Chacham's Journal: Verbiage: Writing: presenting or teaching.

Roblimo posted Indian Techies Answer About 'Onshore Insourcing' recently, and he said "when" where he should have said "if".

It's not so bad, though it did come off as a attitude. Either "you slashdotters always read everything" or worse "being i made this comment, you *will* read it". No, i don't think he actively meant that, though it does seem like an uncocous undertone.

A good writer gives the reader some authority and choice and puts himself merely as a presenter: "I you will just read further", "chapter 2 talks about....; chapter three discusses...; etc...", or "if i may indulge you please read on". The poor writer takes authority for himself and puts the reader as an uninformed dolt: "As will be shown in chapter 6", "Read this chapter first", "everyone thought that way until i discovered otherwise". Using "if" or "when" is also an example of this choice.

Writers are entitled to have their own opinions and be rather foreceful about them. The reader whould be "open-minded" not the author. A open-minded author won't present details well enough, for he has no passion. However, even with the passion, he should never assume the reader wants to read. Perhaps, the quality of the work degrades from there on.