Instructions - Editorial LAW #2 (NEW article by Patrizia Anesa (Verona, Italy), on ‘good’ communication in jury instructions)

The main topic in this issue of “Language at Work – Bridging Theory and Practice” is that of instructions.

Why - you may wonder - have we chosen a topic which at first glance may seem trivial, and even a bit dull? Well, looks can be deceiving, and in this case they are! There are many good reasons for taking a closer look at instructions.

Think about it … not much of what we do for the first time could be done without the help of instructions. The instructor may have been mother or father, a grade school teacher, friends and relatives, a favourite university professor, colleagues etc.

Later on, each and every one of us make use of written instructions regularly: When operating the new washing machine, getting the expensive coffee grinder calibrated to the right granulation, downloading one’s holiday photos from the local on-line photo shop, listening to pod casts from, say, the BBC or installing new anti-virus software.

Thus, the livelihood of many people depends on this genre. The work of many professional communicators involved - writing, editing, translating and optimizing instructions - serves to secure the quality of the processes described in the instructions for the end user. The increase in amount of instructions and translation into many languages in a globalized world takes up an ever larger part of many professional communicators’ work and time. This also results in an increasing number of scholars who dedicate much of their time to studying and improving aspects of instructional genres.

In terms of medium, instructions find diverse expressions. You may be instructed

orally (e.g. asking questions and getting answers)
in a printed medium (e.g. booklet, manual, text book, brochure etc.)
electronically (e.g. on-line help services on the Internet etc.) and even
multimedial (e.g. on the Internet you can often both read instructions on the screen, listen to them on a pod cast, and watch animated video clips of how you should do)

Needless to say, we receive instructions wherever we are: At home, at school or university, at work …, not to mention the instructions which we encounter every day when we walk the streets of our towns or the hallways of our companies, instructions, that is, which are carved into stone or engraved unto metal, wood, plastic and glass.

From the mosaic of a dog and the warning ”cave canem” found on many a floor in ancient Rome to the ”no smoking” signs so abundant in today’s public transport systems; no matter its myriad of ways, forms and shapes instructions play an important role in helping us navigate in an increasingly complex world.

Dear reader, enjoy YOUR magazine!

Peter Kastberg, Ph.D., Director of the ASB Research Group for Knowledge Communication, The Aarhus School of Business, University of Aarhus, Denmark.

Annelise Grinsted, Ph.D., Associate Professor at the Institute of Business Communication and Information Science, The University of Southern Denmark.