Use Consistent Terminologies

It is an important stylistic rule of non-technical writing to avoid repetitions in consecutive sentences. For example, if we talk about “Maria’s accomplishments” in one sentence, it is better to use “her achievements” in the second one. In technical correspondence it can lead to confusion because “accomplishments” and “achievements” may have some differences in meaning.

Here is a real example from quality audit report: “Process XYZ Suggestions: the Process XYZ was very good, but the following issues were discussed afterwards”. In this example a quality auditor used words “issue” and “suggestions” interchangeably. However, from the users’ perspectives an issue must be addressed while a suggestion can be considered. To add more confusion, the overall mark was “very good”.