The Global English Style Guide

John R. Kohl

Description

The Global English Style 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. Author John Kohl 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 how language 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.
This book is part of the SAS Press program.

Sujets

• COMPUTERS
• Writing style
• Enterprise software
• Terminology
• Readability
• General officer
• Machine translation
• General

Informations

• Publié par: SAS Institute
• Date de parution: 08 avril 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 4
• EAN13: 9781599948423
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Praise from the Experts
“I was very excited when I was approached to review The Global English Style Guide: Writing Clear, Translatable Documentation for a Global Market . I was even more excited when it arrived and lived up to my hopes. The guide is both comprehensive and succinct, and best of all, is full of practical examples showing text before and after it has been disambiguated. That means there finally is the definitive resource that has been lacking in the field of writing and editing for an international audience.”
Wendalyn NicholsEditor of Copyediting newsletter and editorial trainer


“I am amazed by the depth of the analysis and the quality of the examples. I cannot begin to imagine the number of hours required to present such an exhaustive and detailed study.
“Some things that I particularly like include the attention to non-native speakers reading in English, the emphasis on the importance of syntactic cues, and the research presented in the syntactic cues appendix. I greatly appreciate having such an abundance of references identified for me.”
Susan LedfordMaster TeacherTechnical Editor

“Backed by solid research and practical industry experience, Kohl’s book is a useful, accessible guide with a common sense approach to Global English. I recommend it as a valuable resource to all globalization professionals.”
Bev CorwinEnso Company Ltd.

“This book addresses the growing awareness that technical documents must reach a wider audience than native English speakers: those who read a translated version of the documents and those for whom English is a second language.
“John Kohl’s discursive style is informative and instructive, without being labor-intensive or didactic. His flowcharts on revising noun phrases and his discussions on the technicalities of machine translation and the benefits of syntactic cues are presented in an easy-to-understand manner.
“ The Global English Style Guide: Writing Clear, Translatable Documentation for a Global Market is definitely a “must-have” for anyone who writes for international audiences.”
Layla A. MatthewTechnical Editor









The correct bibliographic citation for this manual is as follows: Kohl, John R. 2008. The Global English Style Guide: Writing Clear, Translatable Documentation for a Global Market. Cary, NC: SAS Institute Inc.
The Global English Style Guide: Writing Clear, Translatable Documentation for a Global Market
Copyright © 2008, SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA
ISBN: 978-1-59994-842-3 (electronic book) ISBN: 978-1-59994-657-3
All rights reserved. Produced in the United States of America.
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U.S. Government Restricted Rights Notice: Use, duplication, or disclosure of this software and related documentation by the U.S. government is subject to the Agreement with SAS Institute and the restrictions set forth in FAR 52.227-19, Commercial Computer Software-Restricted Rights (June 1987).
SAS Institute Inc., SAS Campus Drive, Cary, North Carolina 27513.
1st printing, March 2008 2nd printing, July 2008 3rd printing, December 2009 4th printing, January 2013

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Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 Introduction to Global English
What Is Global English?
Why Global English?
Benefits of Global English for Professional Writers and Editors
The Cardinal Rule of Global English
Global English and Language Technologies
Machine-Translation Software
Translation Memory
Controlled-Authoring Software
Practical Considerations for Implementing Global English
Prioritize the Guidelines
Build a Relationship with Your Localization Staff
Eliminate Non-essential Information
Insert Explanations for Translators
Frequently Asked Questions about Global English
What is the relationship between Global English and controlled English?
Do the Global English guidelines make all sentences clear and easy to translate?
Does following these guidelines lead to an increase in word counts?
Typographical Conventions

Chapter 2 Conforming to Standard English
Introduction
2.1 Be logical, literal, and precise in your use of language
2.2 Use nouns as nouns, verbs as verbs, and so on
2.3 Don’t add verb suffixes or prefixes to nouns, acronyms, initialisms, or conjunctions
2.4 Use standard verb complements
2.5 Don’t use transitive verbs intransitively, or vice versa
2.6 Use conventional word combinations and phrases
2.7 Don’t use non-standard comparative and superlative adjectives
2.8 Use the only with definite nouns
2.9 Use singular and plural nouns correctly
Other Guidelines That Pertain to Standard English
Useful Resources


Chapter 3 Simplifying Your Writing Style
Introduction
3.1 Limit the length of sentences
3.2 Consider dividing shorter sentences
3.3 Use a verb-centered writing style
3.4 Keep phrasal verbs together
3.5 Use short, simple verb phrases
3.5.1 Avoid unnecessary future tenses
3.5.2 Simplify other unnecessarily complex tenses
3.6 Limit your use of passive voice
3.7 Consider defining, explaining, or revising noun phrases
An Overview of Noun Phrases
3.7.1 Consider defining or explaining noun phrases
3.7.2 Consider revising noun phrases
3.7.3 Always revise noun phrases that contain embedded modifiers
3.8 Use complete sentences to introduce lists
3.9 Avoid interrupting sentences
3.9.1 Program code, error messages, tables, and figures
3.9.2 Adverbs such as however , therefore , and nevertheless
3.9.3 Other short sentence interrupters
3.10 Avoid unusual constructions
3.10.1 The get passive
3.10.2 Causative have and get
3.10.3 In that
3.10.4 Need not
3.10.5 Inverted sentences
3.11 Avoid ambiguous verb constructions
3.11.1 Based on
3.11.2 Require + an infinitive
3.11.3 Appear + an infinitive
3.11.4 Has or have + past participle + noun phrase
3.11.5 Has or have + noun phrase + past participle
3.11.6 Must be , must have , and must have been
3.12 Write positively

Chapter 4 Using Modifiers Clearly and Carefully
Introduction
4.1 Place only and not immediately before whatever they are modifying
4.1.1 O nly
4.1.2 Not
4.2 Clarify what each prepositional phrase is modifying
4.2.1 If the prepositional phrase starts with of , then do nothing
4.2.2 If the prepositional phrase modifies a verb phrase, consider moving it
4.2.3 If a prepositional phrase modifies a noun phrase, consider expanding it into a relative clause
4.2.4 If readers and translators can determine what the prepositional phrase is modifying, then do nothing
4.2.5 When necessary, insert a translation note
4.3 Clarify what each relative clause is modifying
4.4 Use that in restrictive relative clauses
4.5 Consider moving anything that modifies a verb to the beginning of the clause or sentence
4.5.1 Participial phrases
4. 5.2 In order to
4.5.3 Adverbial phrases
4.6 Clarify ambiguous modification in conjoined noun phrases
4.6.1 Consider using identical grammatical structures in each noun phrase
4.6.2 Consider inserting an article after the conjunction
4.6.3 Consider reversing the order of the noun phrases
4.6.4 Consider using an unordered list
4.6.5 Consider using a compound sentence
4.6.6 Consider repeating a preposition
4. 6.7 Consider inserting a translation note

Chapter 5 Making Pronouns Clear and Easy to Translate
Introduction
5.1 Make sure readers can identify what each pronoun refers to
5.1.1 It
5.1.2 They
5.1.3 Them
5.1.4 Its
5.1.5 Their
5.2 Don’t use this , that , these , and those as pronouns
5.3 Don’t use which to refer to an entire clause

Chapter 6 Using Syntactic Cues
Introduction
6.1 Don’t use a telegraphic writing style
6.2 In a series of noun phrases, consider including an article in each noun phrase
6.3 Use that with verbs that take noun clauses as complements
6.4 Use that in relative clauses
6.5 Clarify which parts of a sentence are being joined by and or or
6.6 Revise past participles