Guidelines for Writing Noise-Free

Engineering Documents

E. Esra'a Hyarat
Discuss the overall process used by
successful engineering writers and include
important considerations for your entire
writing process.

Represent common problems you as an

engineer are likely to face in the course of
writing and formatting your documents.
SOME GUIDELINES FOR GOOD ENGINEERING WRITING

1. Focus on WHY YOU ARE WRITING

2. Focus on Your READERS

3. Satisfy Document Specifications

4. Get to the Point

5. Provide Accurate Information

6. Present your Material Logically

7. Explain the Technical to No specialists

SOME GUIDELINES FOR GOOD ENGINEERING WRITING

8. Make your Ideas Accessible

9. Use Efficient Wording

10. Format your Pages Carefully

11. Express Yourself Clearly

12. Manage Your Time Efficiently

13. Edit at Different Levels

14. Share the Load: Write as a Team

 1. Focus on why you are writing
 Before starting to write, you should have a good idea
of precisely what you want to communicate to your
audience

 If these goals are not first defined in your own mind,

you can’t really expect your readers to get a clear
message

 Broadly speaking the purpose of most technical writing

is either to present information, or to persuade people
to act or think in a certain way. However frequently
your documents will have to be both informative and
persuasive
Questions to be asked before writing, Do I Want to…..

 Inform: provide information without necessarily

expecting any action on the part of my reader(s)?

 Request: Obtain permission, information, approval, or

help?

 Instruct: Give information in the form of directions,

instructions, procedures so my readers will be able to
do something?

 Propose: Suggest a plan of action or respond to a

request for a proposal?

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2. Focus on your readers

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For Example

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 Any document should be guided by:

A. what you want your audience to do with your

information

B. what they need from the document to be able to

do it.

 Thus your audience plays a defining role in

determining how you approach your task

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 Recommend: suggest an action or series of actions based
on alternative possibilities that you’ve evaluated

 Persuade: convince or “sell” your readers, or change

their behavior or attitudes based on what you feel to be
valid opinion or evidence

 Record: document for the record how something was

researched, carried out tested, altered or repaired (report)

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 3. Satisfy Document Specifications
Before writing, you should be aware of any specifications
your document must meet.

Number of pages
You may need to provide short summary
Headings, fonts, figures size, margins...etc.
Certain topics in your report (writing about specific thing)

e.g., request for proposal for a government research

program
Each proposal shall consist of not more than five single spaced pages
plus a cover page, a budget page, a summary page of no more than
300 words, and a page detailing current research funding. All text
shall be printed in single-column format on 8.5*11 inch paper with
margins of at least one inch on all sides
• If management asks for a brief memo, they may be
irritated when you overload their circuits with a
lengthy, detailed treatise.

•When a technician requests the specs on a

frequency tester, it won’t be appreciated if you write
about the strengths and weaknesses of the
equipment.

• If you respond to an RFP (request for proposal) that

calls for a proposal of no more than ten pages but
submit something twice that long, your proposal will
likely be eliminated from the competition.
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 4. Get to the point
 Provide the most important information at the places
where the readers can access easily and efficiently

 The most important information need to be at the

beginning

Example
 SUBJECT: Employee safety (Vague)

 SUBJECT: Need for employees to wear hard hats and

safety glasses (Better)

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 5. Provide Accurate Information
Even the clearest writing is useless when the
information it conveys is wrong.

If you state that an ampere is defined as a coulomb of charges

passing a given point in 10 seconds rather than 1 second, you
have presented wrong information.

If you refer to data in Appendix B of your report when you mean

Appendix D, the error could stump your readers and cause them
to lose confidence in your report

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 6. Present your material logically

 Not only should it be easy to access your document’s

essential message, but the parts of your information should be
sequenced appropriately.

 You must organize your material so that each idea, point, and
section is clearly and logically laid out within an appropriate
overall pattern

 As always think before writing and keep your readers firmly

in mind

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 7. Explain the Technical to
Non Specialists

Explaining the technical is a lot about knowing some

tools and using them intelligently:

1.Definitions: One of your most important tools is defining

potentially unfamiliar terms.
2.Examples: For non specialists, examples are a big help in
understanding the technical
3.Importance: For some readers, discussing the importance of a
topic helps them to wake them up and pay attention.
4.Uses and applications: People also wake up and pay attention
when you explain how something can be used to good advantage.
5. Causes and effects (or reasons); problems and solutions;
questions and answers: It helps to discuss these pairs of
information types.
6. Categories: Discussing the categories of a topic can help
readers gain a broader understanding of the topic

7. In-other-words explanations: When you’ve written

something technical and you are not sure readers will understand,
try restating it in simpler words.

8. History: For some readers, it helps to know the historical

background associated with a topic
 8. Make Your Ideas Accessible

 Structure your material in an easy way:

A. Subdivision of material into sections and subsections
with hierarchical headings and subheadings

B. Don't use long paragraphs

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 Hierarchical Headings

Even in short engineering documents, a system of headings is

essential to keep your material clearly organized and to let
readers know what is in each section of the document. Headings
and subheadings are also signposts that help a reader to get
through a report without getting lost or to go to a specific point in
the report

Example

FIRST LEVEL 1. QUALITY ASSURANCE PROVISIONS

Second Level 1.1 Contractor’s Responsibility
Third Level 1.1.1 Component and material inspection
Fourth Level 1.1.1.1 Laminated material certification
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 Paragraph Length

No one, especially in technical fields, wants to read a solid page

of wall-to-wall text of difficult material. A busy manager, for
example will want to absorb your information in as easily
digestible pieces as possible.

Remember that:

1. Dense text on a page creates noise simply because it is too

discouraging.

2. Technical information are usually demanding, so present

material in short straight forward manner

3. A paragraph in technical writing should not be longer than 12

lines at max.
 Use lists for some information

A well-organized list is the most efficient way to

communicate information.
If you have to present steps in a procedure, materials to be
purchased, items to be considered, reasons for a decision or
groceries to be bought, a list might well be the best way to go
because readers retrieve information from a list more easily
and faster

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Example describing procedures to install software

To install the Microsoft office software, turn on your

computer, then insert the CD of office. Click on the icon
setup, then make sure you interred the key number,
then click ok. You can do better if you list the procedures
1. Turn on your computer
2. Insert Microsoft office CD .
3. Click on the icon "setup“
4. Inter …….

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 Types of lists
 Numbered lists
 Check lists
It is a list where you have to check the items that apply
1. Connect the monitor to the computer
2. Connect the keyboard and mouse to the computer
3. Connect the power supply to the computer …

 Bulleted lists
Bulleted lists are commonly used when items in the list are in no
specific order, as in the following example.
 Air pollution control
 Public water supply
 Wastewater
 Solid waste disposal

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 9. Use Efficient Wording

 Use simple words as you can

 Do not repeat words with same meaning (Redundancy)

Like: The parts of the machine are connected together
(connected and together have the same meaning)

 Unnecessary Passive Voice:

In the technical world, you must use the passive voice; but when it is
misused, it leads to unclear, wordy, and even dangerous writing.

 Avoid A grammar mistake

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 10. Format your pages carefully
• Margins: Leave consistent margin around your text.
Standard around 1 in. (2.5 cm)

• Typeface: Serif (as Times New Roman) for body text,

which is traditionally used by books, magazines, and
newspapers
sans-serif (as Arial) are traditionally used fortitles and
headings. They are also preferred for online text.

• Font size: Standard size 10 or 12 (For specific locations

you may larger or smaller

• White spaces: single or double space

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 11. Express yourself carefully
Ambiguity, Vagueness, and Directness

•Ambiguity. The word ambiguous comes from a Latin word

meaning to be undecided. Ambiguity primarily results from permitting
words like they and it to point to more than one possible referent in a
sentence, or from using short descriptive phrases that could refer to two or
more parts of a sentence.

Example:
Ambiguous: Before accepting materials from the new subcontractors, we
should make sure they meet our requirements.(What or who——the
materials or subcontractors?)
Clear: Before we accept them, we should make sure the materials from the
new subcontractors meet our requirements.
• Vagueness:

If ambiguity involves more than one meaning, vagueness

involves no useful meaning at all. What would you think if
your doctor told you to ‘‘take a few of these pills every so
often’’?

• Directness.
Being as direct as possible in your writing lets your reader grasp
your point quickly. A busy technical reader wants access to
your information quickly and easily. The most important part
of your message should come at the beginning of your
sentences and paragraphs

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 12. Manage Your Time Efficiently

 Finding and using time

 Make outlines for what you are going to write
 Put a timeline (schedule) including the deadline for
completion the final version
 13. Edit at Different Levels

• Rather than expecting to randomly find anything in need of

improvement, many writers prefer a more methodical approach
to editing.
• First, check your document for technical accuracy.
• Then decide what ‘‘writing levels’’ to approach your editing on,
and go through your document at least once on each level.

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 14. Share the load: write as a team

 Communicate

 Coordinate

 Collaborate

 Compromise

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