How to Write Good

Tips for engineering writers

“Bad writing makes bright people look dumb”William Zinsser

The Facts

1. Engineers do not like to write

2. Engineers have to write

Why Care?

Five years ago, in a round table discussion with the MechE Industrial Advisory board, this statement was made…

“Your students do not write as well as the students from Georgia Tech and Purdue”

Attention to detail matters

What is on Your Resume?

a) Creob) creoc) PTC Creod) PTC creo

a) Labviewb) LabVIEWc) Lab Viewd) LabView

Answer Answer

Characteristics of Engineering Writing

1. Pointed, concise and factual, avoiding redundancy, abstraction, and extraneous information

2. Data-driven for credibility 3. Systematic, logical and efficient in describing and solving

problems4. Seamless in its integration of textual, numeric, and graphic

information5. Explanatory, often involving depiction of spatial objects and

description of complex technical concepts and data6. Predictable in its frequent use of prescribed formatting and

structure7. Collaboratively authored as work is often conducted with a

geographically distributed team8. Presented using multi-media applications of text and graphics,

including oral presentations, posters and web sites9. Written and formatted in ways that are appropriate to technical

and/or non-technical audiences

What’s Expected of a College Graduate

• Grammar (how words form sentences)– subject-verb agreement– adjectives and adverbs– sentence fragments

• Punctuation– commas, quotes, ….

• Mechanics– spelling– capitalization– abbreviations– fonts (italics, underline, bold)

What’s Expected of an Engineering Graduate

1. Apply knowledge of physics, mathematics, and engineering in their writing

2. Record and analyze activity related to laboratories and design projects 3. Visually represent designs and explain salient features of a part or

concept 4. Synthesize and summarize key points 5. Strategize and demonstrate engineering project metrics such as

productivity, costs and time to completion6. Analyze the audience and create a document that meets the needs of

the audience 7. Represent themselves professionally8. Explain, discuss, and demonstrate physical apparatus9. Integrate visual, textual and oral explanations 10. Communicate among a distributed design team using web-based

collaboration tools 11. Create team-written documents 12. Create reports in the style of academic journal articles13. Create reports in the style of professional engineering reports14. Write according to style guidelines

The UMN Department of Mechanical Engineering Writing Program

Writing in the ME Curriculum

3. Design Reports

2. Lab Reports

1. Problem Sets

Experiment Reports

Introduction

Methods

Results

Discussion/Conclusion

Design Reports

Big Picture on Writing

• Write to an audience• Understand and explain the purpose• Provide the background• Come to a conclusion

…and do it all in as few pages as possible

Exercise

• Write a three sentence description of your robot. Write about what it does followed by how it does what it does.

Swap with neighbor.

Edit your neighbors work, asking for clarification if needed. Edit mechanics and content.

Engineering Writing Mechanics

1. Writing with figures• Take control of data plots

2. Writing with equations• Integrating math

3. Writing with sources• When and how to cite

Writing with figures

UGLY

Figure Writing Style• How to write a caption?

– Content? Centered? Numbering?• How to cross reference?

– “Fig. 5” ? “Figure 5”

Look at an engineering textbook and follow

that style!

(Example from textbook)

Writing with equations

Equation Writing Style

• How to punctuate?• How to cross reference?• Where to place the equation

number?

Look at an engineering textbook and follow

that style!

(Example from textbook)

Equation Writing Tools

• MS Equation Editor– Native to MS Office products– Insert > Equation

• LaTeX– Typesetting program– Excellent for equation-heavy documents– Non WYSIWYG– Free, available on all platforms– Download TeXworks (http://tug.org/texworks/) and

MikTeX (http://miktex.org/) – Or, use ShareLaTeX.com

LaTeX

Writing with sources

Inserting Citations

• Use a citation manager– Zotero, Refworks, EndNote

• Follow format used by a textbook or an academic journal

(Example)

How to Get What You Want

The right way to address professionals, including professors, when writing

Sally Forth

By Francesco Marciuliano; drawn by Craig Macintosh

Published on October 21, 2008

Tips for Successful Professional Writing

• Short but complete• If request, be specific• Polite• Proper salutation• Comment on action or idea, not on person

Salutations and Addressing

• “Dr. Durfee”• “Will”• “Professor Durfee”• “William”• “Mr. Durfee”• “Hey”• none

Emails sent to Durfee during ME2011

Hey, my hard drive crashed today. I have written everything out by hand for tomorrow except my resume which I have printed from a while ago.I don't know when I will be able to get my computer fixed. How is this going to affect my grade?

Hey,

How do we figure out which presentation group we are in?

John

Dear ????,

You can explain the situation to your section instructor and work out a plan for when you expect to turn in the assignments.

Two tricks I use for valuable, deadline-driven documents are to periodically back up to a thumb drive and also to email the document to myself so that I can access any time anywhere.

Suggestion: You may want to be a bit more formal (but not stuffy) with course correspondence. For example, include a salutation (Dear Dr. Durfee or Dear Professor Durfee or Professor Durfee), explain which course you are in (I teach several courses) and close with your name.

Will Durfee

xxxxxxx@umn.edu wrote:> Hey, my hard drive crashed today. I have written everything out by > hand for tomorrow except my resume which I have printed from a while ago.> I don't know when I will be able to get my computer fixed. How is this > going to affect my grade?>

hey prof durfee

You were talking in class today about volunteering with research and other opportunities like that, and I was wanted to know if you were familiar on how to get jobs that I can earn a little money doing while doubling as experience in the engineering field? If you have any extra information, I would really appreciate hearing it.

Thanks,sam student

heres my patent assignment

hey i have a question about the tip a can project can we use an upside down pringles can with the lid off?

How to get what you want: an example

Professor Durfee,

On my drive into school this morning I realized I had forgotten to mail myself my resume to print and bring into ME2011 class today. I can e-mail it to you when I get home tonight (about 9:00PM) and bring a paper copy to your office tomorrow morning if that works.

Sorry for the inconvenience,

John Student

Summary on Writing• Audience and purpose• Provide the background• Clear conclusion• Be scrupulous on mechanics• For formatting, copy professionals• Keep it short

To become a better writer, read