Conversational writing kicks formal writing's ass

If you want people to learn and remember what you write, say it conversationally. This isn't just for short informal blog entries and articles, either. We're talking books. Assuming they're meant for learning, and not reference, books written in a conversational style are more likely to be retained and recalled than a book on the same topics written in a more formal tone. Most of us know this intuitively, but there are some studies to prove it.

Your sixth grade English teacher warned you against writing the way you talk, but she was wrong. Partly wrong, anyway. Then again, we aren't talking about writing the way you talked when you were 12. Or even the way you talk when you're rambling. What most people mean when they say "write the way you talk" is something like, "the way you talk when you're explaining something to a friend, filtering out the 'um', 'you know', and 'er' parts, and editing for the way you wish you'd said it."

So why aren't more technical books or articles written this way? One computer book author (who hates my books) sent me an email saying, "With your books, you want people to have fun" (he said it like that was a bad thing, but that's a different issue). "But with my books, I have a reputation as a consultant to think about, and I want people to have the impression of, 'listen carefully, because I'm only going to say this once.'" Whatever. I've talked about the danger of writing a book from the perspective of what it will do for you vs. what it means for the user in How to write a non-fiction bestseller.

Unless the book is a reference book, where precision matters over understanding, and the writing is meant to be referred to not read and learned from, there are almost NO good reasons for a tech book to be written in a formal (i.e. non-conversational) style. Much of the time, it's an indication that the author is thinking way too much about himself, and how he will be perceived. (Or she, of course, but to be perfectly sexist here--this does seem to be more of a guy thing--the "I'm more technically serious than thou" phenomenon.)

Sometimes it's simply because so many technical books are written that way, and it's just conventional inertia ("if the other books are written like that, and they sell, this must be the way it's done"). Other times, it's the author's of way of showing respect for both the topic and the reader--a valid goal, but an ineffective (and unneeded) approach.

And now we know that it's usually wrong, and users/readers are starting to fight back against painfully dry books, no matter how technically pure the content.

A study from the Journal of Educational Psychology, issue 93 (from 2000), looked at the difference in effectiveness between formal vs. informal style in learning. In their studies, the researchers (Roxana Moreno and Richard Mayer) looked at computer-based education on botany and lightning formation and "compared versions in which the words were in formal style with versions in which the words were in conversational style."

Their conclusion was:
"In five out of five studies, students who learned with personalized text performed better on subsequent transfer tests than students who learned with formal text. Overall, participants in the personalized group produced between 20 to 46 percent more solutions to transfer problems than the formal group."
They mention other related, complimentary studies including:

"... people read a story differently and remember different elements when the author writes in the first person (from the "I/we" point of view) than when the author writes in the third person (he, she, it, or they). (Graesser, Bowers, Olde, and Pomeroy, 1999). Research summarized by Reeves and Nass (1996) shows that, under the right circumstances, people "treat computers like real people."

So one of the theories on why speaking directly to the user is more effective than a more formal lecture tone is that the user's brain thinks it's in a conversation, and therefore has to pay more attention to hold up its end! Sure, your brain intellectually knows it isn't having a face-to-face conversation, but at some level, your brain wakes up when its being talked with as opposed to talked at. And the word "you" can sometimes make all the difference.

One striking part of the Moreno/Mayer study is how similar the actual content was. Here's the before and after example from the beginning of the lesson they studied:

Formal
"This program is about what type of plants survive on different planets. For each planet, a plant will be designed. The goal is to learn what type of roots, stem, and leaves allow the plant to survive in each environment. Some hints are provided throughout the program."

Conversational
"You are about to start a journey where you will be visiting different planets. For each planet, you will need to design a plant. Your mission is to learn what type of roots, stem, and leaves will allow your plant to survive in each environment. I will be guiding you through by giving out some hints."

And from another perspective, consider what former Wired editor Constance Hale wrote in Sin and Syntax:

"The second-person pronoun (you) lets the author hook the reader as if in conversation. Call it cozy. Call it confiding. You is a favorite of the Plain English folks, who view it as an antidote to the stiff impersonality of legalese and urge bureaucrats to write as if speaking to the public... " She goes on to give a pile of great examples.

We believe one of the biggest mistakes is to dismiss the things that work in teaching younger people by saying that they somehow don't work for adults. That's wrong. At the highest level, anyway. Obviously the implementation of a kid's learning book and one for adults will be different, and different subjects often require dramatically different approaches, but at the core, virtually all brains learn the same way--through emotional response (which in turn triggers the brain to pay more attention and possibly record to long-term storage). And engaging in a conversation has the potential to turn up the emotional gain much more than a dry, lifeless text or lecture.

If your brain had a bumper sticker, it would say:

I heart conversation.