Plan and Outline for project titled Technical Writing Mistakes in Engineering

Technology (ET) Field

-Moise Dukuzimana and Sraddhanjoli Bhadra

Problem #1: Audience Identification:
1. Introduction
2. Knowing the audience (Knowing your audience)
1. Basic strategies for knowing your target audience:
1. Consciously choose your target audience
2. Assume (nearly) nothing about your target audience already knows and
understands about your topic
3. Emphasize the plain English parts of your work, i.e., its importance,
motivation, and applications - before jumping into the dense forest of
technical details
3. Modular Writing
4. Simplicity in Complexity
5. Conclusions

Problem #2: Design, Format and Organization:
1. Introduction
2. Design: The design notebook, for example:
(https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/665/01/)
1. Helps one with being reliable
2. Having relevant and consistent documentation
3. Helps to keep tracks of guidelines of assignments
3. Format (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/726/1/)
1. To select a format, consider the following:
1. Purposes and types of report formats
2. Parts of a report
3. Specific advice for writing reports
2. Knowing what the format is:
1. A plan of organization
2. A means of structuring material
3. A framework for arranging information
3. Importance of using format
1. To present your report as clearly and as concisely as possible to one
reader or to a variety of audiences
2. To signal the type of information being presented
3. To enhance the presentation
4. Organization: Consider the organization in the following:
(http://www.up.edu/showimage/show.aspx?file=20198 (p.12 &13 reference for more
info))
1. Letters: For efficiency of the letter, consider:
1. Summary
2. Background
3. Discussions
4. Conclusions
2. Memos
3. Emails

Problem #3: Plagiarism and Copyright
(http://www.ohio.edu/chemical/graduate/upload/Policy-on-Technical-Writing-and-
Plagiarism.pdf)
1. Introduction
2. Two scenarios of committing plagiarism
1. Taking somebody elses idea, and
2. Taking somebody elses words, without giving them credit
3. Suggestions to help you avoid plagiarism
4. Methods of Giving Credit to your Source of Ideas and Words
5. Conclusion

Problem #4: Grammar and Citation
(http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/career-management/10-resume-mistakes-to-avoid/)
1. Grammatical errors due to typos
1. Not giving the report to someone who can proofread the work
2. Rushing in submitting work, overconfidence
3. Avoiding reviews
2. Use of verbs: Not being able to avoid vague verbs like:
1. Assisted with
2. Managed
3. Handled
3. Use of subjective adjectives is also one of the mistakes made in the engineering field.
For example in a professional resume it is easy to use adjective such as:
1. Skillfully completed; mistake is not giving the evidence explaining WHY

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
o Treating email casually
o Misestimating your audiences comprehension level
o Ignoring correct tone
o Being mystified by parallel grammatical structure
o Flinging punctuation onto your page or screen
o Ignoring the sales element of your documents and presentation
o Crowding your page or screen
o Using unsuitable illustrations
o Abusing charts
(http://www.apmphouston.org/Resources/Documents/Past%20Presentations/2005/200
5-08_Ann-Jennings.pdf)

Any Technical Paper should present:
o Statement of the problem the paper is addressing
o The proposed solution(s), and
o Results achieved
Algorithm
A system construct
Performance evaluation
Theory
(http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~hgs/etc/writing-style.html)
While writing any Technical Paper, we need to avoid:
o Too much motivational material
o Describing the obvious parts of the results
o Describing the unnecessary details
o Spelling errors
o Avoid text in Arial Font
(http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~hgs/etc/writing-style.html)
Rhetoric Education for engineers:
o Engineering presentation papers
o Progress report
o Memos
o Letters
(http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=njP8AQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=co
mmon+writing+mistakes+in+engineering+field&ots=3Hvp1BjlDK&sig=QEA7te5ojc5Qo-
D4CCBL1R-Tgfk#v=onepage&q&f=false)

Limitation in Rhetorical Knowledge for engineers:
o Understanding the role rhetoric plays in producing technical knowledge
o Cultural beliefs towards rhetoric
o Understanding common meanings of rhetorical terms
o Understanding the difference between descriptive documents and persuasive
ones
(http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=njP8AQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=co
mmon+writing+mistakes+in+engineering+field&ots=3Hvp1BjlDK&sig=QEA7te5ojc5Qo-
D4CCBL1R-Tgfk#v=onepage&q&f=false)