An impersonal style makes the writer sound anonymous or indifferent. A personal style allows your message to come through clearly. It always indicates who is doing the talking ("we" - the company), who is being spoken to ("you" - the customer), and who is responsible for doing what.
To make your writing style more personal, use personal pronouns. For example, you can refer to the company as "we" and to the customer as "you." Many people do not understand the word "warrantor"; they are not sure to whom terms like "owner," "user," or "consumer refer. On the other hand, "you" and "we" are everyday words that establish a relationship familiar to everyone.
Here is an example of a section of a warranty which does not use personal pronouns:
If warrantee pays labor and transportation charges , warrantor will:
- During the first year of warrantee's ownership, repair, or replace, at warrantor's option, all glass parts, porcelain, enamel, and other finishes.
This could be greatly improved by using personal pronouns. For example:
If you pay the labor and transportation charges, we will:
- Repair or replace at our option, all glass parts, porcelain, enamel, and other finishes.
If you prefer, you can use one pronoun to refer to on or the other of the parties by a name, such as "the XYZ Company" or "the owner." However, be consistent in your use of pronouns. It is confusing, for example, to use "your" and "the owner" to refer to the same person.
To make your writing style more personal, use the active voice and avoid the passive voice. The active voice is the most direct way of expressing an idea. in an active sentence, someone performs and action. For example:
You must keep your receipt as proof of the date of sale.
Note that in this active sentence the "doer" who performs the action (in this case, "you") is mentioned before the verb ("must keep").
The passive voice, on the other hand, changes the focus of the sentence from the "doer" of the action to the object that is being acted upon. For example:
The receipt must be kept as proof of date of sale.
The passive voice is more difficult to understand than the active voice because the passive voice leaves out the "doer" of the action. For example, the sentence, "The appliance will be repaired" leaves out a very important piece of information: who is responsible for making repairs. If you write in the active voice, you give the company credit for what it will do.
Occasional, the passive voice is appropriate, but only where you are speaking in general terms or when it does not matter who the "doer" of the action is. For example:
If the serial number has been altered, or defaced, we will not repair or replace this appliance.
However, because the passive voice can be unclear, question every passive sentence you use in a warranty. See if you can replace it with a sentence in the active voice. To make your writing style more personal, use verbs instead of nominalizations. Nominalizations are nouns that have been created from verbs. For example, the verb "replace" can be made into the noun "replacement"; the verb "remove" into the now "removal"; the verb "install" into the noun "installation." These noun forms of verbs (nominalizations) cannot stand alone but must be used with an essentially meaningless "filler" verb. Thus, to do the job that the verb "describe" does alone, you need a verb plus a nominalization, such as "give a description." Nominalizations are wordy. For example:
In the event of replacement with a reconditioned model...
Simple verb forms, in contrast, are clear and economical:
If we replace the (product) with a reconditioned model...
To make your writing style more personal, give examples. Research shows that people better understand written material that refers to concrete situations. You can make your warranty clearer by providing concrete examples to illustrate the terms of the warranty. For example:
- When You Must Pay for Labor
- The only time a Superb dealer will charge a customer for labor is when the speakers are obviously being abused, e.g., when a customer brings back the same speakers three times in three weeks with burned-out woofers or tweeters.
- Maintenance is the Owner's Responsibility
- Cleaning and polishing, lubricating, and replacing filters, tuning the engine, and replacing worn brake and clutch linings are some of the normal maintenance services all cars require. See your maintenance schedule for full details.
