I am setting forth ten commandments for writers in the public sector, based on my dissertation and on standards for clear writing. The commandments will each appear as a Word of the Week.<\/p>\n
Fourth commandment:<\/p>\n
Use clear and distinctive terms.<\/strong><\/p>\n When terms in text don’t stand out clearly from each other, the text becomes more difficult. In my research, subjects repeatedly wondered what\u00a0different versions of\u00a0service\u00a0<\/em>meant in a document\u00a0that included\u00a0service chain, service network, service model,\u00a0<\/em>and so on.<\/p>\n The\u00a0subjects\u00a0found it difficult to understand the meaning of these\u00a0terms and their relationship.\u00a0A good term should be transparent. The reader should be able to\u00a0get\u00a0an idea about what it refers to even if unfamiliar with the topic.\u00a0Writers have to consider which is more important for readers:\u00a0strict\u00a0orthodox terminology, or actual\u00a0<\/strong>comprehension. Specialized\u00a0<\/strong>shades of meaning aren’t obvious to\u00a0the ordinary person.<\/p>\n The subjects also mentioned that terms in the original text resembled each other. For example,\u00a0service\u00a0network<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0service model <\/em>turned out to be too close in appearance and in meaning . In choosing a term, you should make sure it clearly stands out from other terms, especially ones that will appear in the same context. Words that are too similar confuse readers just as words that are too specialized do.<\/p>\n Before inflicting a new term on your reader, consider whether an existing one can do a better job.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am setting forth ten commandments for writers in the public sector, based on my dissertation and on standards for clear writing. The commandments will each appear as a Word of the Week. Fourth commandment: Use clear and distinctive terms. When terms in text don’t stand out clearly from each other, the text becomes more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-english-en","category-wordoftheweek-en","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3619"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3623,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3619\/revisions\/3623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}