Other Professional Writing - Writing for Computer Science - page 179

Style
The advice on style in the other chapters of this topic applies just as much to
professional writing in general as it does to research papers and theses. However,
research papers are written within a defined culture, whereas other professional writ-
ing can take place in a wide range of contexts, a factor that can change the emphasis:
some issues become more important, some less so. Probably the most significant
single issue is the importance of, not only being professional, but appearing to be
professional.
The way in which you write sends messages about the kind of person you are.
If you are gushing, and for example claim that “NoSQL is probably the most
important computational innovation since the invention of the Internet”, you have
strayed from the realm of the professional and into that of the salesperson or biased
advocate.
There are many ways in which your writing can undermine your message, To
begin with: do be professional! Take care to stay within your expertise and, when
necessary, admit your ignorance. Flag opinions as opinions—don't present them as
facts, and don't pretend to be objective. Likewise, don't misrepresent your accuracy
or overstate your confidence, and don't falsely imply that tests took place, or that
evidence was gathered.
Sometimes writing can betray an underlying attitude that is not objective. Con-
sider the following examples of unintentional self-revelation, where the statement
contradicts the impression that the writer would presumably want to convey.
Impartial and trustworthy? “Our competitor uses shoddy development practices
whereas we are fully standards-compliant and have a much larger team.”
(“Shoddy” is a judgemental term, and team size may not even be relevant.)
Knowledgeable? “Linux is the successor to the Unix operating system used widely
in universities in the 1980s and is now being adopted commercially.” (Unix has
been used commercially since the 1980s, and has not been superseded by Linux.)
Risk aware? ( And not a risk-taker. ) “A parallel test period is not necessary due to
the simplicity of the design used.” (Even a simple design can fail.)
Diligent, responsible, careful, thorough? “We looked at the availalbe [sic] options
and decided to use of [sic]Mysql due to its populity [sic] and use for free [sic].”
And similarly: “We will investigate the issue when that stage of the development
is reached, as we are confident that we can solve any inter-platform software
migration problems.” (On what basis does this confidence rest?)
Reflective? Flexible? “It is obvious that reconsidering design decisions some
weeks after work has commenced is infeasible.” (Bad design decisions should
always be reconsidered, surely.)
Expert? “The decision to use XL as the underlying database was taken due to the
extensive XL experience in the department.” (Do you need much experience to
use XL? Is it an appropriate choice technically?)