personal pronouns



I do not like personal pronouns (you, your, he, she) in documentation.
The GNOME style guidelines [1] doesn't say much about personal pronouns,
but 'Topic 2 Passive Voice' [1] suggests it. Active voice is good. Using
'you' is not.

Fedora's guidelines [2] state avoid personal pronouns. To steal Fedora's
example:

BAD:
"Edit your yum configuration files to use geographically close mirrors."

GOOD:
"Edit the yum configuration files"

I've been seeing a lot of personal pronouns in the new Mallard
documentation. Thoughts?

-- 
Craig Keogh <cskeogh adam com au>


[1]
http://library.gnome.org/devel/gdp-style-guide/stable/locale-5.html.en
[2]
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs_Project_Style_Guide_-_General_Guidelines





[Date Prev][Date Next]   [Thread Prev][Thread Next]   [Thread Index] [Date Index] [Author Index]