Plainly Speaking: Ditch the Sales Pitch

My husband is what I call an “accidental saver.” Every evening, he empties his pockets of coins and dumps them into a plastic dish on his desk. Over months, the pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters pile up and spill out of the dish. (That’s when he borrows a mixing bowl from my kitchen to hold them, but that’s another story.)

We decided to order a coin sorter. Richard found one online that got good reviews, so we ordered it, paid for it, and waited.

A week or so later, the coin sorter arrived. I extricated the user’s guide from the box and opened to the section “About the Cassida C200” on the first page. Here’s what I read.

The Cassida C200 coin counter/sorter/wrapper is a multifunctional coin processing machine which incorporates all of the features of a professional counter/sorter/wrapper at a very affordable price. Its large hopper is capable of holding 2000 coins (dimes) and the coin trays can each accumulate up to 900 coins (dimes) at a time. Displaying the subtotal for each denomination and the total value make the Cassida C200 an easy all-in-one tool for any coin handling needs. The Cassida C200’s lightweight, compact, and stylish design will easily fit into your business environment.

I sighed. Your typical sales pitch. Apparently it never occurred to the writer that the user sees the manual only after she buys the product. One principle of plain language that technical communicators often overlook is the document’s purpose. User guides, arriving as they do with the purchased product, must tell, not sell. Nonetheless, the paragraph harbors some gems. Let’s break down the text to see what might be useful to a committed user.

  • The Cassida C200 coin counter/sorter/wrapper is a multifunctional coin processing machine which incorporates all of the features of a professional counter/sorter/wrapper at a very affordable price.

Phrases like “multifunctional . . . machine” and “all the features of a professional counter/sorter/wrapper” tell us nothing. At an affordable price? Why do I care? I’ve already bought the thing. Verdict: Dismissed.

  • Its large hopper is capable of holding 2000 coins (dimes) and the coin trays can each accumulate up to 900 coins (dimes) at a time.

If you remove the adjectives and streamline the word choice, this sentence might tell us something. Let’s try this:

The hopper holds 2000 dime-sized coins at one time. Each tray holds 900 dime-sized coins at one time.

Still not perfect (I’d like to know how many quarters, nickels, and pennies the hopper and trays hold) but I can live with this.

  • Displaying the subtotal for each denomination and the total value make the Cassida C200 an easy all-in-one tool for any coin handling needs.

Watch out for phrases like “easy” and “all-in-one”; they indicate opinion and salesmanship. (Have I mentioned I’ve already bought this wonder machine?) How about this:

As it sorts coins, the Cassida C200 displays the total amount sorted and the total amount for each denomination.

Moving on.

  • The Cassida C200’s lightweight, compact, and stylish design will easily fit into your business environment.

Nothing but fluffy, unsolicited opinion. Gone.

So after our dissection, here’s what remains:

The hopper holds 2000 dime-sized coins at one time. Each tray holds 900 dime-sized coins at a time. As it sorts coins, the Cassida C200 displays the total amount sorted and the total amount for each denomination.

To make this a workable introductory paragraph, I’ll combine and then rephrase the main points into two clean sentences:

Using the Cassida C200, you can sort almost 2000 quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies into separate trays at once.  As you sort the coins, the display shows the total amount sorted and the total amount for each denomination.

I changed some of the wording to describe what the user can do, not what the system does. Now the introductory paragraph provides useful information from the user’s point of view.

But here’s a surprise: Neither the original paragraph nor or my rewrite mentions the feature most users need: the coin sorter includes cylinders. Users can put coin wrappers in those cylinders, set the machine to count the number of coins that belongs in each wrapper, and sort and wrap the coins at once.

So the original paragraph, which was meant to sell me on the product, doesn’t even mention its most useful feature!

Here’s the paragraph with my description of this feature. I’ve reorganized the sentences by topic, too.

Using the Cassida C200, you can sort almost 2000 quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies into separate trays at once.

The coin sorter also includes cylinders. You can put coin wrappers in those cylinders, set the machine to count the number of coins that belongs in each wrapper, and sort and wrap the coins at once. (Coin wrappers sold separately.)

As you sort the coins, the display shows the total amount sorted and the total amount for each denomination.

An introduction should tell the user what to expect from the product. In my rewrite, I removed abstract terms and combined the main ideas into logical paragraphs, and mentioned a key feature the original introduction left out.

Now you could say the product practically sells itself.

Karen Field Carroll is a senior technical writer, author, and plain language advocate. She and her husband live in Arizona with their German shepherd, Gunther, and their cat, Callie. Visit her blog at http://www.write2help.com.

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