Commentary

Improve Your Prose by Considering the Implied Author

This tip begins with an instructive exercise. Read this excerpt from a memo written by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to his staff on his first day at city hall:

“Do not think for a second that I am a detached celebrity without compassion for the ordinary citizen but with an agenda to somehow enrich myself and my movie-star pals. I have lived in California for many years, and I have observed the way she has sailed with sadness and even dismay. But now, this very instant, we have the great opportunity to set this ship of state straight. In fact, it is our obligation to do so.”

Did you notice that you read this excerpt with Arnold’s distinctive Austrian accent? This is an example of dynamic reading, as opposed to the improbable process of words flowing one way from the page to the reader’s brain via the vision system. While reading, you do something that you’re not aware of: You create the concept of the author. This concept consists of several components, including:

What you already know about the author (which may be nothing).
How you react to the text.
What you know about the subject (which may be nothing).

This concept that you have built—called the implied author—will certainly differ from the authentic author. That can be a good thing. For example, let’s assume that the authentic author is colorless, but by skillfully manipulating the reader through carefully selected words, the implied author comes alive, is highly likeable, and, most important, seems entirely trustworthy. Even when the author is a corporation (consider a user manual for a Sony stereo), the reader personifies it.

For the reader, the implied author is an entity that the reading process relentlessly animates—the reader cannot resist assembling the person speaking to her. This relentless process is native to mature readers, so a meticulous author must address this fact, directly or indirectly. Indirect address includes the normal things that stewards of words do, such as checking your spelling, using a highly legible and familiar font, and using clear heads to create a reasonable map of your work. Direct address is much more tricky and lands the author in the realm of nuance and verbal manipulation of the reader. In other words, you directly control how the reader constructs your implied author. Here are some ways to do that:

You want to sound intelligent but not elite: Dedicate yourself to precision. Use words that precisely convey meaning. Avoid using words that your reader may not know, which may alienate the reader. And, to express your mastery of the subject, use technical words that your readers know. Jargon is good when you and your reader share a technical vocabulary.
You want to sound educated about the subject matter: Parenthetical statements and asides that extend overall meaning demonstrate a superior knowledge of the subject matter. Also, addressing anticipated reader questions establishes a teacher-student relationship. These can take the form of “X may be true, but consider Y.”
You want to sound like an all-star writer: Consider getting an editor. Unless your grammar and mechanics are impeccable, harness the skills of a seasoned editor to ensure full compliance with the rules. At worst, several errors detected by the reader may render you the fool.
You want to sound sober or playful: Sober is the default tenor of most engineers. Playful is often a linguistic trap, wherein the reader perceives you as flippant instead of charming. In fact, a playful attitude is virtually verboten in technical reports, but there are other document genres that accommodate wit, and articles for magazines and journals may incorporate the author’s full personality (but that doesn’t mean that the reader will construct a charming author). We don’t possess the wit of Oscar Wilde, but if you have a good wit that you can press into service in your writing, then your reader will paint you charming.

“If I am reading the text of someone I don’t like. . . , I have to fight the urge to take the least intelligent interpretation of any ambiguity.”

--Jim Davies, Skeptic magazine

Meaning: If I, the reader, encounter a patch of prose that turns me against the author, I will not be sympathetic to the author’s cause and I will not interpret ambiguous things in his favor.

Disappointing the Reader

Imagine this scenario: While reading your introductory text, your reader thinks that you, the author, is rather smug about the premise of your research. Because you did not carefully word your position, the reader thinks that you make unwarranted presumptions. When he encounters the controversial conclusions in your report, will he be sympathetic or will he comb your prose for weaknesses like a CSI investigator probing for forsaken DNA? You have primed your reader to be cynical, which does not help your cause. You want the reader to consider you the incontrovertible expert on the subject you are writing about. Effective communication is not all about the presentation, but presentation is very important.

The Reader Plays a Role

If I’m a reader of assembly instructions for a coffee table, I am playing the role of “Reading to Do.” If I’m reading a chemistry textbook, then I am playing the role of “Reading to Learn.” If my new job is to assemble coffee tables for consumers, I am playing the role of “Reading to Learn to Do.” This exercise—extended and stretched beyond our need here—will yield many types of roles that readers acquire during ordinary reading—called rhetorical roles. One of the ways that an author can ensure that his readers don’t stray from the role intended for them is to use language that renders an implied author who is authoritative, consistent, correct, reliable, precise, considerate, and all of the good things that we would expect from the authentic author. Careful writing at all places of a document—including summaries and abstracts—will prevent readers from slipping into dangerous rhetorical roles, such as skeptic, apathetic reader, or error detector.

Several things can cause such slippage. Boredom is a typical reaction to many pages of technical details—no matter how insightful. Advancing wild or unsubstantiated claims may compel the reader to discredit the implied author. Minor errors that accumulate in the reader's mind transform the reader into an error detector, eroding the credibility of the implied author. You undermine your own authority and assassinate your own character when you allow simple errors to remain.

Ways to establish and maintain your credibility include:

Choose your words carefully. Try to be neutral when impartiality is expected.
Use formal discourse. For example, don’t use contractions in technical reports, don’t use clever euphemisms or regional expressions, and don’t refer to the reader in the second person (you).
Demonstrate your authority on the subject by offering experience stories, including references to your own publications on the matter (especially those in peer-review journals), name-dropping, and periodically talking about things that the reader already knows (simpatico).