documentary register
A piece that fails all three tests is a video essay.1. The voice profile is third-person, past-tense default with present-tense stake-marking, attribution-front-loaded, calm under stakes, evidence-foregrounded, contradiction-tolerant, uncertainty-naming, consequence-closing.2.
A piece that fails all three tests is a video essay.
The Documentary Voice: A Specification for Investigative/For
The voice profile is third-person, past-tense default with present-tense stake-marking, attribution-front-loaded, calm under stakes, evidence-foregrounded, contradiction-tolerant, uncertainty-naming, consequence-closing.
The Documentary Voice: A Specification for Investigative/For
A piece that passes all three is forensic documentary.
The Documentary Voice: A Specification for Investigative/For
These are things people say about documentary register that aren't settled fact — each one attributed to who's actually claiming it, so a claim never quietly passes as established just because it showed up in a document. Weigh it yourself.
"The tense test can determine the register of a piece."
"The "what was actually going on" test can determine the register of a piece."