The Official Style is
typically found in contexts such as research articles, contractual or legal
documents, scientific reports, or corporate reviews. But the style can be found
outside of these contexts, as well. And each respective field requires
information to be presented in different ways; thus, each field ends up with
its own definition, or perhaps a dialect, of the Official Style. But some
fields might have completely different rules of the Official Style. The usual
forms, such as latinate diction, complex sentences, wordiness, and
shapelessness don’t always apply. This is the case in the computer science
field, where programmers become used to the Official Style as it exists in
their field. This article is one example of the Official
Style as programmers are used to it.
The article was
written by an author through Oracle, the company that created the Java
programming language. The author assumed that readers of the article would only
be programmers in need of basic information pertaining to interfaces. He does,
however, include information on where to find articles about more detailed
aspects of Interfaces. The author also had to understand that each
reader/programmer has different needs, has received a unique education, and
learns in specific ways. (For simplicity, the rest of the article will use the
word ‘reader’, which pertains to the programmers that access the article.)
Because the author was tasked with writing an article to define the basics of
an Interface for all readers completely, he also had to make it as widely
accessible as possible. The Official Style of the Computer Science field offers
guidelines on how to do that successfully, and the author follows those
guidelines. If the article were to be written in a more creative or plain
matter, the information the author is trying to convey might not be displayed
in the best manner and it would fail to achieve its purpose.
While
learning languages, computer programmers become used to seeing certain
problems. Obviously a problem must exist, otherwise there would be no reason to
write a solution. So authors of educational texts tend to set up generic
hypothetical situations for programmers learning the language in order to help
them understand how a portion of code works. While it is a credible and easily
understandable approach, it leads to some unfortunate bi-products in the
writing. In this article, the author sets up one of these situations for the
reader early: “For example, imagine a
futuristic society where computer-controlled robotic cars transport passengers
through city streets without a human operator.” Because the situation is being
established for the reader, the author is forced to use a slew of infinitive
phrases: “...to make the car move...,” “...to command the car...,” “...to
modify it...” The combination of this and the lengthy hypothetical situation
presented can make the section of the article seem choppy. But this is one
feature of the Official Style in the Computer Science field, and it makes the
article accessible to the largest number of readers.
At
times, the article uses language that suggests it is shying away from a
professional tone and moving towards an informal tone. As the author
establishes the problem which persists throughout the article, he says,
“Automobile manufacturers write software (Java, of course) that operates the
automobile.” The middle quip, “Java, of course,” brings the formality down a
bit, and reminds the reader this is a hypothetical situation. The idea of Java
programs running cars is far fetched and sounds like a joke to computer
programmers, but the author has to set aside reality in order to bring the
problem down to a level that every programmer can relate to. While these kinds
of examples lack creativity after reading even just a few, the broadness and
simplicity of such problems allows the widest variety of programmers who access
the article the best chance of understanding it.
 | |||
| A screen shot showing a code-example used in the article. |
There
are a few sections of the article which would seem like jargon to someone not
meant to read the article, that is, someone who doesn’t understand computer
programming. “When an instantiable class implements an interface, it provides a
method body for each of the methods declared in the interface.” These are
everyday terms used by programmers, and they can account for the articles
readability, which is about 14. However, the article also contains lengthy
sections of text which is meant to be code, throwing off the readability
scores. But this is just another aspect of the Official Style in the Computer
Science field. Often times, leaving out section of code like this would render
the article completely useless. The Official Style requires that code be
included in articles and texts such as this; it is usually necessary for the
reader to fully understand the topic material. So if the readability is
adjusted by ignoring all sections of text that are code, the readability score changes to 12.5. The
change isn’t much, and the score shouldn’t be taken to mean the exact grade
level, either. Many programmers might not start programming until college or later,
but might be able to read well at a 14th grade level or higher. So the
readability scores are nearly useless to this article.
The
average person wouldn’t be able to find many elements of the Official Style in
this article. But this article isn’t meant for the average person--the usual rules
of the Official Style do not apply. The author tailored the article in the
Official Style of the Computer Science, using a simple situation and portions
of code to explain the subject matter in the greatest detail. The Official
Style might not always be creative or fun to read, but it is the best choice
for clear communication.
By Ethan B.
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