Richard Lanham, a well-known scholar and teacher of writing, gave a name to the writing style used in many formal documents, such as government, military, legal, finance, and other similar fields. He calls this the “official style”, a way of writing based on “the dominance of nouns and the atrophy of verbs”.
Which writing style do you most often use? If you’ve ever read lab reports, military documents, or financial forecasts, you’ll notice one thing: They’re ridiculously hard to understand. Marked by an adherence to strict grammar (likely with the help of a formal writing software) and colorless prose, not only are they inexcusably boring, they’re cumbersome to read. In fact, it’s all part of the charm, because they’ve been purposely crafted that way.
Particularly prevalent in bureaucratic structures, the official style is somewhat essential. What circumstances warrant them?
- When you intentionally want to obscure a message. Read the speeches of politicians and you will find that their non-committal statements are buried under official writing style.
- When you want to sound impersonal and unbiased.
- When you want to look professional. For some reason, people recognize this clamor of verbiage as professional, mostly as a conditioned response, because most of our laws and procedures are written that way.
- When you want to appear intelligent. Again, this is all perception. Because lawyers, bankers, and high-ranking officials have traditionally written this way, people assume that you hold a prestigious title when you write this way.