted between many great arguments:
   * In a large content set, it's hard to revolutionize, so follow suit
   until the bosses let you refactor everything.
   Copy, paste, rewrite whatever torturous or outmoded dictional pattern
   that preserves consistency and a common, professional voice for your
   enterprise. Nothing looks worse than a mix of tone or conciseness.
   * In new content without precedent, adopt the modern trend to
   minimalism and respect the intelligence of your readers: "See more at
   'FOO'." Or even lean on reltables and such to knit the topics together:
   why waste translation costs? You don't even need body copy if that's in
   place.
   * If you MUST use text to connect the dots between those three
   approaches, then I agree with my colleagues stating the simple
   cause::effect, or orient::action, approach. "To FOO, see "Doing FOO.",
   "Configuring FOO.", "Preventing FOO when BAR". Yes, it's susceptible to
   redundancy. But with good titling (my fifth salute to the advice that
   titles should always convey context), it's durable against content
   strategy, style, and localization-consideration changes and evolutions.
   Happy New Year! Write The Truth, Brothers and Sisters!
   David
   [DCA:d.a.d.]
   On Dec 27, 2018 21:32, quills <quills -at- airmail -dot- net> wrote:

     We always aEURoerefer toaEUR|aEUR for text, and aEURoeseeaEUR|aEUR
     for graphics.
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