First Draft for project titled Technical Writing Mistakes in Engineering Technology

(ET) Field
-Christopher Uppole and Sraddhanjoli Bhadra

According to Atul Mathur, a professional engineer and technical copywriter in Singapore,
Technical writing involves two key competencies: the first is the ability to understand
technical language; the second is being able to express that knowledge in a clear, concise, and
coherent manner.

Problem #1: Audience Identification

Introduction: Though science tells us that sound waves do not need a listener to exist,
scientific results are not so lucky: if no one considers your experiments important, they may
as well not exist. To have an effective communication with your audience, you need to
know or identify your audience very well so that your writing appeals to a larger proportion
of people, despite of they being in your field, in related fields, or in different fields.

Knowing the Audience:
The key element of having an effective written communication with your audience: knowing
your audience well which will work as a guideline when you are writing.

Some basic strategies to know your target audience are:

a. Consciously choose your target audience: According to the research journal Advanced
Function Materials, Contributors should bear the interdisciplinary nature of the readership in
mind always emphasizing the importance of the topic to workers in other fields. For
example:
i. If youre presenting in a conference, at first check the conference
website to find out about the different communities of people attending
the conference so that you can know about the target audience.
ii. If youre writing an article for a journal publication, at first check
carefully at the Instruction of Authors for information like: what
kind of research they prefer so that you can know the target audience.
b. Assume (nearly) nothing about your target audience already knows and understands
about your topic: While writing a technical paper, often people take their audience for
granted, especially in case of engineers. They assume: their audience will find their topic very
interesting and will understand the importance, and will understand all the technical
terminology used. These assumptions by engineers many a times fail them from
communicating effectively with their audience. Thus, to avoid miscommunication the writer
should focus on the next strategy.
c. Emphasize the plain English parts of your work, i.e., its importance, motivation,
and applications-before jumping into the dense forest of technical details: While writing
a technical paper, one must always try to answer the following questions:
Who cares about this topic?
Why is the specific aspect of the topic worth studying?
What is your project useful for?
Modular Writing: Since recession, engineers are being overwhelmed with lot of writing
documents. The documents mainly include: trip reports, proposals, status reports, meeting
minutes, reports documenting site visits, and lab experiments. Thus, for effective outcome
companies have shifted from individual authored documents to team-authored documents,
i.e., modular writing.
Simplicity in Complexity: Atul Mathur, a professional engineer and technical copywriter in
Singapore states, The greatest issue for engineers is the inability to see simplicity in
complexity how can they strip away the complexity of a process or system and present it in
a way that others can understand. Thus to have a career advancements, engineers must be
able to communicate with variety of audiences easily in order to make themselves marketable
and valuable.
Conclusions: Finally, we can state that the most important part in order to make a
communication effective is identifying the target audience. Also pay attention to: what the
audience expect from the author; explain it in simple and concise way without assuming
anything about the audiences knowledge regarding your topic; and dividing the written work
in form of small modules to different people so that an individual does not feel the pressure.

Problem #2: Design, Format and Organization:

Introduction: Design, Organization and Formatting are very important in writing, not just in
Engineering Technology, but in every profession and area of life. Design brings character to
writing, format brings a sense of professionalism to writing as well as organization. These
three are essential to having a well written paper and having an overall better presentation. It
is important to incorporate these three aspects correctly into ones paper.

Design: Design can at times be difficult to come up with. One can refer to the Design
Notebook at Purdue Owl. Design helps with ones writing seem more reliable. Having design
helps with documentation being relevant and consistent. Design also helps to stay within the
guidelines of assignments.

Format: Selecting a format for a writing is key for a well laid out assignment. Purdue Owl
has all the information needed for formats.
o When one selects a format, one should consider the types of formats and
purposes of report formats. When making the format, the part of the report that
the format is being applied should always be considered. One should consider
the specific advice one is given for the formats of the reports.
o Format is the plan of organization for an assignment. Format helps as a means
of structuring the material of an assignment. It is also a framework for
arranging information for an assignment.
o Using format is very important. Format helps one in presenting a report as
clearly and concisely as possible to one reader as well as a variety of
audiences. It helps signal the type of information being presented in the report.
Format also helps to enhance the presentation of the assignment.

Organization: Organization is key to helping an assignment look more professional and
complete. Pages twelve and thirteen presented in the document have good information on
organization of a document. Efficiency is needed in writing a letter or memo. For better
efficiency in organizing a letter, one should consider organizing the letter into sections such
as a summary, background, discussions, and conclusions. Organization should be considered
in memos and emails as well.

Problem #3: Plagiarism and Copyright

Introduction: Plagiarism is the practice of taking someone elses work and passing them off
as your own. According to the Student Code of Conduct, Plagiarism is a form of academic
misconduct and is strictly prohibited. Due to the Berne copyright convention, all documents
that have already been published often have copyright protection instead of having a
copyright notice or not. Therefore, a published paper, a thesis or dissertation can be alleged of
plagiarism, even after years of it has been published.

Two Scenarios of Plagiarism: According to policy on Technical Writing and Plagiarism of
Russ College of Engineering and Technology, plagiarism is committed in two scenarios:
a. When you take somebody elses idea, and
b. When you take somebody elses words, without giving them
credit.

Suggestions to help you avoid plagiarism:
According to Russ College of Engineering and Technology, the following steps can be taken
in order to avoid plagiarism:
a. Take notes when you read. Do not copy complete sentence unless you want to quote the
sentence.
b. Wait some time (or a day) after you read the original source text to write your draft.
c. Dont draft your paper with the original source text (or a photocopy) open next to you. Use
your notes. Go back to the source later to check something you are unsure of.

Methods of Giving Credit to your Source of Ideas and Words:
a. If you use exact words from another source, put quotation marks around them.
b. It is not sufficient to use the citation alone if a direct quote is used.
c. Changing a few words is not sufficient, since copying the writing style is also plagiarism.
Either use your own words or quote it.
d. Quotes are not necessary if you just use the idea. However, a citation is still required.
e. Put the citation where it will best identify which information is derived from which source.

Conclusions:
Finally we can conclude that plagiarism is not allowed in academic work. More or less its a
moral crime and do have legal consequences if got caught. If you want to use anyone elses
ideas or words, then there are ways you can use them in your work which includes one
important condition: you need to acknowledge or give credit to the original writer.

Problem #4: Grammar and Citation:

Having correct grammar is imperative in writing a paper, not only for engineering but for
every purpose that one may write a paper. Citing ones sources well is also an important
aspect of writing. Both correct grammar and citing sources well can help in seeming more
professional and educated.

Grammatical Errors Due to Typos: Typos are a very prevalent grammatical error in
writing a paper. A way to help prevent grammatical errors is to let a third party proofread
ones work. Failure to let a third party do so could result in many typos. A person having
overconfidence is a problem that can result in grammatical errors such as typos, error in noun
and verb agreement, etc. If one avoids getting reviews of ones work, it could very well result
in grammatical errors as well.

Use of Verbs: Errors in grammar could result from misuse of verbs with nouns. Vague verbs
should be avoided whenever possible. Vague verbs can be ones such as Assisted with,
handled, and managed. It is very tempting to use vague verbs, but when the instances arise to
use them, one should ask themselves the question of how that they assisted, handled or
managed. Instead, using such words as constructed, determined, coordinated, executed,
established, etc., in the place of vague verbs is much better.

Use of Subjective adjectives: Use of Subjective adjectives is another grammatical error. In a
professional resume, it is easy to use adjectives such as skillfully completed or that one has
extraordinary people skills. In these cases, the grammatical error is not giving the reason
why. One should ask why when wanting to use such subjective adjectives.

Other Common Writing Mistakes:
Analysis and Solution of Top Ten Common Mistakes in Technical Writing by
Engineers:
o Forgetting the connection between quality and credibility is a writing
mistake common to technical writing for engineers. An example of having
quality but not being credible is, a person submitting a formal report on
recycled paper, with the old data on the back of the paper.
o Treating email as though it is a casual document is a common mistake in
technical writing for engineers. Having a signature in an email to a big client
without having the proper capitalization and punctuation can cause the client
to think that one does not have a respect for the business relationship and that
one did not proofread.
o Misestimating ones audiences comprehension level is another common
mistake in technical writing for engineers. Engineers should write documents
aimed at non-engineers when writing a document for non-engineers, because
non-engineers may not be able to comprehend the technical language that
engineers normally use.
o Ignoring the correct tone of a paper is a common writing mistake that could
give off a different message than was originally intended. Use of the word
you could give off the tone that the readers concerns are more important
than the writers. A friendly tone makes a document easier to understand and
read. A tone of respect is implied when when a document has no factual
errors, grammar, spelling, or punctuation errors.
o Not using the same grammatical form to fulfill the same grammatical
structure is a common writing mistake. One creating a break in grammatical
form used to state related items should be avoided. There should be three
verbs to accompany three nouns in phrases of a paper.
o Flinging punctuation onto ones page or screen should be avoided in
technical writing. Correct punctuation and correct use of punctuation in a
document is imperative.
o Ignoring the sales element of ones document and presentation can be a
detrimental mistake for engineers, especially when it is addressed to a large
business partner.
o Crowding your page or screen only leads to decrease in audience
comprehension. The authors main objective should not be: How much
information can I incorporate in a page or screen? Rather it should be: How
can I hold on to audiences attention with my writing?
o Using unsuitable illustrations may lead to a bad presentation. The authors
should always maintain some consistency in his/her writing. Especially in case
of PowerPoint presentation by avoiding: inappropriate clipart, inconsistent
slide background.
o Abusing charts works to make better presentation by using correct figures,
avoid using redundant lines, and figures. Try to make a clear focus on crucial
data.
o
To write a Good Technical Paper: In order to have a good technical paper it must
contain the following:
o Clear statement of the problem the paper is addressing,
o the Proposed solution (s), and
o Results achieved
o The technical results achieved can be of four types:
An Algorithm
A Construction of system which includes hardware design, software
system, protocol, etc.
A Performance evaluation based on analysis, simulation or
measurement.
A Theory consisting of a collection of theorems
While writing any Technical Paper avoid:
Too much motivational material
Describing the obvious parts of the results
Describing the unnecessary details
Spelling errors
Avoid text in Arial Font