Informal Writing: Milestone or Millstone?

An informal style of writing is much more than just good English. It breaks many of the bad habits to which we\´ve become accustomed. Most particularly, it frees us from the idea that because our writing is technical, it not only must be serious, but it also must be straightlaced and obtuse. The Army Missile Command (AMICOM) says "it ain\´t necessarily so"¿that writing can be both lively and serious. To prove its point, many of the technical manuals (TM\´s) AMICOM supervises are written in this informal style, and the user is slowly beginning, if not to embrace it, at least to accept it.