Best Writing Advice for Engineers I've Ever Seen.

Paragraph 1: First sentence: Your thesis statement. Follow it with several sentences that back up different aspects of your thesis. Write a paragraph for each of those supporting sentences. The first and last sentence of each of those paragraphs should be the original sentence stated a bit differently. Last paragraph is a restatement of your first paragraph.

It sounds like a lot of repetition, but once I started following his advice, my writing quality improved vastly. It tends to impart a razor-like focus to the writing. Not to mention that the systematic quality of it almost makes it feel like the paper is writing itself.

I never knew that, though now that I've seen it said, it does seem accurate. Articles do lose importance as the article goes on. But I'd argue that it's a much older method, known as a "hook". Relying on a reader's knowledge of an unstated rule / guideline is effectively suicide when dealing with large quantities.

It does make good advice for engineers, though, especially as it's procedural. Follow the steps for win. If couched in these terms, you'd probably get more / better technical writing from most people.

It's slightly amusing that the first sentence of the linked article is grammatically incorrect: "How to make engineers write concisely with sentences?" is not a question despite the question mark. The second sentence is overly long and uses three commas to give the reader breathing space.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pyramid-Principle-Logic-Writing-Thin...