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Improving Your Technical Writing Skills

Improving Your Technical Writing Skills. R. E. Abdel-Aal COE Department. Some Facts, Quotations. Clear writing is an indication of clear thinking! “In today’s workplace, writing is a ‘threshold skill’ for hiring and promotion among professional employees”

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Improving Your Technical Writing Skills

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  1. Improving Your Technical Writing Skills R. E. Abdel-Aal COE Department

  2. Some Facts, Quotations • Clear writing is an indication of clear thinking! • “In today’s 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 36% 32% 1Pneena 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 10% 22% Other Oral Discussions Oral Presentations

  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

  4. 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 engineer’s 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?

  5. 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

  6. What are the main writing skills? Develop Convincing, Persuasive Arguments High-Level Synthesize Findings Effective DataPresentation Organization Style Referencing Low-Level Punctuation Grammar Spelling

  7. 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’

  8. 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

  9. 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

  10. 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 setupand metricsused to evaluate your solution against previous work

  11. 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

  12. 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, hasn’t 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

  13. 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)

  14. 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

  15. References • The ABET Accreditation page on the COE Website: http://www.ccse.kfupm.edu.sa/coe/abet/abet_accreditation.html • http://dsl.serc.iisc.ernet.in/~haritsa/techwrite.ppt • http://academic.sun.ac.za/taalsentrum/PowerPoint/WritingSkillsMPA.ppt • http://www.depts.ttu.edu/che/classes/che2306/Documents/sageev.pdf • http://www.northwestern.edu/searle/programs_and_research/researchandevaluation/PDFs/28YalvacSmithTroyHir.pdf • http://ecow.engr.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/getbig/cee/949/bank/journalclu/howtowriteagoodtechnicalpaper.pdf • http://www.sussex.ac.uk/engineering/documents/guide_to_technical_report.pdf • http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~anandk/math191/Technical%20Writing.pdf • http://www.soton.ac.uk/~sesg1009/lectures/reportwritingchecklist.pdf • http://www.ivt.ntnu.no/imt/courses/tmr4240/assignments/2008/Assignment_3/technical%20writing.pdf

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