The registers¶
The same fact can help someone buy, work or catch up. Decide which job a passage has before deciding how it should sound.
| The reader needs to | Register | Where personality comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Assess an offer | Marketing | A recognizable situation, a supported benefit and a distinctive observation |
| Complete a task or understand a mechanism | Technical | Clear sequence, exact detail and an illuminating explanation |
| Learn what is true or what changed | Neutral | Useful context, natural rhythm and candid limits |
Use fontlab-marketing, fontlab-technical or fontlab-neutral for the corresponding register. Mixed work uses fontlab-write or fontlab-rewrite; choose the register of each passage by purpose.
Marketing¶
Let the reader recognize a job worth doing. Show what changes, how the product makes that change possible and what evidence supports the claim. Offer a next step appropriate to the decision.
Choose a concrete situation before reaching for emotional language. A designer comparing proofs is enough material for a useful scene. Their supposed exhaustion, professional insecurity or delight needs evidence of its own.
A longer setup followed by a short consequence can make a benefit memorable. A restrained observation can puncture an inflated promise. Use these when the material supports them; a price panel rarely needs a story.
Try the swap test on praise: could almost any product claim it? Try the negation test: would the opposite be meaningful? Use the answers to find empty claims, while retaining useful shared facts and familiar action labels.
Never invent scarcity, deadlines, customer dialogue, endorsements or performance figures. Place material conditions beside the offer. An invented obstacle cannot establish a product advantage.
Technical¶
Give readers a reliable route through the task. A procedure orders actions; a reference makes facts easy to find; a concept page develops a mental model; troubleshooting starts with an observable symptom.
Use direct actions with exact labels and necessary conditions. Explain a non-obvious result when it helps the reader verify progress. Keep a clear passive when the actor is unknown or irrelevant, and preserve the actual timing.
Concept prose can begin with a small puzzle and work toward its explanation. A comparison can make a relationship visible, but its limits must be clear. Return to literal terms before the reader acts.
Keep warnings, steps and recovery instructions free of jokes and suspense. Their pleasure comes from finding the needed answer at the right moment.
Neutral¶
Neutral prose can be warm, observant and interested in its subject. Open with the change or useful fact, explain its consequence and retain the qualification that keeps the claim honest.
Use a brief aside when it answers a likely question. Let sentence length vary with the relationships being explained. A precise observation often provides enough character without a metaphor or a joke.
State limitations, pricing, licensing, compatibility, security and migration facts plainly. Describe a fix through the symptom readers saw and the supported correction. Do not invent the earlier behavior merely to create a before-and-after story.
Email follows the reader's purpose¶
A release notice to a customer usually uses neutral prose. A purchase offer uses marketing, with factual terms. A support reply uses technical guidance where it gives instructions.
Put the relevant action, cost, eligibility and deadline where the recipient can find them. A customer does not need to be reintroduced to a product they already own. Do not infer ownership, usage history or loyalty from a name on a mailing list.
Choosing¶
Mark changes of purpose within a document. Finish the invitation before beginning the numbered instructions. Give the price and its conditions enough space to be read without interpreting a joke.
Keep a customer quotation exact. Keep uncertainty exact too: choosing the most restrictive wording does not resolve conflicting sources. Check the product, version and scope of each claim.
Worked borderline cases¶
These three passages use one fictional fact packet: a review app can display two supplied proofs together; it does not automatically identify differences.
Marketing
Two proofs, and the detail you want to compare is on the other one. Open them together to inspect the drawings side by side. The app does not mark the differences; you make the comparison.
Technical
Open both proofs in the comparison view. Inspect the drawings side by side. The app does not mark differences automatically.
Neutral
The comparison view displays two proofs together. You can inspect the drawings side by side; differences are not marked automatically.
The facts survive all three versions. The marketing passage makes the situation recognizable. The technical passage gives an action and a limit. The neutral passage reports the capability. None adds automatic detection.
For a second-pass exercise, mark each factual claim in the three versions and match it to the packet. Then move the technical passage into a landing page. Give it a task heading and keep the instructions literal; the surrounding invitation does not change their job.
For a product page, choose marketing around the offer and technical prose for a walkthrough. For a manual introduction, use neutral orientation and technical task guidance. For failed exports, start with the symptom and supported diagnostics. For a release blog that also sells an upgrade, make the offer and its conditions explicit.