Writing for engineers

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“Writing, says Bacon, makes the writer ‘exact’."
In transforming ideas into written words, engineers have to make choices. 

They have to analyse exactly what is to be expressed, to identify the readership, and to decide on the appropriate format and style. In the education and training which made them engineers, they discovered the need for careful, precise and logical thought. In learning to be writers, they must apply the same criteria. 

Technical knowledge has to be communicated accurately, and as engineers write letters, outline their proposals, prepare specifications or plan reports, they must again be careful, precise and logical. They must have constantly in mind the needs of their readers, adjusting the amount of detail in the light of their readers’ needs and presenting the material in a logical form which can be identified easily and used with confidence.

• Confidence

Engineers, generally speaking, prefer to do the job rather than write about it. When faced with a blank computer screen, they have to start by making difficult decisions. Which words should they choose and in what order? What are the conventions they should follow? How can they hold the reader’s attention? How can they write convincingly?

• Reader goodwill

Good writing generates reader goodwill.

The best advice for the prospective writer is then, as follows:

• Identify your readers
• Know what they already know and what they need to know
• Find out how much technical knowledge they are likely to have and what they’re involvement with the project is
• Have full and accurate information at your disposal
• Formulate your objectives (what you want to get out of this piece of writing)
• Analyse your readers’ likely objectives, as far as you can
• Have confidence in yourself and your material
• Write

• Getting started

A last word: don’t feel like you have to begin at the beginning. The first sentence or paragraph is almost always the most difficult. Choose a simple, straightforward factual section, which you feel comfortable with, and write it first. Then move to the next easiest section, and when you feel ready, move on. Your confidence will have received a boost, and by the time you reach the first section of your document (quite late in the writing process) you will have had considerable practice in the art of good writing.

This content has been taken from Writing for Engineers, 3rd edition by Joan van Emden