IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. PC-23, NO. 2, JUNE 1 9 8 0 71

Some papers can end quite satisfactorily with a section enti-

tled "Discussion/' Let me then end with an example of a

good conclusions section:

The technology of monolithic circuit integration on GaAs has reached a level of maturity that allows the fabrication of circuits for the subnanosecond range. Planar Gunn devices are used as active devices. The complex behavior of such devices leads to a variety of logic operations that can be carried out in one device. Furthermore, the layout of the circuit is significantly simplified. For minimum power consumption, planar Gunn devices must fulfill certain geometrical conditions. An estimate concerning the maximum packing density and the highest bit rate available with an elementary logic gate can be given as 100 devices/mm 1 and 5 Gbit/s, respectively. The fabrication of a dynamic shift register has been described in which a logic A N D function and a pulse delay are carried out in one stage. The time consumed for the transit . . . " [ 3 ) .

Note that the work is summed up neatly and the purpose of

the work is put in proper perspective. The results achieved are

cataloged step by step.

EPILOGUE

To tell others how to write ensures that they will point out your own errors with glee. However, I shall not mind their glee if this article stimulates them to think about their writing and at least to embrace the mot to of a certain car-hire firm: "We try harder." I then hope that with The Complete Plain Words as bedtime reading, you may sit down the next day and write and rewrite, right away.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I thank Bernard Dunkley for many helpful discussions.

REFERENCES

[1] J. R. Forrest, A. Darbandi, and A. L. Cullen, "Interpolation Locking: A New Technique for Active Array Antennas," IEE Journal of Electronic Circuits and Systems, vol. 1, p. 3 3 , 1 9 7 6 .

(2J Sir Ernest Cowers, The Complete Plain Words, 2nd ed., Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1973.

[3] K. Mause, E. Hesse, and A. Schlachetzki, "Shift Register with Gunn Devices for Multiplexing Techniques in the Gigabit-per-Second Range," IEE Journal of Solid-State and Electron Devices, vol. l , p . 17, 1976.

What Makes Bad Technical Writing Bad? A Historical Analysis

ELIZABETH TEBEAUX

Abstract-While bad technical writing has specific characteristics, one important cause of bad technical writing u abuse of natural English word order. Since about 1400, English has relied solely on word order to convey meaning, particularly active voice (agent-verb-object). Infu-sions of large numbers of foreign words from 1100 to 1600 further affected the development of English sentence patterns and their use in modern applied writing. To develop clear sentences, (1) use active voice as frequently as possible; (2) build sentences with clauses rather than phrases; (3) make the agent of the action the subject of the clause;

(4) build clauses by concentrating meaning in the subject-verb pairs; (5) choose concrete rather than abstract nouns as subject-agents; (6) use action verbs rather than **be" verbs whenever possible; (7) use passive voice only when its use will not doud meaning; (8) choose voice care-fully when planning sentences; (9) remember that technical writing should inform, and that historically elegant sentence patterns and words are not suitable to express technical information.

R ICHARD DAVIS in a recent summary article on his U.S. Air Force study "How Important is Technical Writing?

A Survey of the Opinions of Successful Engineers" [1 J, empha-

Manuscript received August 17, 1979; revised February 1, 1980. The author is Writing Program Coordinator for the College of Tech-

nology at the University of Houston-Central Campus, Houston, TX 77004, (713) 749-4851.

sizes the importance of good writing skills to the engineer who hopes to advance. Davis concludes from his research that one mandate is clear: To succeed one must write well.

But what is good technical writing? Why is so much busi-ness and technical writing bad? Countless books and articles tell us that good writing is clear, organized, and readable. Studies clearly indicate the importance of organization [2 ] . Too often, however, we find reports that exhibit good organi-zation, y e t the content is still not clear and certainly not read-able. In fact, if you will examine a piece of technical writing you are having trouble reading, you will probably see that the lack of clarity and readability comes from individual sentences you cannot grasp easily. Therefore, I am suggesting here that in trying to learn to produce clear, readable writing, we must begin with the sentence.

How, then, do you write a good sentence? Any technical writing text will tell you that to build a good, clear sentence, you should avoid long sentences, redundant phrases, dead phrases, poor word order, circumlocutions, jargon, and misuse of passive voice. While I agree that bad technical writing con-tains many or all of these characteristics, I believe that anyone who wants to write well must first understand some inherent,

0361-1434/80/06OO-0071S00.75 ©1980 IEEE

72 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. PC-23, NO. 2 , JUNE 1980

unchanging characteristics of the English language as well as

some important developments in the history of English which

influence our current writing habits. Most bad writing occurs

when wrjters fail to build sentences that follow the inherent

characteristics of English.

E N G L I S H - Α L A N G U A G E OF WORD ORDER

First of all, English is a language in which word order alone

produces meaning. The sentence "John hit Mary" has a very

different meaning from the sentence "Mary hit John ." Both

sentences contain the same three words, but word arrangement

(syntax) solely determines meaning. Thus, "Hit John Mary"

has no meaning because the word arrangement does not pro-

duce any concept for the reader. In contrast, consider Latin,

where the meaning of the sentence does not depend on word

order: Nero interfecit Agrippinam means the same asAgrippi-

nam interfecit Nero (Nero killed Agrippa) [3 , p . 6 4 ] . Latin

was what we call a highly inflected language. That is, endings

of pronouns, adjectives, and verbs indicated the complete

meaning of the word. A single verb, for example, conveyed

person, number, tense, and the meaning of the root. Unlike

the English sentence, meaning in the Latin sentence did not lie

in the relationship among words but in the words themselves.

While the earliest examples of written English indicate that

what we call ' O l d English" was at first highly inflected, most

historical linguists agree that by 1400, and for unknown

reasons, English had lost most of its inflections and depended

on word arrangement-subject-verb-object (or complement ) - to

convey meaning [ 4 ] . Thus, when style manuals advise writers

to use "active voice," which denotes this subject (agent)-verb-

object ( A - V - O ) relationship, rather than "passive voice,"

object-verb-subject (agent) ( O V A ) , they are doing so because

active voice is a more natural structure for phrasing ideas. This

is probably so because active voice has been characteristic of

English expression for over 500 years. In fact, I want to show

that a major cause of bad writing is the failure to use this pre-

dominant English word order to frame concepts.

All of us really know that active voice is more natural for

communicating. We hardly ever use passive voice unless we

are trying to sound learned or formal. We do not speak in

passive voice and research indicates that we do not think in

passive voice either. As a result, what we write when we try

to sound learned usually comes out dense and unreadable

because the structure we are forcing on our language is really

alien to its nature. For example, we seldom if ever say

A Home run was hit by Pete Rose .

We say, instead,

Pete Rose hit a h o m e run.

In tryjng. to .sound formal, we continue to strain our English

wor<forder by writing something ridiculous like

It was clearly evident that a h o m e run was hit b y Rose .

Actually, we really mean that

Pete Rose smashed another h o m e run!

The passive sentence

A weight loss of 2 0 p o u n d s was experienced by the man

becomes, when stated in active voice,

The man lost 2 0 pounds .

Clearly, the passive structure sounds more elegant, but the

active sentence states the point clearly and concisely.

For some reason, when we approach business and technical

writing, we suddenly feel that we must annihilate all our

natural language inclinations and dress in verbal but ton shoes.

Using unnatural word order makes text difficult for the

reader who is* trying to grasp the ideas because convoluted

structure violates his language patterns, too. Yet, as we shall

see, native English language patterns can be a remarkably reli-

able tool if we always remember that business and technical

writing should be informative-concrete, clear, concise, unam-

biguous. Its aim is not to sound prestigious or formal. To

achieve clear writing, we must try to build sentences with

active voice, which embodies natural English word order, the

basic ingredient of clear sentences.

PASSIVE V O I C E . . .

. .. Prodi4ces Long Sentences

Using active voice rather than passive usually produces shorter

sentences. The passive sentence

A survey of our clients* needs was undertaken by the staff (11 words)

becomes, in active voice,

The staff surveyed our clients* needs. (6 words)

Consider another example:

In their plans for vacations, an elite resort is usually desired by the wealthy because of its inaccesibility from the harrass-ment of the news media. (25 words)

Written in active voice ( A - V - O ) , the sentence requires only 17 words:

When they plan vacations, the wealthy usually desire an elite resort because they dislike news media harrassment.

. . . Produces Prepositional Phrases

Both sentences we have just examined show another charac-

teristic that arises when a writer uses passive voice rather than

active voice: passive voice produces prepositional phrases,

often an excessive number of them. In both passive sentences

above, prepositional phrases are the main contributing cause of

sentence length. Sentence 1 contains two; sentence 2 contains

six. When I rewrite both sentences in active voice, I can elimi-

nate all prepositional phrases. I do not wish to imply that

prepositional phrases are always undesirable, but they are one

product of passive voice. Many times they are structurally

necessary. In fact, prepositional phraser became essential in

English when it lost its inflectional endings (except for the

possessive and plural forms which it still retains). Without

inflection to indicate meaning, a writer must use prepositional

phrases to indicate grammatical relationships. During, con-

cerning, except, and because all appear for the first time in the

14th century [ 5 ] ,

However, we must watch the number of prepositions that we

allow to creep into our sentences. When a sentence has too

many prepositional phrases, and it will tend to have them when

a writer uses passive voice, the result is a sentence in which the

main e lements- the subject and the v e r b - d o not take a leading

position. Since the subject-verb-object relationship produces

TEBEAUX: WHAT MAKES BAD TECHNICAL WRITING BAD? 73

the English sentence and its meaning, the subject and verb must always maintain a paramount position in the sentence.

... Eliminates Agents as Subjects

The fact that passive voice generates an excessive number of prepositional phrases is really a symptom of a deeper sentence structure problem. In the passive sentence, the agent respon-sible for the action frequently disappears:

The gate is to be locked at 8 p.m. The sentence gives no agent who is responsible for the action (lockinf), and the reader sees an ambiguous meaning. Is the reader to lock the gate or will a guard come and lock the gate? Without a clear agent in charge of the action in the sentence, we lose clarity-specifically a picture of who is doing what. Many times because a passive construction causes an inordi-nate number of prepositional phrases, we have to hunt for the agent and the verb and then shift these mentally to digest the meaning of the sentence. The following sentence contains 26 words and eight prepositional phrases:

The uncertainty about an improvement in the manufacture of fiber glass is of concern to owners of automobiles due to increases in insurance and repair costs.

When the real agent and verb in the sentence emerge in active voice, the sentence reads as follows with only 21 words and no prepositional phrase:

Automobile owners do not know if fiber glass manufacturing improvements will be great enough to offset increased insur-ance and repair costs.

... Creates Impersonal Style

Passive voice usually causes what we call impersonal writing, which is synonymous with dull writing, because the human element is missing from the actions the message conveys. Using active voice where the subject-agent is present helps the reader visualize the action, mokes the message clearer, makes the writing sound more human, and produces more economi-cal sentences. Compare the two samples below:

impersonal (passive) Final processing of the part is not dif-ficult, provided directions are carefully followed. After im-mersion in solvent to remove grease and handling marks, the part is secured in a fixture and its dimensions are carefully checked for conformance to specifications. Then the part is placed in a special machine where it is automatically packaged in a transparent plastic bag. Upon emerging from the machine, the sealed part is placed in a shipping carton.

personal (active) Any unskilled worker can handle the part during final processing if he follows directions carefully. After immersing the part in solvent to remove grease and handling marks, he secures it in a fixture and carefully checks its dimensions to see if they conform to specifications. Then he places the part in a special machine where it is automati-cally packaged in a transparent plastic bag. When the sealed part comes out of the machine, the worker places it in a shipping carton [6, p . 82 J.

Many engineers and scientists will tell you that journals re-quire passive or objective style, that writing which is built with " I " and " w e " and " h e " is non-scientific. However, I have found no style manual that tells a writer not to use active voice [7, p . 6 0 4 ] . Consider this point: Simply removing the agent

from the sentence, which occurs in passive voice, does not make the action more objective. The agent still must perform the action, but the reader, trying to grasp and visualize the action, has no clear picture of who is doing what. Textbook style manuals are now telling authors to write in active voice to improve readability. Frankly, if more textbook writers would use active voice consistently, students would have an easier time visualizing the meaning of the sentence.

Furthermore, when a writer rigidly insists on passive sen-tences, dead phrases tend to creep in:

passive It was concluded that the Ε7As resisted corrosion better than the E7Bs.

By beginning the sentence with a dead phrase like "it was con-cluded that ," "it is clear that ," or "it is evident t h a t " you write the sentence in passive voice-i t has no agent. By elimi-nating the initial dead phrase, you have a clear, succinct sen-tence :

The E7As resisted corrosion better than the E7Bs.

U S E ACTIVE V O I C E CLAUSES, N O T P H R A S E S

Perhaps the best recipe for good sentences is to maintain agent-verb-object structure as rigidly as possible. With a little practice, you will find yourself falling into the habit. So far in this article I have not used passive voice, even though I have trained myself to use it about 25 percent of the time and no more. I am not maintaining that passive sentences are always bad. They're not. Many times process analyses and descriptions require passive constructions because the action, not the actor, is more important. But in choosing passive voice, a writer needs to be aware of the structure and meaning problems that can develop when he uses passive, particularly when he uses it haphazardly.

Generally, however, we can use active voice more often than we do, and when we do we will produce clearer sentences and paragraphs than when we use passive voice, at least half the t ime. Deliberate A-V-O sentences are hard-hitting and eco-nomical. The following example illustrates this point. The original sentence, using passive voice, contains 20 words and six prepositional phrases:

In their designs of buildings, brick is usually stipulated by architects because of its resistance to the effects of weather.

In active voice, with agent-verb-object structure, the sentence requires 13 words and no prepositional phrase:

( A ) ( V ) ( O ) ( A ) ( V ) ( O ) When they design buildings, architects usually stipulate brick

( A ) ( V ) ( O ) because it resists weather effects.

The sentence uses three clauses, one independent and two dependent, rather than phrases to frame the meaning. Let's look at one more example to see how we can produce clarity through clauses:

Aside from the need for adjustment of the heat-treating cycle to obtain optimal properties, the execution of all details of the operation and utilization of good facilities will result in optimal properties in most magnetic materials.

The sentence requires 37 words and eight prepositional phrases. Rephrased into active voice clauses, one independent and two dependent, the sentence requires only 21 words. The meaning

74 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION. VOL. PC-23, NO. 2, JUNE 1980

has a much sharper focus: ( A ) ( V ) ( O )

Heat treatment will produce optimal properties in most mag-( A ) ( V ) ( O )

netic materials, if operators follow all specifications and if ( A ) m (o)

the facilities are good [6 , p . 4 6 ] .

USE CONCRETE A G E N T S AS SUBJECTS

When yi are choosing a subject for a sentence, always try

to choose a subject-agent that is concrete, either a person or

an object. In the example above, in the passive version, the

abstract word "execut ion" holds the subject place in the sen-

tence. This case is typical of the passive sentence: When no

agent is present, the noun in tlje subject position is usually

abstract. As in the example below, an awkward sentence

develops. The position of John Smith with respect to the other candi-dates was felt to be of the highest order.

Actively phrased, using a concrete agent as a subject, the sentence becomes

John Smith has a better position than the other candidates.

However, even in active voice, an abstract subject rather than a concrete one leads to awkward sentences:

The reason he lost the election was due to the fact that he became ill. revised He lost the election because he became ill.

Frequently, too, an abstract subject leads to an incorrect meaning, for the subject, which is only an abstraction, cannot perform the role the remainder of the sentence assigns it:

The purpose of this part of my study is to increase the amount of deductible expense.

Obviously, the purpose might be to discuss ways of increasing the amount of deductible income, but "purpose" cannot " i n c r e a s e . . . . "

Historically, many abstract nouns that occur in vague, wordy, passive sentences are nouns derived from verbs, such as "exe-cut ion" from " to execute," "observation" or "observance" from " to observe," and "recommendation" from " to recom-mend." This characteristic is significant. During the 1960s research showed that sentences which used a large number of nouns derived from verbs were harder for the reader to com-prehend than sentences which expressed the same ideas with verbs. Williams [7, p . 602] reported ' that when secretaries typed sentences which lacked agents as subjects, those secre-taries made 25 percent more errors than they did when .they typed sentences that followed the agent-verb-object pattern. These same secretaries typed sentences in active voice 15 per-cent faster than the versions written in passive voice [ 8 ] . Both findings suggest that we process information better when it follows natural English sentence patterns. In 1972, in an address to the ITCC [ 9 ] , Raymond Rogers of Union Oil Company reaffirmed the necessity of verbs being the strength of the English sentence: ' T h e clarity of a complicated sen-tence is largely determined by the number of verbs it contains. Opaque sentences usually do not contain enough verbs, and their meanings can be clarified by reformulating them with more verbs." Rogers' main example sentence illustrates the same problem I have described, namely, to produce clear

sentences, use active voice clauses rather than phrases to shape the intended meaning:

original A literature search was m a d e for background information o n the low-vo lume conversat ion of field-available water supplies o f unacceptable purity into puri-fied water. revised We searched the literature for any background information that might s h o w h o w small vo lumes of im-pure field water cou ld be purified.

As Rogers states, the revised sentence contains three verbs compared to one in the original version. In addition, however, the revised version uses an agent "We" to begin an active sentence. The original, in contrast, uses an abstract noun "search" with the passive verb "was made."

HISTORY O F THE " B A D " SENTENCE

The sentence patterns I have been dealing with are character-istic of bad technical writing. But why do these dense, diffi-cult-to-process sentences continue to dominate technical writing? Why do passive sentences sound so much more elegant than-active sentences built on natural word order? The answer forms a fascinating story.

Old English prior to 1100 was basically a language of native (Teutonic) words and Scandinavian words. Three Scandinavian incursions between 787 and 1100 successfully fused the cultures of the invading Danes and the native Britons. The similar languages of both races helped produce the successful union of the two cultures. Thus, English before 1100 was largely a language of concrete, common words used in everyday life. The language, which reflected the culture, was simple. man, wife, mother, folk, house, winter, summer, will, can, come, call, hear, sell, think, ride, root, and leg exemplify the character of the early Danish-British language.

However, the entire character of the English vocabulary changed with the Norman invasion in 1100. This event, which placed a sophisticated French culture alongside a less developed English culture, initiated a period of 500 years during which hundreds of French and Latin words (the Latin words pre-viously absorbed by French;) entered Scandinavian English. Because the Normans brought to England a more sophisticated culture, the majority of French-Latin words that found their way into English expressed abstract concepts associated with government, fashion, food, social life, art , learning, medicine, and military life. Words like area, abdomen, compensate, composite, decorum, delirium, dogmatic, digress, education, embroidery, fortitude, gradual, horrid, imitate, immune, medium, notary, notorious, penetrate, prerogative, prosecute, prosody, resuscitate, strategem, summary, transition, ulcer, ultimate, and vindicate indicate the more complex, more conceptual nature of the Norman French language.

Because the Normans were the conquering people and the Britons the conquered, the coexistence of the two cultures was never harmonious. By 1500, because of increasing antagonism between the English and the Normans, the connection between France and England dissolved. The exploits of Joan of Arc (1429) marked the beginning of the end. A period of intense English nationalism followed which peaked during the reign of Elizabeth I. During the Renaissance, English writers sought to

TEBEAUX: WHAT MAKES BAD TECHNICAL WRITING BAD? 75

make English a recognized language having the same prestige

as French and Latin. Thus, English writers continued to

borrow liberally from Latin, French, and even Spanish, Italian,

and Portuguese to make English more elegant, more fluid, and

less barbarous. At the same time, nationalistic Englishmen

tried to reduce the number of difficult, ornate (borrowed)

words by encouraging writers to return to "plain English.*'

Thomas Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique (1553) attacked such

"hard" words as expending, ingenuous, dexterity, contemplate,

and relinquish as pedantic " inkhorn" terms. However, our

own familiarity with these words shows how thoroughly we

have assimilated non-Teutonic words into our modern vocabu-

lary. Likewise, during the Renaissance, words like anachro-

nism, allurement, allusion, atmosphere, capsule, denunciation,

dexterity, desirability, emanation, excrescence, expectation,

heredity, jurisprudence, and malignance entered English, but

not without opposition by purists who would have had English

remain as Teutonic as possible [3 ; Ch. 5, 6, 7 for an account

of the French influence on English].

Ultimately, however, most linguists would agree that exten-

sive borrowing between 1100 and 1600 gave English the

richness and flexibility it now has. Nevertheless, the elegant,

fluid style of Latin and French produced an interesting effect

on the English sentence. When writers borrowed Latin nouns,

they frequently borrowed prepositional phrases associated

with the noun. As one linguist remarked after discovering how

extensively prepositional phrases became associated with

borrowed words [ 1 0 ] ,

Prepositional phrases rained in upon English from all sides. . . . the borrowings poured fresh blood into Eng-lish and made it far more supple and expressive than it had been before. It almost seems as if the English went to school with the Latin mind . . . and there learned to chisel the pregnant and finely shaped phrase.

Thus, two specific conditions in the history of Engjish-

(1) the decay of inflections and the resulting need for preposi-

tional phrases to establish grammatical relationships and (2)

borrowing Latin and French abstract nouns along with their

associated prepositional phrases-produced English sentences,

-juch as the following passive sentences, that have the Latin

nominalized verbs as subjects:

Accumulation o f surplus material o f an inf lammatory nature it considered h ighly undesirable. The promulgation o f such directhree is generally found t o

be satisfactory. 1

Gearly these sentences sound more elegant, more fluid than

their revisions in active voice emphasizing specific agents:

Technic ians w o u l d n o t consider storing extra material that might catch fire. T h e c o m m i t t e e dec ided t o support such directives.

MODERN TECHNICAL WRITING ^ H I S T O R Y REPEATS ITSELF

Today, in business and technical writing, we are finally

realizing that elegant writing is not suitable for conveying

precise, technical concepts. We have also recognized that

plain, common, familiar words are better than abstract, long,

uncommon words. Undoubtedly, Thomas Wilson and other

Renaissance advocates of "plain English" would be delighted

to see our modern technical writing texts that advise writers to

use the short, common word rather than the longer one:

consequently

acquire

activate

administer

approximately

demonstrate

inaugurate

utilize

so

get

begin, start

give

about

show

begin

use

Ironically, in lists such as these, which are quite common in

technical writing books, the longer word is either Latin, Old

French, or Old French and Latin. The short words are either

Old French or Middle English. Thus, modern writers are

clearly saying that native English is generally more desirable.

In fact, in a 1976 ITCC paper [11] Ruth Ralph urged writers

to avoid elaborate " t ion" words, using instead their native

equivalents. She also advocated the more Teutonic phrases

rather than the single French or French-Latin word:

demolished

extinguish

tolerate

disintegrate

accelerate

torn down

put out

stand for, put up with

fall apart, come apart

speed up

As Dr. Ralph further emphasizes, our insistence on imitating

French, as the language of culture and elegance, has led us to

elaborate on words both Teutonic and French and come up

with such modern " inkhorn" verbal monstrosities as analyza-

tion, effectuation, reaffirmation, accreditation, termination,

and underutihzation. These words, which are nominalized

verbs, designate highly abstract concepts. Therefore, most

nouns that end in " t ion" cannot take an active verb because

the concepts they link to cannot do anything. If you use

active voice, you simply cannot use these words as subjects, as

they are incapable of action.

USING ACTIVE V O I C E - F I N A L CONSIDERATIONS

In building sentences with active voice, begin by concen-

trating the sentence meaning as much as possible in the subject-

verb pair. As linguists agree, a sentence is clear when the word

arrangement produces the meaning the writer intends. For

this reason, choose agents as subjects and use action verbs.

Passive verbs like "is accomplished," ' I s used, ' ' ' I s enabled,"

"was observed," and "was involved" have no verbal clout.

The presence of a " b e " verb, which conveys only a state of

being (abstract state rather than action), reduces the precision

of the verb. °

Many problems in subject-verb agreement disappear when

the writer rephrases the sentence in active voice. The following

passive sentence has no agent, an abstract subject, and four

prepositional phrases which intervene between the subject and

the verb. The verb is so faj from the subject that the writer

uses a singular verb " i s " rather than "a re" :

The effects o f b o d y geometry and constraints o n the prop-

agation o f ttress waves through elastic media is discussed.

Revising the sentence by using an agent-verb-object arrange-m e n t , we structure a clearer, easier to follow statement [ 1 2 ] :

76 I FEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. PC-23, NO. 2 , JUNE 1980

t h e class studies the effects of body geometry and con-straints on the propagation of stress waves through elastic media.

Furthermore, if we build a sentence using (1) passive voice, (2) an abstract subject with no agent given anywhere in the sentence, (3) a " b e " verb, and (4) several prepositional phrases coming between the subject and the verb, we produce an in-comprehensible sentence like the one I found in a report:

Trie effects of frictional resistance to relative motion between material substances in contact is evident.

I have also found that building sentences in active voice, deliberately doing so, leads writers away from elegant, Latinate sentences which are inevitably abstract. Look at this sentence:

General Motors* participation in wet traction studies has necessitated the development and construction of test sur-faces which have controlled friction properties.

Actually, the sentence should read something like this: General Motors developed tests to measure wear rate in wet traction studies.

Passive voice may be used without confusion being produced (as it is in this clause) but Fm arguing (in active voice now) that the writer should have deliberate control over the sen-tence pattern he uses. He should build sentences with the knowledge that the sentence pattern he uses will always affect clarity and meaning. When a writer realizes the power that natural English word order possesses, when he conscientiously thinks in agent-vesb-object clauses, as I have done throughout this article (and I have used only one passive sentence), then he can build long sentences when he wishes to do so, for the reader's comprehension ability does not diminish. (That last sentence had 56 words, but I will bet that you followed it.) Readers can comprehend sentences of any length much better when they are structured in active voice clauses [7; pp . 6 0 1 , 6 0 5 ] . The short sentence is not always the good sentence. The writer must take syntax into account and build sentences that are easy for the reader to process.

SUMMARY

We have seen that many typical problems in bad technical writing result from abuse of English syntax. Writers of any professional material will do well to remember the power of natural English syntax to frame meaning. But they will also do well to remember that all words that comprise our present vocabulary must work with syntax to produce precise, clear

meaning. Only then can the reader visualize the action. In

short, to develop clear sentences,

• Use active voice as frequently as possible;

• Build sentences with clauses rather than phrases;

• Make the agent of the action the subject of the clause;

• Build clauses by concentrating meaning in the subject-verb pairs;

• Choose concrete rather than abstract nouns as subject-agents;

• Use action verbs rather than " b e " verbs whenever possible;

• Use passive voice only when its use will not cloud meaning; • Choose voice carefully when planning sentences; and • Remember that technical writing should inform, that

historically elegant sentence patterns and words are not suitable to express technical information.

R E F E R E N C E S

(1) R. Davis, "How Important Is Technical Writing? A Survey of the Opinions of Successful Engineers," / Technical Writing and Communication, vol. 8(3), pp. 207-216 ,1978 .

[2] See, for example, T. C. Smith, "What Bugs People Most About Report Writing,** Technical Communication, pp. 2 -6 , Fourth Quarter 1976.

(3) A. C. Baugh, History of the English Language, 2nd ed. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1957. 4

(41 E. C Traugott, History of English Syntax, New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1972, p. 160.

(51 T. Pyles, Origins and Development of the English Language, 2nd ed., New York: Harcourt Brace, 1971, p. 222.

(6J T. P. Johnson, Analytical Writing, New York: Harper and Row, 1966.

(7) J. M. Williams of the Univ. of Chicago agrees with this assessment; see his article "Defining Complexity,** College English, vol. 40 , pp. 595-609 , Feb. 1979.

(8] Ε. B. Coleman, 'The Comprehensibility of Several Grammatical Transformations/* / Applied Psychology, vol. 48 , pp. 186-190, 1964; "Learning of Prose Written in pour Grammatical Trans-formations,'* / Applied Psychology, vol. 49 , pp. 332-341 ,1965; Williams, p. 602.

(91 R. A. Rogers, "To Resurrect Dead Sentences, Raise Verb-Word Ratios," 19th International Technical Communication Confer-ence Proceedings, Washington, DC: Society for Technical Com-munication, 1972, pp. 77-80.

(101 Η. T. Price, Foreign Influences on Middle English, Contributions in Modern Philology No. H , Ann Arbor: Utuv. of Michigan, Apr. 1947, pp. 38-39.

(11] R. S. Ralph, "Shunning the *Tion," 23rd International Technical Communication Conference Proceedings, Washington, DC: So-ciety for Technical Communication, 1976, pp. 18-20.

(12} D. C. Andrew* and M. D. Blickle, Technical Writing: Principles and Forms, New^tswk: Macmfflan, 1978, p. 74 .