Mechanical Engineering Department (power branch)

1st Year

Course instructor

2020
 Course Title :Technical Report Writing.

‫كتابة تقارير فنية‬

Course Code : HUM 101.

Course
Data Course Type : Compulsory

Study Year : First Year

Teaching Hours/Week : Lecture :2 Tutorial :2

Year Work : 15 Final : 35
How to be a good Technical Writer
Take-home message : Good Writing can be Learned !
 Skills

Soft Skills Hard Skills

personal Technical
Element of Soft Skills

• Communication Skills
• Time Management
• Organizational Skills
• Analytical Skills
• Problem Solving
Communication Skills
 Listening and Speaking
 Reading and Writing
 Non Verbal Communication
 Personal Skills
 Team Work
 Customer services
 Professional Behaviour
Like a lot of other professionals, many engineers and engineering students dislike writing .

After all, don’t you go into engineering because you want to work with machines, instruments, and numbers rather than words?

But
to be a successful engineer you must be able to write (and speak) effectively.
Engineers and Writing

• Engineers write a lot

• Engineers write many kinds of documents

• Successful engineers require strong writing skills

• Engineers can learn to write well

 ENGINEERS WRITE A LOT

Many engineers spend over 40% of their work time

writing ( email , computer or sheet of paper ),
Technical Writing Includes
 Contract
 Design documents
 FAQs
 Instructions
 Projects documents
 Product catalogues
 Requirements specifications
 Training courses materials
 User manuals
 Websites
Writing Process

Planning /
Rethinking

Revising Writing
Planning

 Identify your audience and their expectations.

 Know your purpose .
 Know your material.
 Organize your thoughts and materials
Some advise for good technical writing :

 Having a unique personal writing style guarantees poor technical writing .

 Avoid writing as you might speak.
 Use simple direct sentences.
 Find the perfect balance between brevity and completeness.
 Don’t under estimate layout and design.
 Choose sentence length carefully.
 Never , ever , use the word ‘I’ in technical writing.
 Avoid strong words.
Revision Final Draft
Revised Draft

First Draft

Good writing doesn’t happen overnight ; it requires planning , drafting , rereading ,

revision , and editing.
Common Clutter :

 Dead weight words and phrases .

 Empty words and phrases.
 Long words and phrases that could be short.
 Repetitive words or phrases .
 adverbs
Eliminate Negatives

• Not honest • Dishonest

• Not harmful • Safe

• Not important • unimportant

• Does not have • lacks

• Did not remember • forgot

• Did not pay attention to • Ignored

• Did not succeed • Failed

 Writing is learned by writing .

Writing well is difficult and time-consuming .

Thanks