The Global English Style Guide: Writing Clear, Translatable Documentation for a Global Market
By John R. Kohl
* Publisher: SAS Press
* Number Of Pages: 336
* Publication Date: 2008-04-09
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 1599946572
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9781599946573
Product Description:
This detailed, example-driven guide illustrates how much you can do to make written texts more suitable for a global audience. Accompanied by an abundance of clearly explained examples, the Global English guidelines show you how to write documentation that is optimized for non-native speakers of English, translators, and even machine-translation software, as well as for native speakers of English. You'll find dozens of guidelines that you won't find in any other source, along with thorough explanations of why each guideline is useful. The author also includes revision strategies, as well as caveats that will help you avoid applying guidelines incorrectly.
Focusing primarily on sentence-level stylistic issues, problematic grammatical constructions, and terminology issues, this book addresses the following topics: ways to simplify your writing style and make it consistent; ambiguities that most writers and editors are not aware of, and how to eliminate those ambiguities; how to make your sentence structure more explicit so that your sentences are easier for native and non-native speakers to read and understand; punctuation and capitalization guidelines that improve readability and make translation more efficient; and howlanguage technologies such as controlled-authoring software can facilitate the adoption of Global English as a corporate standard.
This text is intended for anyone who uses written English to communicate technical information to a global audience. Technical writers, technical editors, science writers, and training instructors are just a few of the professions for which this book is essential reading. Even if producing technical information is not your primary job function, the Global English guidelines can help you communicate more effectively with colleagues around the world.
Summary: The Global English Style Guide: a review
Rating: 5
Many people who do not speak English as a first language struggle to understand English texts. Human translation is expensive. Machine translation frequently does not work. Global English offers a solution to these three related problems.
Many good style guides exist. Why do technical writers need another style guide? Unlike other style guides, this book covers grammatical structures, not only particular terms. The author writes clearly, and he explains the reasons for the guidelines. The book is not an academic paper. The guidelines are based on practical work at SAS Institute, where the author works.
Most technical writers know some of the guidelines already. For example, restrict the use of the passive voice, use language literally, and simplify the writing style. However, many guidelines may be new to some technical writers.
Both of the following sentences are grammatically correct:
* Set up the system.
* Set the system up.
Now, as far as possible, I always use the first structure, and keep the parts of a phrasal verb together. Keeping the parts of the verb together increases consistency, improves machine translation, and helps non-native speakers who do not know the particular verb.
The subtitle of the book refers to writing documentation. However, most of the guidelines apply to copywriting as much as to technical writing. All writers who want to reach a global audience, to decrease translation costs, or to make their texts as clear as possible will benefit highly from this book.
Summary: Very useful guide to writing English for a global audience.
Rating: 5
John R. Kohl's Global English Style Guide is a very useful resource for understanding the importance and practice of writing English for a global audience. In fact, it provides an exciting and passionate case for the value of language in technical documentation. The first chapter outlines the impact of Global English on costs, quality, and usability. It also examines the growing impact of machine translation. The rest of the book consists of a rich set of guidelines to follow. The most valuable part of the book, though, is the focus on before and after examples of sentences followed by discussions of why one solution is better than another. My only frustration with the book is that it does not serve well as a quick reference, which is what I would normally expect from a style guide. However, if I have to chose, I would much prefer to engage in the logic of the author's recommendations rather than just a prescriptive list of do's and don'ts.
Summary: Global English Style Guide
Rating: 5
My copy of "The Global English Style Guide" arrived last week. As soon as I began looking through it, I realized this is a book that Technical Communicators have long needed.
There has been a multitude of excellent articles and references dealing with writing English for localization. But I have never found a concise compilation of guidelines and explanations on writing Global English in a handy book format, until now. Kohl's book is well researched, easy to understand, has multiple entry points, and was written by somebody who knows the topic thoroughly.
If you write any kind of material in the English language that will be localized into another language, I recommend that you purchase Khol's book, read it, follow its advice, and keep the book handy on your shelf. |
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