What bugs me with some books is that they have excellent content but are written redundantly. This leaves me reading 300 pages instead of 120.
Why can't this:
> We cannot talk to the designer, so we rely upon whatever information is available to us: what the device looks like, what we know from using similar things in the past, what was told to us in the sales literature, by salespeople and advertisements, by articles we may have read, by the product website and instruction manuals.
be written like that:
> Unable to contact the designer, we rely on preexisting information from sales material, salespeople, ads, articles or the device appearance.
or even:
> Unable to contact the designer, we rely on preexisting information.
Not every book should feel like Harry Potter, no matter how great the content.
Why can't this:
> We cannot talk to the designer, so we rely upon whatever information is available to us: what the device looks like, what we know from using similar things in the past, what was told to us in the sales literature, by salespeople and advertisements, by articles we may have read, by the product website and instruction manuals.
be written like that:
> Unable to contact the designer, we rely on preexisting information from sales material, salespeople, ads, articles or the device appearance.
or even:
> Unable to contact the designer, we rely on preexisting information.
Not every book should feel like Harry Potter, no matter how great the content.