"When one first starts using e-prime, it can seem stilted at first. It takes practise. Note that I have used e-prime exlusively in this coversation. Does it seem that I have sacrificed clarity?"

I do struggle with E-Prime. I tried to write without using verbs of being, but frequently struggled with my sentences. For example, I wanted to say that "I am struggling with E-Prime," but changed it. I'm not sure the sentence I did use possessed greater clarity. In fact, I think it didn't, since I subtly changed the meaning in order to not use a verb of being.

"Perhaps you mean your audience consists of people with degrees in engineering, or people who earn a living as engineers? Saying someone "is" an engineer reduces the person to that function, and doesn't really say much about their actual past or present circumstances. Saying someone has an engineering degree or earns a living as an engineer proves much more descriptive... and yet more humanising as well. "

I see what you mean, I think. However, a lot of the people I worked with who earned a living as software engineers did not possess engineering degrees. Others had engineering training, but were doing other jobs at the time I met them (sales, IT, QA testing). Others had studied logic, but not engineering. Perhaps the phrase "thinks like an engineer" would work. Or, perhaps the phrase "comfortable with Boolean logic" would work. Both of these examples, however, seem excessively wordy without actually adding meaning. However, the act of *trying* to find another way of saying it forces me to think more precisely and more clearly, which, so far, is the chief value I see in all this.

"Although, since you raise the topic of target audiences, it bears pointing out that in some contexts, e-prime can actually "get you in trouble". Many people in academic and scientific circles demand passive voice in "serious" work. The official Melbourne University guide to writing an essay emphasises the importance of littering one's papers with "be," "is," "are," "was," etc, because passive voice apparently makes writing seem more "professional." (Personally, I disagree, and it flies in the face of what I learned in first-year History and Philosophy of Science to boot.) "

Yes, I believe proponents of passive voice originally wanted to remove the person from the experiment, to foster the perception of objective science. For "real science," it should not matter who did the experiment - the results should be the same no matter who does it. This approach does lead to extremely turgid writing.

Social sciences adopted this technique to better mirror "hard sciences," I believe, but there has been a growing trend toward more readable prose over the past few decades, I think.

Anyway, any E-Prime texts you can recommend?