I Recommend that you read this

I’ve read a lot of inspection reports over the years from other inspectors, and mostly they’re terrible.  Not necessarily the technical content (although that can be pretty bad too), but in the way they’re written.  Why can’t home inspectors write?

An extremely common technique that lazy home inspectors use is to begin a sentence with the word “recommend” when they’re attempting to give their reader advice on how to proceed.  A typical example is something like, “Recommend a qualified contractor evaluate and repair.”

This is terrible.  Who talks like this?  And what does this even mean?

Is this the imperative tense, where the inspector is making a demand of the reader?  (As in, “Close the door” or “Give me a hand” or “Eat your vegetables.”)  Does the inspector want the reader to recommend a contractor?  That’s what it sounds like.

Of course what the inspector is trying to say is, “I recommend that you have a contractor evaluate this and then make repairs.”  But if that’s what the inspector means then why doesn’t he or she just write that?  Why confuse the issue?

Why would an inspector, when trying to communicate with a client, write a sentence and just omit the subject of the sentence?  Especially when that actually changes the meaning of the sentence.  Really, this isn’t a rhetorical question.  I truly don’t understand why inspectors write like this.  But it’s exceptionally common even though it’s a terrible practice.

When you are trying to communicate with another person, especially when communicating in writing, the best approach is to use complete sentences and proper grammar – all the time.  This really isn’t controversial.  Complete sentences and proper grammar make the writing easier to understand, harder to misinterpret, and it just makes the writer sound more knowledgeable.  Complete sentences and proper grammar make the reader’s brain work less hard at understanding the concepts being presented so the brain is allowed to work harder at committing the concepts to memory.  Complete sentences and proper grammar are the best ways to communicate.

So if you’re reading a home inspector’s sample report, and you see a sentence like, “Recommend a qualified contractor evaluate and repair,” then I have a recommendation for you, and it goes like this:

I recommend that you hire a home inspector who can actually write.  If your inspector is actually able to communicate with you then the whole process will be much better.