Learning to write in the information style
At work, I write texts: posts for habr, email-newsletter, articles in the media. I have been writing for a couple of years, the last six months, at least two texts a week. A significant step in the development of my writing skill was the discovery of the information style and advice of Maxim Ilyahov.
The purpose of the text in the information style - to convey information to the reader. Information style: concise, unambiguous, accurate and objective. In the informational texts there are no unnecessary words, emotions, personal opinion. They are read easily and quickly.
Maxim introduces the concept of stop words. Stop words are not typical for texts in the information style and if you met him - think about and rephrase this place. The stop words are “by the way”, interjections, modal verbs, verbal nouns and others, about 100 in total.
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At some point, it became difficult for me to search for these words in texts, so I created for myself to help Test The Text . Test The Text highlights words uncharacteristic for the information style and explains why.
Test The Text will help to check and edit your texts or learn to write in the information style. Clicking on the stop word opens a hint why the word is bad and what to do with it.
Information style is not always suitable. If you remove the stop words and emotions from the text, the text will seem too dry, inhuman. Especially on Habré, where posts not only convey information, but also the attitude of the author. But, when you understand what bad words are, all your texts will become better and easier to read.
For example, I will edit the post-translation of an open letter BlackBerry . Original text, stop words highlighted:
The text has become two times shorter, retaining the amount of information transmitted
I apologize for the fact that the service is buggy, breaks markup, behaves strangely and slows down. This is the first version, I am constantly working on it.
Development plans:
- get rid of all bugs and improve performance;
- check the length of sentences and paragraphs;
- spell checker, better than Chrome / Firefox, with training on service users;
- check punctuation;
- saving of several texts, sharing by reference;
- comments to the text from different users;
- checking and editing texts by man.
Have a nice day, write correctly!
Subscribe to our Habra blog and useful letters . We write about the information style, we analyze other people's posts.
The purpose of the text in the information style - to convey information to the reader. Information style: concise, unambiguous, accurate and objective. In the informational texts there are no unnecessary words, emotions, personal opinion. They are read easily and quickly.
Maxim introduces the concept of stop words. Stop words are not typical for texts in the information style and if you met him - think about and rephrase this place. The stop words are “by the way”, interjections, modal verbs, verbal nouns and others, about 100 in total.
')
At some point, it became difficult for me to search for these words in texts, so I created for myself to help Test The Text . Test The Text highlights words uncharacteristic for the information style and explains why.
Test The Text will help to check and edit your texts or learn to write in the information style. Clicking on the stop word opens a hint why the word is bad and what to do with it.
Information style is not always suitable. If you remove the stop words and emotions from the text, the text will seem too dry, inhuman. Especially on Habré, where posts not only convey information, but also the attitude of the author. But, when you understand what bad words are, all your texts will become better and easier to read.
For example, I will edit the post-translation of an open letter BlackBerry . Original text, stop words highlighted:
BlackBerry is having problems. Sales of the flagship smartphone Z10 failed. The company is sold in parts at auction. Doug Fregin, co-founder of the company, tried to buy it incognito. To reassure the few fans of the brand, BlackBerry has published an open letter in 30 newspapers 9 stan.
I gave the full text of the letter at the end of the article. Summary: BB has no debts, there are stocks of money in the accounts and vast experience in creating mobile devices and services for secure corporate networks. The only controversial moment in the letter is the BBM plans (http://us.blackberry.com/bbm.html) to become the “largest global mobile social network”.
The letter is signed by the BlackBerry team, not the CEO Thorsten Heins. This suggests that no one takes responsibility for the precarious position of the company. There is no person on whose decisions the future of the BlackBerry will depend. Only BlackBerry team. From which 4,500 people will be fired by the end of the year to cut costs.
The text has become two times shorter, retaining the amount of information transmitted
I apologize for the fact that the service is buggy, breaks markup, behaves strangely and slows down. This is the first version, I am constantly working on it.
Development plans:
- get rid of all bugs and improve performance;
- check the length of sentences and paragraphs;
- spell checker, better than Chrome / Firefox, with training on service users;
- check punctuation;
- saving of several texts, sharing by reference;
- comments to the text from different users;
- checking and editing texts by man.
Have a nice day, write correctly!
Subscribe to our Habra blog and useful letters . We write about the information style, we analyze other people's posts.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/203334/
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