by Jennie Ruby
What role, if any, should humor play in technical and
training materials?
When writing training materials, I am always looking for new
ways to introduce a lesson and keep the tone engaging. The introduction to a lesson
needs to draw in the learners and get them motivated to continue the training,
and the writing throughout the lesson has to keep their attention. Can the use
of humor help?
To find an answer, I skimmed some of the writing in my
shelf-full of training books. I found many examples of engaging and personable
writing styles, but very few examples of out and out humor.
Even in the For Dummies series and its competitor The
Complete Idiot's Guide to… group, both known for their clear and readable text,
humor was rarely on display. I did find some exceptions. Several of the Dummies books have a cartoon at
the beginning of each chapter. Laurie E. Rozakis' The Complete Idiot's Guide to Grammar and Style begins with a quote
from comedian Jerry Seinfeld. And I developed a smile, if not a chuckle, from this
bit from Susannah Gardner and Shane Birley's Blogging for Dummies:
"No matter what your teenager tells you, there is absolutely
no requirement that you must write your blog while wearing your pajamas. Also,
you are allowed to use a spellchecker."
And I was pleased by their alliterative subheading "Tiptoeing
Through Templates."
But in books like DHTML
and CSS for the World Wide Web, Excel
Data Analysis, Illustrator,
and even The Rough Guide to MySpace &
Online Communities, humor and joking did not find a place.
I conclude from this that joking around pretty much does not
have a place in training materials. The reason would be twofold:
- You need to maintain a credible and
authoritative tone. - Humorous stories and jokes may be a distraction
rather than an enhancement in learning materials.
Does this mean your training materials must be utterly dry,
factual, and boring? Absolutely not. But telling jokes? Not so much.
Do you agree? Or strongly disagree? We would love
to hear from you about experiences you have had with using humor in training
materials. Please send us your comments.
you an eLearning developer who has been tasked with creating an
effective voiceover script? I'm teaching a new online class in May
called Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts.
During the class I'll be teaching you how to define the appropriate
voice and tone for a narrative text. You will learn how to take
specific steps to create the engaging and personable writing style that
voice-over narratives require. I hope you can join me. Click here to learn more. I also teach the Writing Training Documents and
eLearning Scripts class. You can learn about that here.
***
to her credit. She is a publishing professional with more than 20 years
of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.
I have been a technical communicator for over twenty-two years, and in that time, I have written user guidance materials in many forms. I would absolutely agree that humor within texts designed for user driven self-guided study should be kept to the absolute minimum so as not to detract from the core business of the text – educating the user. However having stood in front of rooms full of eager (and not so eager) students, to deliver training with no humor, or at the very least light hearted banter, can be catastrophic with regards to engaging with the students. So as with all things, we a looking at horses for courses, if you’ll pardon the pun :-).
I have been a technical communicator for over twenty-two years, and in that time, I have written user guidance materials in many forms. I would absolutely agree that humor within texts designed for user driven self-guided study should be kept to the absolute minimum so as not to detract from the core business of the text – educating the user. However having stood in front of rooms full of eager (and not so eager) students, to deliver training with no humor, or at the very least light hearted banter, can be catastrophic with regards to engaging with the students. So as with all things, we a looking at horses for courses, if you’ll pardon the pun :-).
I have been a technical communicator for over twenty-two years, and in that time, I have written user guidance materials in many forms. I would absolutely agree that humor within texts designed for user driven self-guided study should be kept to the absolute minimum so as not to detract from the core business of the text – educating the user. However having stood in front of rooms full of eager (and not so eager) students, to deliver training with no humor, or at the very least light hearted banter, can be catastrophic with regards to engaging with the students. So as with all things, we a looking at horses for courses, if you’ll pardon the pun :-).