I nearly spat out my coffee this morning as well as regurgitating yesterday’s supper, dinner, and lunch. What is it with the entries in Wikipedia about technical writing? It seems to be students with no concept of the profession who have written some of the content there.
But, this takes the biscuit:
While grammar, spelling and punctuation are of the utmost importance to technical writing, style is not; it can be sacrificed if doing so increases clarity, which is considered more important to the genre.
What? I mean, WHAT?? This quote comes from the technical writing entry in Wikipedia. I have a real problem with this statement (and will probably have removed it very soon). Style cannot be extricated from the fundamentals of grammar or content design; it is inherently linked to both. For example, if you use repetition, or need to use simple short sentences in sequence, that must be a conscious decision on your part. And therefore, it becomes your style. Clarity is also style.
Style should never be sacrificed. And if you think you have to sacrifice your style for clarity then unfortunately, your style is already bad (see my book review on George Orwell’s Politics and the English language).
Techdocworld's Blog 