Improving Your Technical Writing Skills

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Improving Your Technical Writing Skills

• R. E. Abdel-Aal
• COE Department

2

Some Facts, Quotations

• Clear writing is an indication of clear thinking!
• In todays workplace, writing is a threshold
  skill for hiring and promotion among
  professional employees
• Report, US National Commission on Writing, Sept
  2004

• How do fresh US engineers
• spend their time at work1?

Other Work
Writing
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32
1 Pneena Sageev and Carol J. Romanowski A Message
from Recent Engineering Graduates in the
Workplace Results of a Survey on Technical
Communication Skills, Journal of Engineering
Education, 1 October 2001, pp 685-693
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22
Oral Presentations
Other Oral Discussions
3

Contents

• Motivation (Why?)
• What makes good technical writing?
• What are the main writing skills required?
• The writing task and process
• Typical Structure for Paper/Report
• Tips for good writing style
• How to improve your writing?
• Conclusions
• References

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Motivation

• Writing clearly and effectively is essential
  to an engineer
• Engineers need to communicate results of their
  work in writing to peers, bosses, and decision
  makers Reports, Proposals, Quotations, Request
  for Quotations, Research Papers, etc.
• Lives are often affected not only by the accuracy
  of an engineers work, but also by clear and
  convincing presentation of his conclusions and
  recommendations
• If you are a decision maker, how would you take
  spelling/grammar errors in an important
  engineering report?

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What makes good technical writing?

• Formal, Direct
• Modular, Structured
• Focused, Objective
• Simple, Coherent
• Uses correct theories
• terminology
• Concise No padding or redundancy
• Consistent
• Clarity and Flow

• Relevant to the defense of a viewpoint
• Shows insight critical thinking
• Aware of audience
• ? Original
• Contributes to the body of knowledge

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What are the main writing skills?
Develop Convincing, Persuasive Arguments
High-Level
Synthesize Findings

Effective Data Presentation
Organization
Style
Referencing
Low-Level
Punctuation
Grammar
Spelling
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The writing task

• Wish list
• ? Productive- Minimum frustration!
• ? Timely
• ? Leads to a final product to be proud of
• To achieve this, the task must be
• ? Focused and Organized
• ? Started early, as many revisions are needed
• ? Adopt a Writing Process

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The Writing Process

• Define the topic - clear focus
• Collect the data, perform the experiments, etc.
• Organize the document The outline
• Write first Draft - writing, writing and writing
  again ...
• Revise Focusing on higher-order concerns
• Proofread Focusing on lower-order concerns

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Typical Structure for Report/Paper

• Title Not too short, Not too long
• Abstract ? 300 words
• Write this at the end
• Scope, Motivation, Achievements, Key results,
  Conclusions
• Introduction
• One paragraph for each of the following
• Background / history
• Motivation
• Your contributions
• Organization of the document

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Typical Structure for Report/Paper, Contd.

• Background, Theory, Literature Review
• Describe background necessary to understand the
  rest of the document
• Previous Related Work
• Cite and briefly discuss other related work
• Mention how it differs from your work
• Mention their limitations, but be polite
• Your Approach, Experimental Procedures
• Describe your approach
• Describe any experimental setup and metrics used
  to evaluate your solution against previous work

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Typical Structure for Report/Paper, Contd.

• Results and Discussion
• Use graphs and tables to present your results
• Refer the graphs / tables in the text
• Describe and discuss your work and ideas, do not
  just state them
• Conclusions/Recommendations
• Main conclusions and recommendations derived
• Suggestions for possible future work
• Acknowledgements
• References

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Some tips for good writing style- Going beyond
spelling and grammar

• Write clearly, explicitly, and concisely.
  Long sentences, delayers
  and distracters frustrate readers
• Use formal language e.g. no contractions
  (couldn't, hasnt etc.)
• Write to get yourself understood written words
  need to be chosen more carefully than spoken
  words
• Cut the fat, even one word counts!
• Avoid exaggerations and unnecessary qualifiers
  (very, basically, actually..)
• Avoid clichés last but not least?
• Avoid overusing prepositional phrases the, in,
  over, of, for, at..
• Ensure clarity who did what to whom? Use
  active voice

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How to improve your writing?

• Realize the importance of good writing
• Read a lot! and pay attention to others writing
  style
• Read critically what you have written before
  submission
• Get others to read what you have written
  Feedback, Quality Assurance
• Practice good writing in all that you write
  emails, letters, etc.
• Know your target audience What they know
  already, what they expect to know from your
  document
• Know your objective document?, inform?,
  persuade?....
• Utilize the plenty of information and help
  available on the Web
• (Check the ABET page on the COE Website)

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Conclusions

• Writing skills are important for a successful
  career in engineering
• Several criterion for good technical writing
  Simplicity and clarity
• Writing skills span several levels from spelling
  to argumentation
• Need to employ a writing process and allow
  adequate time
• Typical structures for papers and reports
• Guidelines for writing in style
• Strategy for improvement
• Get convinced and committed and start practicing
• There is plenty of helpful resources around

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References

• The ABET Accreditation page on the COE Website
• http//www.ccse.kfupm.edu.sa/coe/abet/abet_accredi
  tation.html
• http//dsl.serc.iisc.ernet.in/haritsa/techwrite.p
  pt
• http//academic.sun.ac.za/taalsentrum/PowerPoint/W
  ritingSkillsMPA.ppt
• http//www.depts.ttu.edu/che/classes/che2306/Docum
  ents/sageev.pdf
• http//www.northwestern.edu/searle/programs_and_re
  search/researchandevaluation/PDFs/28YalvacSmithTro
  yHir.pdf
• http//ecow.engr.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/getbig/cee/949/b
  ank/journalclu/howtowriteagoodtechnicalpaper.pdf
• http//www.sussex.ac.uk/engineering/documents/guid
  e_to_technical_report.pdf
• http//www.ocf.berkeley.edu/anandk/math191/Techni
  cal20Writing.pdf
• http//www.soton.ac.uk/sesg1009/lectures/reportwr
  itingchecklist.pdf
• http//www.ivt.ntnu.no/imt/courses/tmr4240/assignm
  ents/2008/Assignment_3/technical20writing.pdf