ENGINEERS GUIDE TO

TECHNICAL WRITING
Kenneth G. Budinski
Materials Park, OH 44073
www.asminternational.org
2001 ASM International. All Rights Reserved.
Engineers Guide to Technical Writing (#06218G)
www.asminternational.org
Copyright 2001
by
ASM International
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
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First printing, March 2001
Great care is taken in the compilation and production of this book, but it should be made clear that NO WAR-
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Budinski, Kenneth G.
Engineers guide to technical writing / by Kenneth G. Budinski
p. cm.
1. Technical writing. I. Title
T11 .B83 2001 808.0666dc21 00-046476
ISBN: 0-87170-693-8
SAN: 204-7586
ASM International
Materials Park, OH 44073-0002
www.asminternational.org
Printed in the United States of America
2001 ASM International. All Rights Reserved.
Engineers Guide to Technical Writing (#06218G)
www.asminternational.org
This book is dedicated to my technical writing professor
Robert E. Tuttle of General Motors Institute.
iii
2001 ASM International. All Rights Reserved.
Engineers Guide to Technical Writing (#06218G)
www.asminternational.org
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
CHAPTER 1: What Is Technical Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Purpose of This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Attributes of Technical Writing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Pertains to a Technical Subject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Has a Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Has an Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Conveys Information/Facts/Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Impersonal (Third Person) Voice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Be Concise. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Directed to Readers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Style and Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Archival . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Attributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Other Types of Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Advertising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Creative Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Administrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Entertainment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
CHAPTER 2: Reasons for Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Excuses for Not Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Benefits of Technical Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
iv
Contents
2001 ASM International. All Rights Reserved.
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CHAPTER 3: Performing Technical Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Types of Technical Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
General Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Proposing a ProjectThe Idea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Gathering Background Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Designing Test Plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Performing Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Reporting Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
CHAPTER 4: Writing Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Analysis of Readers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Importance of the Reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Selecting Readers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Scope of Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Number of Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Depth of Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Level of Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Purpose and Objective. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Writing to Various Readers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
CHAPTER 5: Document Options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Document Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Report Types and Selection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Patents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Technical Papers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Formal Technical Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Informal Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
E-Mail Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
CHAPTER 6: Criteria for Good Technical Writing . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Technical Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Presentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Language Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
CHAPTER 7: Writing Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Elements of Style. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Word Choice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Sentence Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
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Paragraphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Summary of the Elements of Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Examples of Writing Styles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Recommended Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
CHAPTER 8: Using Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Reasons for Using Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
How to Prepare Effective Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Photographs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Line Art (Graphs, Charts, Schematics) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Summary of Illustration Preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Captions for Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Referring to Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
CHAPTER 9: Formal Reports: The Outline and Introduction. . . 163
Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Front Matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Writing the Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Purpose and Objective. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Statement of Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Putting It Together. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Formal Report on The Nibbler. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
CHAPTER 10: Formal Reports: Writing the Body . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Writing a Procedure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Describing Machines/Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Writing Test Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Writing the Discussion Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
CHAPTER 11: Formal Reports: Closure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Writing an Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Back Matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Report Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
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Saving Reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
CHAPTER 12: Informal Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Elements of an Informal Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Investigation Reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Service Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Action Letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Proposals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
CHAPTER 13: Review and Editing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Types of Review and Edit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Edits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
Review and Editing Methodology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
Examples of Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
CHAPTER 14: Oral Presentations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Types of Oral Presentations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
Preparation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Visual Aids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Presentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
CHAPTER 15: Getting It Done . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Impediments to Writing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
Making the Time to Write . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
Dealing with Interruptions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Resist the Urge for Additional Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
Dealing with Weak Writing Skills. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
Dealing with Writing Mechanics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
Dealing with Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
Setting Deadlines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
Maintaining Writing Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Measuring Report Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
APPENDIX 1: Example of a Laboratory Test Report . . . . . . . . . 303
APPENDIX 2: Example of a Formal Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
APPENDIX 3: Example of an Informal Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
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APPENDIX 4: Example of Visual Aids for a Verbal
Presentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
APPENDIX 5: Some Meanings of Questionable Phrases . . . . . . 321
APPENDIX 6: Grammar and Punctuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Parts of Speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Sentence Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
Paragraphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
Punctuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
APPENDIX 7: Additional Report Mechanics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
Page Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
Abbreviations/Acronyms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
Capitalization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
Contractions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
Indentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Numbers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
Appendixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
APPENDIX 8: Other Types of Documents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
Executive Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
Meeting Agendas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
Meeting Minutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
Newsletters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
Resumes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
Biographical Sketch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354
Patents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
APPENDIX 9: Example of a Technical Newsletter. . . . . . . . . . . 357
APPENDIX 10: Example of a Journal Article . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
APPENDIX 11: Example of a Patent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
APPENDIX 12: Document Review Checklist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
APPENDIX 13: Example of a Simple Project Planning Form . . . 385
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
viii
2001 ASM International. All Rights Reserved.
Engineers Guide to Technical Writing (#06218G)
www.asminternational.org
THIS BOOK contains material used to train new engineers and techni-
cians in a large manufacturing plant of a Fortune 500 company. It was not
a company-training course. To the contrary, it was one engineers attempt
to get coworkers to document their work in a reasonable manner. Cowork-
ers who attended my tutorial sessions went on to become effective techni-
cal writers. In my opinion, our department is the model for the corporation.
Everybody finishes his or her projects with a report. There is a format for
each type of document and a system for archiving these documents. For-
mal reports go to the corporate library, and they are available to all on-line.
It is quite an effective system. The weak link, even today, is that not all
technical people in the company know about the companys technical doc-
ument protocol, and up to now, there was no text to explain types of tech-
nical documents and how to write them. That is the purpose of this book.
We do not focus on the laws of the English language. This book discusses
most types of documents that the average technical person will encounter
in business, government, or industry. The overall objective of the book is
frequent, effective, written documentation and the cost savings produced
by effective communication.
The first iteration of this book was directed toward college students in
the sciences and engineering. The eight or so reviewers, selected by the
publisher, were all English professors, and they thought that the text ma-
terial was somewhat overwhelming for twenty-year-olds who never had
full-time jobs. One reviewer said, My students do not even know what an
abstract is. I had to agree with the reviewers; I wrote this book from my
tutorial notes and my students were all working technical people. Some
were engineers with twenty years of experience.
I started with a clean sheet of paper and rewrote this book for the prac-
ticing technical person, but in my heart, I feel that this material is not too
ix
Preface
2001 ASM International. All Rights Reserved.
Engineers Guide to Technical Writing (#06218G)
www.asminternational.org
much for young minds. Young minds can handle anything. In my opinion,
this book can help students as well as working technical people.
The first four chapters are intended to bring the reader on boardto con-
vince him or her that it is worth the effort to become a reasonably good
technical writer. There is also a chapter on how to conduct technical stud-
ies. I have encountered many experienced technical people who did not
know the basics of conducting a scientific investigation. There is a chap-
ter on how to make effective illustrations and one on how to make oral
presentations. The remaining teaching chapters cover specific types of
technical documents: informal reports, formal reports, proposals, corre-
spondence, etc. The book ends with another philosophical chapter. This
one is on how to discipline yourself to get writing tasks done in a timely
manner. Grammar, punctuation, and report mechanics is relegated to the
appendix. Readers who need help can use them. The appendix also con-
tains examples of just about every kind of technical document that one
would encounter including a complete technical paper and a patent.
In summary, this book contains the writing suggestions of a typical en-
gineer with five years experience in the auto industry and thirty-six years
in the chemical process industry. I have written over forty papers for
archival journals, a teaching textbook, and a reference text, and I review
papers for four technical journals. I became heavily involved in writing as
part of a career in research and development. This book reflects what is
needed in industry, and I believe these needs are common in business and
government as well. Effective communications is a prerequisite for a suc-
cessful technical career, and this book presents a system that has proven to
be successful in making effective communicators.
This book is the culmination of five years work, including lots of re-
views and rewrites. I thank all reviewers for their honest and helpful sug-
gestions, in particular, Steve Helba and Nancy Kesterson for their work in
getting knowledgeable reviewers and to J.M.J. for ideas. I acknowledge the
talent of Judy Soprano for the chapter and cover art and the hard work of
Angela Leisner at Home-Office Connection in converting my handwritten
text and illustrations into an orderly electronic file. I could not have done
this book without her.
Kenneth G. Budinski
x
2001 ASM International. All Rights Reserved.
Engineers Guide to Technical Writing (#06218G)
www.asminternational.org

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