https://youtu.be/vtIzMaLkCaM has very interesting tips on writing.
tl;dw : you have been taught to write to people(teachers) who are paid to care about your writing.
Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well
21–30 of 385 posts
Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well
#22[deleted]
Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well
#23Reading is undervalued, and just writing better won't fix it.
Good readers tend to underestimate this problem obviously. If you read the article I bet your colleague didn't, and he or she isn't interested in reading your better-catchy-succinct-effective-if-not-superlative writing either, and he or she is going to rewrite the system.
(Oh but exceptions I can think of are Harry Potter, and also the LKML as a vehicle for developing linux)
Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well
#24I have kept around and distributed multiple copies of The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White, for the past few years (lots of revisions of this out there, 4th might be most recent iirc). It's like a 9$ book and the guidance is priceless.
https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-Fourth-William-Strunk/...
Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well
#25I used to be a huge proponent of learning to write well as the most important skill an engineer can learn.
Now, I think it's the second most important skill.
The most important skill is sales.
The key value of writing well, in a workplace environment (or other environments, really) is to convince others to agree with what you're proposing. Convincing people that something they don't initially understand or trust is going to be a win for them is a sales problem. Clear writing is only a means to that end.
Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well
#26Writing well? I've had to read engineering drawings for QC in a precision engineering shop working with critical industries. Screw grammar and style being undervalued. You get told to fuck off if you complain about spelling.
edit - there is a pathological aversion to updating a drawing, not because of the work, but because of the process. People will do almost anything to avoid having to get an update signed off.
Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well
#27Amazon is obsessive about this stuff. I'm surprised the article never mentions it.
There are internal classes offered on writing better documents (and it's a great class). There's videos, guides, documents, everything. Writing well at Amazon is key to a successful career here. Got a project idea? Write a very good 1-pager explaining it and you've got a much higher chance of it actually happening. Want to share a design? Write a 6-pager (often 10-15 pages with appendices) explaining what, why and how you're going to build the system.
I've been in meetings that start with 15 minutes of silent reading, then 45 minutes of discussion. No PowerPoint presenting.
It's very weird for newcomers, but I don't know anyone who finds that it isn't better than the alternatives.
Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to think like that (being the kid that wrote well in school). But now I'm not so sure anymore... Been humbled too many times by people much, much smarter than me that wrote in smsesque. Have read too many apparently well-written texts that are nothing but bullshit written by ignorants.
Oh, most of my coworkers are smarter than me, so I'm certainly not trying to make an assessment on their IQ or any nonsense like that. That said, I do think that writing smsesque (which I am going to steal for the future because I had never heard that term before) is a really good way to make yourself look dumber, especially to non-engineers. Even if my long and rambling writings lack substance, they still typically…
> I do think that writing smsesque (...) is a really good way to make yourself look dumber, especially to non-engineers.
Maybe they do that in purpose, then?. They do not need to be admired by everybody, especially not by non-engineers. Like the very rich people who dress extremely humbly, with torn-down clothes.
Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well
#29What about using writing to sell an idea ? My friend, who isn't good at interpersonal skills, is trying that. Can this work for him ? or is the trust created via face-to-face is irreplaceable for convincing others ?
If anything, good writing is more persuasive than face-to-face. A well written document carries some gravitas.
Of course, you have to get decision makers to read it...
Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Curious as I will sometimes find myself annoyed at a similar email... If it said "When are you going to do this?" would that be acceptable?
Yes, that is fine. I'm obviously not asking for someone to write the next Moby Dick when sending me an email asking for a status update. A short and simple message is totally fine, I just would be prefer that it be (mostly) grammatically correct.
That is easy to say, but it doesn't work that way. Your mind knows what you wanted to say and assumes it said that. Even when you read your writing again you know what you meant to say and you will skip over the bad grammar.
Note that this same problem exists in spoken speech. Someone will ask a passenger to "please adjust your window out" which makes no sense. What they really want is adjust the mirror out, but the brain knows rolling down the window is part of the task and confuses all the parts. Even when asked to repeat themselves they will repeat the same nonsense sentence without realizing it isn't doesn't make sense. (this problem was more common 30 years ago before power mirrors where the driver could adjust the mirror himself)
The only solution I've found is to sleep on it. Tomorrow I'm sure I will find a some grammar errors in this post, and likely something else that doesn't make sense. I just read over the entire post now though and I don't see anything wrong with it.