TECHNICAL WRITING

What is a Sentence?
Basic Sentence Structure I
Why Technical Writing?
■ Why do we need technical writing skills? And why does it seem necessary?

- Lack of writing practice for engineers

- Need for critical and logical thinking/writing skills
- Necessary skills to be successful in desired career
- Not just a study but useful for daily life
Technical English

“Technical English is a type where the author is talking about a particular subject that
requires direction, instruction, or explanation. This style has a very different purpose
and characteristics than styles such as creative, academic or business English.”

“It is not an English paper; It is not a lab report.”

What do Technical Writers do at Google?

Video
Technical Writers

- Proxy for users/middle person

- Able to understand both sides of the technical world
- Use of critical/logical thinking skills for communication
- Programmers create programs for users to use
- Users need to clearly understand what the programmers created
Let’s Start with the Fundamentals

■ Whys is sentence formation and structure important?

■ Why is it necessary to write in a sentence?
■ Does S+V+O mean it is a complete sentence at all times?
■ What about syntax(set of rules and principles in which words combine)
■ How important is punctuation in a sentence?
■ In written English, message efficacy depends more heavily on strict syntax
Punctuation Practice

1) What time does your friend go to class

2) Is your jetlag getting better
3) His favorite language is English
4) Do you know how to program in Javascript
5) It was a party on Wednesday
6) Was it a party on Wednesday
7) Your family lives in Africa
What is a Sentence?

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a sentence is:

“A word, clause, or phrase or a group of clauses or phrases forming a syntactic unit

which expresses an assertion, a question, a command, a wish, an exclamation, or the
performance of an action, that in writing usually begins with a capital letter and
concludes with appropriate end punctuation, and that in speaking is distinguished by
characteristic patterns of stress, pitch, and pauses.”
Types of Sentences
■ Declarative statements:
– Gives information and ends with a period.
■ Interrogative:
– Asks a question and ends with a question mark.
■ Imperative:
– Gives a command and ends with an period or exclamation mark. (pseudo code)
■ Exclamatory:
– Shows strong feeling and ends with an exclamation mark.
Sentence Basics
■ A sentence is not merely putting together a subject, verb and an object.

– Ex: subject + verb + object=sentence. (x)

– Ex: So deep learning algorithm was developing.

■ The meaning of the sentence changes according to the location of the information.

– Ex: I saved the data and then sent it.

– Ex: I sent it and then saved the data.
Clause
■ A clause is a group of words that contain a subject and verb.

Try to find the subject and verb in the sentence below.

– Ex: Although it is impossible to emulate 100%, human intelligence is imitated

by the development of artificial intelligence.
Independent Clause & Dependent Clause
■ Independent Clause can stand alone by itself as a sentence.
Look for the independent clause in the sentence below.
- Ex: Although it is impossible to emulate 100%, human intelligence is imitated by
the development of artificial intelligence.
■ Dependent Clause cannot stand alone to form a complete sentence.
Look for the dependent clause in the sentence below.
- Ex: Although it is impossible to emulate 100%, human intelligence is imitated by
the development of artificial intelligence.
Simple Sentences
■ A simple sentence has one independent clause.

Find the correct simple sentences below.

– Ex: Knowledge is key.
– Ex: Based on the study.
– Ex: It needs evidences.
– Ex: So the result.
– Ex: Because our research.
Compound Sentences
■ A compound sentence is a sentence joined by two independent clauses.
Can you spot the two independent clauses?
- Ex: The programmers created the game, and the users enjoyed the game.

Which conjunction is used to connect which clauses?

*Comma usage:
- Coordinator: but, for, and, nor, or, yet, so It is commonly used
before the conjunction
- Subordinator: because, when, if, only when the clauses
are independent.
Compound Sentences

Try another one:

- Ex: Smart systems mimic human behavior, otherwise knowledge based systems and
AI computational mimic human thinking.

Did you spot the independent clauses? Which conjunctive adverb did it use?
-Conjunctive adverb: however, consequently, for example, nevertheless, otherwise, thus
Types of Conjunctions:
Coordinator vs. Subordinator
Conjunctions are used to link two words, clauses or phrases.

■ Coordinator
- Coordinator: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so=‘FANBOYS’
- Connects two independent clauses and carries equal weight.

■ Subordinator
- Subordinator: because, when, if, although, though, until, while
- Connects a dependent clause to an independent clause.
Comparison Chart
Coordinating Conjunction vs. Subordinating Conjunction

Coordinating Conjunction Subordinating Conjunction

Links two independent clauses , Links dependent clause to an

words, or phrases independent clause
Weak connection Strong connection

Compound sentence Complex sentence

Location is between two clauses Beginning of a sentence or

between clauses
Connecting Coordinating Conjunctions
-Connecting two main clauses
Main clause + , + Coordinating Conjunction + Main clause
-Connecting two grammatical elements or units
Unit 1 + Coordinating Conjunction + Unit 2
-Connecting three or more grammatical units, comma goes before the coordinating
conjunction
Unit1 + Unit 2 + , + Coordinating Conjunction + Unit 3
Coordinating Conjunctions
Example Sentences

Main clause + , + Coordinating Conjunction + Main clause

“Database systems had been designed for single processor machines, and it could not
achieve scalable throughput across the entire spectrum of transactional workloads.”
Unit 1 + Coordinating Conjunction + Unit 2
“We run our experiments on a single 80-core machine and intel processors.”
Unit1 + Unit 2 + , + Coordinating Conjunction + Unit 3
“We use a graph to track the dependencies between transactions waiting to acquire
logical locks, and the current holders of the lock.”
Connecting Subordinating Conjunctions
Subordinating Conjunction=Independent clause + dependent clause (dependent clause may or may not be
necessary.) The independent clause is the focus of the sentence while the dependent clause expresses
change in terms of time, place, cause and effect relationship. Ex: Although, whether, unless, until, while,
because, etc.

Three patterns of subordinating conjunctions:

If the clause is essential, do not use comma before conjunction
Main clause + Essential relative clause
If the clause is nonessential, comma is used before conjunction
Main clause + , + Nonessential relative clause
If the dependent clause comes first then a comma is always used
Dependent clause + , + Independent clause
Subordinating Conjunctions
Example Sentences

Main clause + Essential relative clause

“The transactions run whether the process is parallel or not.”
Main clause + , + Nonessential relative clause
“The fundamental problem behind the cost of deadlocks is the dynamic nature of data
access, which in turn stems from a lack of advanced planning.”
Dependent clause + , + Independent clause
“When the number of warehouses is small, both transactions update highly contended
records.”
Assignment #1
Write a total of six example sentences using the different types of coordinating and
subordinating conjunctions. (Refer to previous slides on coordinating and subordinating
conjunctions) Submit your assignments in the given time frame on the HYU High-
learning LMS.