FAQ: Writing Style

Q: Is writing style important for LINMO-compatible web sites?

A: Yes, good style is very important, just as it is for truly useful and enduring hard copy (i.e., printed on paper) books.

Q: What is meant by "good style"?

A: Good style is a combination of several things, including (1) adhering to the formal rules of the language (e.g., sentence structure, word usage and spelling), (2) expressing concepts clearly so that they are as easy as possible to comprehend even for people with little or no familiarity with the topic, (3) being concise without omitting important details and (4) creating text such that it is interesting or even enjoyable to read.

Q: Why is writing style important? There are many web sites that are popular and useful but which pay no particular attention it.

A: Hundreds of years of experience with printed books have repeatedly shown that style is an important factor in popularity and usability, and that poor style can be not only annoying but also make a work more difficult to understand and diminish its credibility. There is little reason to believe that a sudden change in human nature has occurred with the advent of the web.

Good style is particularly important in making a work easily understandable for people whose native language or dialect is not the same as that in which the work is written. For example, native speakers of English can usually understand text that contains a certain amount of poor grammar, incorrect spelling, slang and run-on sentences, but comprehending such text can be far more difficult for people for whom English is a second language, or even for people whose first language is some other dialect of English.

Q: How can one attain a good writing style?

A: Good style is largely an art. As is the case with so many other arts or crafts, such as programming (i.e, the creation of computer programs), speaking a foreign language, painting, composing music or cooking, it requires years of practice to become a good writer. There are few short cuts.

Q: Can LINMO-compatible sites be created in any language?

A: Yes, such sites can be created in any language, as long as the author is highly skilled in writing in that language. Of course, it is important to select a language that is most appropriate for the intended audience.

Q: Can such sites be translated into other languages?

A: Ideally, a well-crafted site should be available in numerous languages, just as is commonly the case with hard copy books. However, translation is a highly skilled art, and the services of first rate translators can be very costly. Although much progress has been made on machine translation (i.e., translation by computer) technology in recent years, the quality of the results is still quite uneven and both the subtlety of meaning and the style of the original are often lost. In general, the higher the standard of writing of a work, the easier it is to translate into other languages.