Separation of Church and Debate

Removing religious references may make readers and listeners more comfortable.




For example,

"I am platform agnostic."

becomes...

"I am platform neutral."

~~~~~~~~~~~

"I don't want to get into a religious argument about which CMS to invest in."

becomes...

"I am comfortable evaluating content management systems based on price and performance."

~~~~~~~~~~~

"I believe the highest quality is necessary to make video conferencing work for people."

becomes...

"In my opinion, high quality video is required to make video conferencing work."

Survey says...

Requesting feedback may help create a more modest tone and offset the negative effect of pronouns.



For example,

"I would like to remove the rich media from the home page so it loads faster."

becomes...

"I would like to remove the rich media from the homepage so it loads faster. What do you think?"

A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.S.

Explaining acronyms at least once may make readers feel more comfortable.




For example,

"You should use REST instead of SOAP..."

becomes...

"In our experience, Representational State Transfer (REST) is more efficient than Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)..."

Yes is More

"Yes" can show a willingness to collaborate without sacrificing resolve.




For example,

"No I cant put that 20MB flash file on the home page."

becomes...

"Yes, the large flash file can go on the home page, provided the team is comfortable with the very significant performance tradeoff."

"No we can't convert a complicated Flash application to AJAX on this schedule."

becomes...

"Yes the application can be converted to AJAX on this schedule, provided the team is comfortable eliminating certain features and browser support."

Quid Quo Pronoun

Eliminating personal pronouns like "I," "you," "he/she" and "we" may lighten the tone. This is particularly true when there is no request for feedback.



For example,

"we are recommending that you move off of the Sonic25 platform..."

becomes...

"moving off the Sonic25 platform is recommended..."

----------------------------------------------

"I examined your infrastructure..."

becomes...

"After a review of the infrastructure..."

----------------------------------------------

"You should add more servers for peak loads..."

becomes...

"In our experience, adding additional servers will minimize the effects of peak loads..."

The Difference is Opinion

"In my opinion..." is a great way to soften the tone of technical communication.




For example,

"Adding another programmer to the job is pointless..."

becomes...

"In my opinion, adding another programmer to the job is not a good allocation of resources."

Discuss, No Further

Written correspondence (especially email) is sometimes a poor substitute for in-person discussions; "discuss further" is an artful phrase only if prior discussion has actually occurred.


"I am allocating a member of your team to another project, please let me know if you would like to discuss further."


becomes...


"I have an allocation idea and would look forward to scheduling a convenient time to discuss over the phone or in person."