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Best Writing Advice for Engineers I've Ever Seen.

engineerwriting.jottit.com

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Re: Best Writing Advice for Engineers I've Ever Seen.

#21

Post by jimbokun »

moron4hire wrote: post #9
Mc_Big_G wrote: post #2

aka "How to write a high school essay."

Additionally, I tend to ignore writing advice from people who use incomplete sentences. That page was a travesty. edit: I didn't know this was a comment before I posted this, but it does bring up issues with 'blogging in general.

How about:

Make engineers write concise sentences by combining journalism with the technical report format. Paragraphs in a newspaper article are ordered by importance, so that at whatever point readers stop reading they know that the part they have read was more important than the part left unread.

I think the second paragraph is pretty good, especially given the emphasis on concise sentences.

Re: Best Writing Advice for Engineers I've Ever Seen.

#22

Post by TheSOB88 »

moron4hire wrote: post #9
Mc_Big_G wrote: post #2

aka "How to write a high school essay."

Additionally, I tend to ignore writing advice from people who use incomplete sentences. That page was a travesty. edit: I didn't know this was a comment before I posted this, but it does bring up issues with 'blogging in general.

So do you never use such structures in speech? They're a way of getting the point across clearly and succinctly. Just because they taught you it's "wrong" in school doesn't mean that it doesn't have value.

Re: Best Writing Advice for Engineers I've Ever Seen.

#24

Post by mcburton »

jgrahamc wrote: post #8

When I was working on my book O'Reilly sent me a copy of "On Writing Well" by William Zinsser ( http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Classic-Guide-Nonfiction/... ). I read the entire book and I thought it was well worth it. One of his best pieces of advice is to end each paragraph leading the reader to the next one; the reader should want to know more. It's slightly amusing that the first sentence of the linked article…

"On Writing Well" is one of my favorite books! I try to read it at least once a year.

Re: Best Writing Advice for Engineers I've Ever Seen.

#25

Post by petercooper »

TheSOB88 wrote: post #22
moron4hire wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally, I tend to ignore writing advice from people who use incomplete sentences. That page was a travesty. edit: I didn't know this was a comment before I posted this, but it does bring up issues with 'blogging in general.

So do you never use such structures in speech? They're a way of getting the point across clearly and succinctly. Just because they taught you it's "wrong" in school doesn't mean that it doesn't have value.

Recently, Copyblogger had a good article elaborating on just what you said: http://www.copyblogger.com/tips-for-better-writing/

Re: Best Writing Advice for Engineers I've Ever Seen.

#27

Post by moron4hire »

petercooper wrote: post #17
moron4hire wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally, I tend to ignore writing advice from people who use incomplete sentences. That page was a travesty. edit: I didn't know this was a comment before I posted this, but it does bring up issues with 'blogging in general.

It's worth noting that the advice is just a comment left on an Edward Tufte thread (which, as a whole, is a lot more interesting): http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0...

this wasn't clear to me from the link provided.

edit: actually, this is an excellent demonstration of bad writing -- or rather 'blogging -- on behalf of whomever runs engineerwriting.jottit.com. The post is a straight copy out of another source, with a link to the source, with no explanation of what is going on, no discussion on the material, no value-add in general.

This is something that I struggle with in my link-sharing emails to my friends. After literally thousands of link-share emails, it starts to get hard to say something original beyond "I thought this was funny/interesting/etc", which eventually becomes practically worn into my keyboard. But then this is a good indicator to me that maybe the link isn't worth sharing. If I can't come up with something more interesting to say than "this is funny", then I don't need to be wasting my friends' time with it, because they have their own lists of pages that they peruse and they don't need me filling up their inbox with 25 new conversation threads in a single day.

Re: Best Writing Advice for Engineers I've Ever Seen.

#28

Post by moron4hire »

gamache wrote: post #13
moron4hire wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally, I tend to ignore writing advice from people who use incomplete sentences. That page was a travesty. edit: I didn't know this was a comment before I posted this, but it does bring up issues with 'blogging in general.

I think the basic advice offered in the article is solid. It's not in the most aesthetically pleasing style, but what are you gonna do. I guess I just don't hate minor sentences as much as you do.

Yes, it's solid advice, but it is basic. If we're talking about "engineers", that probably means they have completed a college degree at some point. If an engineer completed a degree and didn't take a technical writing course that drilled these concepts into their heads, then I question the quality of such an engineer's education.

Re: Best Writing Advice for Engineers I've Ever Seen.

#29

Post by moron4hire »

TheSOB88 wrote: post #22
moron4hire wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally, I tend to ignore writing advice from people who use incomplete sentences. That page was a travesty. edit: I didn't know this was a comment before I posted this, but it does bring up issues with 'blogging in general.

So do you never use such structures in speech? They're a way of getting the point across clearly and succinctly. Just because they taught you it's "wrong" in school doesn't mean that it doesn't have value.

I wasn't aware that this was a comment on another piece. Yes, I use less formal grammar in less formal situations. I even experiment in the minimalist form with haiku and other writing. Knowing now that it was a comment makes a little more sense. Without knowing that, it just seemed like lazy writing.

Re: Best Writing Advice for Engineers I've Ever Seen.

#30

Post by pavel_lishin »

dkarl wrote: post #20
Mc_Big_G wrote: post #2

aka "How to write a high school essay."

If this is how you were taught to write high school essays, you were lucky. I. Introduction II. Body A. Point 1 B. Point 2 C. Point 3 III. Conclusion -5 points for each deviation.

Don't forget, if ranked by order of importants, the body should be:

    Point 2
    Point 3
    Point 1
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