I did read the CSI Project Manual sections you point to. They’re necessarily simplistic, as they cover in a few pages what I cover at much greater length in my book.

I understand your concerns about making specifications comprehensible for people who aren’t used to legal language. There’s a whole industry geared to such writing, for example for purposes of insurance policies and credit-card documentation. It would be interesting to see whether they make use of the imperative mood. On the other hand, such documents tend to use the second person, which makes an indicative-imperative mix more feasible.

Ultimately, the clearest way to examine this issue would be to present an analysis of some actual specifications language. I may do that at some point.

Ken

But assuming this is even true, it would be a quirk of the setting in architectural contracts. Because the moment the specification applies more than one person (e.g., to delineate responsibility between more than one contractor), then it falls flat. As we computer scientists like to say: it doesn’t scale.

But really, as pointed out by Maureen though, a well-written imperative mood clause does not change overall wordiness or level of ambiguity:

[Subject] shall [verb] …

I think the CSI argument is actually less persuasive if, as Ken points out, the examples weren’t written in the passive voice, which increases the overall awkwardness.

As to Sheldon’s final point, regarding use of fewer words, the fact that something has more or fewer words does not really change the amount of misunderstanding.

The type and amount of information you need in a specification is more a function of the specificity needed. And the length of most legal contracts has more to do with figuring out all the things that can happen and resolving them now rather than later. Nothing is worse than a client coming to me with a one page contract with nothing but the business terms and stating, “I can’t get them to do this, now what?

Regarding the comments by your attorney friend, comprehension isn’t, unfortunately, entirely a function of how few words you use.

As for Maureen’s suggestion, you’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The approach Maureen suggested is also applied to good effect in contracts.

(By the way, readers, Sheldon is a specifier who was previously institute director and president of the North Central region of the Construction Specifications Institute.)

Ken

The general conditions of the contract describe the relationships between the owner, contractor, and design professional, and their responsibilities to each other. Because they are written from the perspective of an outside observer, they are in the indicative mood.

In contrast, the specifications are directions to the contractor. As such, there is no need to use the indicative mood. Imagine a conversation between the owner and the contractor. Would the owner say, “The contractor shall paint the fence”? No. The owner would say, “Paint the fence.”

Because there is only one party, the contractor, who is responsible for construction, the specifications can and should be written as directions to the contractor. It doesn’t matter if the contractor’s own people or subcontractors do the work, all of them, as employees of the contractor, are responsible to the contractor, and the contractor is responsible for what they do. One party to the contract, the owner, is telling the other party, the contractor, what to do. In general, the owner does not care who does what or how it gets done; that is the contractor’s responsibility.

There is good logic to support this approach. Not only does the owner have no direct relationship with a subcontractor or other employee of the contractor, but trade agreements and contractor-subcontractor relationships are beyond the knowledge of the owner or design professional, while the contractor works with them daily.

The argument that you can’t specify obligations of persons other than the contractor is specious; it is because there are only two parties to the contract that you cannot specify obligations of those who are not parties. In terms of the contract, it doesn’t matter who paints the fence, as the contractor is the party responsible for doing it. Looking in the other direction, the contract does not specify where the owner’s money comes from, only that the owner must pay the contractor.

In those cases where the contractor has discretion, there is no conflict in allowing options. The perception that it “would read very oddly” is hardly a convincing argument. Is it so difficult to understand “Paint the fence, using one of the following materials”? The average contract written in legalese reads much more oddly.

Yes, the specifications do constitute contract language, but, properly written, they are refreshing in the lack of ambiguity and complexity that seems to be required of documents written by attorneys. Writing in “abbreviated form”, i.e., short, concise imperative statements, is less likely to be misunderstood, and less susceptible to creative interpretation.

The Project Resource Manual, which incorporates CSI’s old Manual of Practice, is not “inventive”, rather, it goes back to basic rules of writing, as espoused in Strunk & White’s “Elements of Style” for nearly a century, and, perhaps more importantly, the “keep it simple, stupid” principle. The MOP has been around for decades; it is curious that “[t]his is the first time” the author has encountered the recommendation to use imperative, rather than indicative mood. Why we accept – and expect – “legal” documents to be written in the most complex way possible is a mystery.

Comments from an attorney I know shed some light on this subject. In essence, he said the more words you use, the greater the opportunity he has to interpret them in favor of his client. An architect I know said the same thing in a different way. He said that if he specifies simply that a coating be “waterproof” there is no room for misunderstanding or interpretation. The more he adds to make it “easier to understand” the weaker the specification becomes. For example, if he specifies that the membrane must prevent passage of a certain amount of water at a certain pressure over a certain period of time, he has a weaker specification. (I know, there is no such thing as waterproof, just as there is no such thing as bulletproof; it’s only an illustration to make the point.)

And for goodness sake, Maureen, please don’t use what the legislature does as an example! If anything, our legislators and attorneys should be required to understand and use “Elements of Style” in their work.

The contractor shall perform the following jobs by July 15, 2009:
- Spread adhesive with notched trowel
- Paint all exposed surfaces