How do you make your idea believable? You can get an external authority (the C. Everett Koop of your field) to vouch for it. You can use data and statistics. Or you can find a way to make your idea credible on its face. One technique for doing that is to use what we call a testable credential. A classic testable credential was Ronald Reagan’s line from the 1980 presidential debate: Are you better off now than you were four years ago? Reagan didn’t use statistics, and he didn’t cite influential economists. (It would have been easy to do either.) Instead, he simply let the audience judge for itself: Is my idea credible? Do you believe the economy has worsened?
A great example of a testable credential hit my inbox this week. A graphic designer named John Burns, who created the Ruffles logo (among others), used one against me. And it worked. Here’s what he said:
“As a career-long graphic designer, I love your book cover and website.
I have one suggestion for you, after reading a few of your blog
entries. Unlike the old days of the typewriter, where you would hit the
space bar twice after a sentence, the current typographic practice on
the computer is to hit it only once. In the typewriter days, there was
mono-spacing. Each letter, whether it was an i or a W, or even a .
(period), was given the same amount of space. That lead to uneven
spacing. The only way to make the end of sentences obvious, was to add
two spaces. Current technology, however, has given us proportional
spacing. So, now the type looks better, and the extra space after a
sentence is extraneous.
I’m now going to copy and paste below the above paragraph, to prove my
point. In the top paragraph, I used only one space after a sentence.
Below, I’ve added an additional space. Note how the extra space
actually creates a distractive hole in the text.
As a career-long graphic designer, I love your book cover and website.
I have one suggestion for you, after reading a few of your blog
entries. Unlike the old days of the typewriter, where you would hit
the space bar twice after a sentence, the current typographic practice
on the computer is to hit it only once. In the typewriter days, there
was mono-spacing. Each letter, whether it was an i or a W, or even a .
(period), was given the same amount of space. That lead to uneven
spacing. The only way to make the end of sentences obvious, was to add
two spaces. Current technology, however, has given us proportional
spacing. So, now the type looks better, and the extra space after a
sentence is extraneous.”
I have to admit, after I read the first few sentences, I was skeptical. A little annoyed. But then Burns said, basically, “See for yourself.” And he was right (see for *your*self). He has made me a one-space believer. What an ingenious way to make the case.
As a side note, I am finding it incredibly difficult to break this habit. (Even as I typed up this story, I continually had to backtrack and delete the double-spaces my fingers had imperiously inserted.) Learning to limit myself to one space feels about as natural as learning to end sentences with a comma.
I had to train myself to type one space instead of two. But years later, I don’t even notice!
I always thought it was optional but didn’t matter, but wow! He makes a good (and clear) point. Guess I’ll have to work on that.
And now, after typing the above, I realize I put two spaces between sentences. This might be a hard habit to form!
Younger people don’t even know about the two-space rule. Or Neil Diamond.
HINT: you can set up an auto-correct macro in Word (or even computer-wide using third party software) that will auto-correct your two spaces into one.
I see the testable credential used in sales pitches all the time. I’m in the software industry, and this means you are always selling something intangible. In order to establish your product’s credibility you have to let the customer demo it. This takes time and can go bad if you aren’t there to babysit them through the process. The big boys (Microsoft, Adobe, ect…) pull a Ronald Reagan all the time. If a company is considering switching from Microsoft Office to the free alternative called Open Office, all Microsoft has to say is “do you really want to trust this new guy, or are you going to stick with old reliable?” Amazingly, this is compelling enough in most cases. No expert needed. No statistics cited. They let their brand precede them, and then they let you decide.
Both paragraphs are an abomination. Note that both use line feeds not carriage returns to end lines. If imported - even in MS-WORD - the line-wrapping will be wrong, and is a serious PIA to correct. Also, paragraph 2 uses a formatting character (I think it is control-alt 255 in ASCI.) The net effect is to make either paragraph un-importable to programs that use straight text. This includes, of course, MS-ACCESS … even version 2002 / 2003. So, since much of the text I deal in needs to be readable in ASCII and not as formatted text, I assume all is un-kerned Courier.
The big problem with most text on the web is that it is, in fact, like the sample. Using line feeds means it does not wrap properly; using formatting characters means that the appearance is unpredictable; using paragraphs with various spacings before & after lines means that pagination and white space on the paper are unpredictable when we change software. This is the appeal of PDF … there is some assurance that your audience sees what you saw, though even there, PDF has problems with various fonts.
I clip a lot of articles from diverse sources. To give them all a consistent appearance, I have composed various MS-WORD macros that strip the formatting and impose a simple basic format on all. It makes the articles readable, exportable & importable.