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Subject:"The user can" vs. "You can", take II From:"Geoff Hart (by way of \"Eric J. Ray\" <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com>)" <ght -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA> Date:Fri, 22 Jan 1999 07:52:53 -0700
Continuing this thread, Michele Marques observed that <<When I
anticipate that the reader may not be the responsible individual, I
usually do not specify who is responsible, as different companies
have different policies and names for the departments. ... How do you
phrase things in similar situations?>>
Fudge it. Saying something like "Because most companies have security
software installed, you will need the help of your company's security
administrator (or whoever is responsible for maintaining security) to
do this next step. That person must change the access rights to..."
In short, if you can't name the person, you can always describe that
person's role and leave it to the reader to figure out who that
person is. In our staff writing guide, for example, we used "the
Graphic Artist" instead of "Simon or Kim or both" because we trusted
staff to remember who they were dealing with. Ditto for other
positions, including mine. (Bonus: if the staff changes, we don't
have to reprint the manual.)
--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
