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org
Engineers’ Guide to Technical Writing (#06218G)

CHAPTER 1

What Is Technical
Writing?
CHAPTER GOALS
1. Show where technical writing fits into the spectrum of
interpersonal communications
2. Illustrate how technical writing differs from other forms
of writing

TECHNICAL WRITING is a broad term that encompasses a wide vari-

ety of documents in science, engineering, and the skilled trades. The ma-
jor types of documents in technical writing can be grouped into four major
categories (Fig. 1.1):

• Reports and communications in day-to-day business

• Technical papers, magazine articles, books, and theses for purposes of
education, teaching, and the sharing of information and knowledge
• Patents
• Operational manuals, instructions, or procedures

Most technical writing in day-to-day business involves the preparation of

various “reports” (Fig. 1.1). Writing reports is common for many techni-
cal people because reports are a major part of the development and appli-
cation of technology. Very few companies pay technical professionals a
salary without written words to implement and evaluate what has been
worked on or developed. For example, if an engineer spends a year de-
veloping a new transmission for a car, several types of reports are needed
for the design, evaluation, and implementation of the new component. En-
gineering must also report to management on the viability of design, costs,
 © 2001 ASM International. All Rights Reserved. www.asminternational.org
Engineers’ Guide to Technical Writing (#06218G)
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Technical writers
specialize in these
Instructions
Manuals
Procedures

Process or Attorneys, engineers,

Machine researchers need these
Descriptions
Patents

Technical Writing
Scripts For day-to-day
business in many
technical fields
Magazine Reports
Articles Letters, memos,
e-mail/notes, informal
Books reports, formal reports,
status reports, surveys,
benchmarking,
Papers
marketing, quality
Theses control

For teaching and

education

Fig. 1.1 Spectrum of technical writing

and work objectives. This usually requires a written document and related
engineering drawings—a report.
A second category of technical writing includes documents for teaching
and education (Fig. 1.1) in the form of scripts, magazine articles, books,
papers, and degree theses. Scripts for videos, movies, magazine articles, or
multimedia presentations are most often written and edited by profession-
als in these fields.
Books on technical topics are most often written by academicians, al-
though technical professionals occasionally may write an entire book in
their area of experience and knowledge. Writing a book obviously requires
much more discipline than the writing of reports, but it still requires the
clarity of presentation and purpose as in the reports and papers of day-to-
day business. Chapter 4, “Writing Strategy,” also has relevance for book
authors. The key difference is that books are intended for a larger audience
and should have unique and compelling features for the readers.
Papers and theses are more common forms of educational or informa-
tional documents written by technical professionals. Of course, many peo-
ple in science and engineering write theses. However, they usually only do
one per degree, and the formal writing style and related details are almost
always rigorously dictated by the school involved. Papers are the other cat-
egory in the grouping of types of technical writing that could be consid-
ered to be teaching or educational. This book includes information on writ-
© 2001 ASM International. All Rights Reserved. www.asminternational.org
Engineers’ Guide to Technical Writing (#06218G)
What Is Technical Writing? / 3

ing a paper, because it is very possible that a technical person will write pa-
pers throughout his or her career.
Another category of technical writing is for manuals, instructions, and
procedures (Fig. 1.1). This form of specialized writing is not addressed in
this book because these kinds of documents often have legal/liability im-
plications and are best left to trained technical writers. For example, if you
invent a novel type of bicycle seat, a user who got hurt because he installed
the seat pointing aft could sue you if you did not include in the installation
and use manual a statement like the following:

“The prow of the seat (point A in Fig. 6) should be positioned pointing at the han-
dlebars (Fig. 7).”

Similar liability could be incurred by overlooking a safety or environmen-

tal concern in writing a heat treating procedure for a gear. If a particular
career situation requires that you write these kinds of documents, appro-
priate references on technical writing are listed at the end of this Chapter.
Finally, patents require another key type of document in technical writ-
ing. Lawyers usually write patents, but not without lots of writing and search-
ing on the part of the applicant. Thus, this book addresses the inventor’s part
of a patent application and the general criteria for patentability.

1.1 Purpose of This Book

With an understanding of what technical writing is and what aspects of
technical writing are covered in this book, the reader can appreciate the pur-
pose of this book. It is to give students and working technical people usable,
easy to follow guidelines on how to write effective reports pertaining to all
types of engineering, the skilled trades, and the sciences. The main empha-
sis is on engineering because of author bias [that is what I know and do].
There are many books and publications on technical writing; why is an-
other needed? Forty years of personal experience in the engineering field
have shown that in spite of availability of writing texts and courses, most
engineers are poor and/or infrequent writers. In fact, some engineers never
write any reports [I used to monitor department reports and publish a list-
ing in our newsletter. Some of our staff wrote 50 reports per year. Others
had records as bad as zero for eight years]. This aversion to written doc-
umentation undoubtedly happens in other fields. Chapter 2 cites some rea-
sons why such behavior may not be in the interest of career progress or in
your employer’s interest. It is felt that a root cause of writing aversion is
lack of writing skills. Some people were never required to take a writing
course in college; others never practiced writing after college. Most writ-
ing texts are too detailed for self-study by working people in technical
fields. This book provides a concise guide for self-study or classroom use
 © 2001 ASM International. All Rights Reserved. www.asminternational.org
Engineers’ Guide to Technical Writing (#06218G)
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that eliminates barriers to writing and addresses report writing in particular.

The objective of the book is to promote the development of technical peo-
ple with good writing skills and the benefits that this brings to the employer.

1.2 Attributes of Technical Writing

The remainder of this Chapter describes the specific attributes of techni-
cal writing and shows examples of how technical writing differs from other
types of writing. In general, technical writing has a degree of formality, and
it generally focuses on a specific subject with the purpose of making some-
thing happen or sharing useful information or knowledge.
Ten general attributes of technical writing are listed and described in the
following sections:

• It pertains to a technical subject.

• It has a purpose.
• It has an objective.
• It conveys information/facts/data.
• It is impersonal.
• It is concise.
• It is directed.
• It is performed with a particular style and in a particular format.
• It is archival.
• It cites contributions of others.

There are probably more attributes, but the attributes in the above list de-
fine some key characteristics that distinguish technical writing from other
types of writing.

Pertains to a Technical Subject

Technical writing must pertain to some aspect of engineering or the sci-
ences in a given subject area such as the following:

• Philosophy, psychology, and religion

• History
• Geography and anthropology
• Social sciences
• Political science
• Law
• Education
• Fine arts
• Language and literature
• Science
• Agriculture
© 2001 ASM International. All Rights Reserved. www.asminternational.org
Engineers’ Guide to Technical Writing (#06218G)
What Is Technical Writing? / 5

• Technology
• Health/medicine

Libraries usually categorize books into these subject categories, and tech-
nical writing may apply to any of these categories if the work contains en-
gineering or science as the focus. For example, a paper on the acoustic/sound
aspects of a piano could be very technical and end up in the music category.
Similarly, a book on restoration techniques for antiques could be rife with
chemistry and metallurgy, but it may end up in the fine arts category. The
point is that technical writing can be on one of many different subjects if the
subject is being described or evaluated in an objective fashion.

Has a Purpose
A technical document always is written for a reason, and the purpose of
reports may be to explain what was done, why it was done, and/or the re-
sults of a study. The purpose of reports on investigations is usually to pre-
sent the results of the study.
The purpose of reports and papers should also be clearly stated, as in the
following example:

It is the purpose of this report to present the results of a statistical study on the fail-
ure rate of spring latches on a type D cardiology cassette. There have been a num-
ber of latch failures uncovered in the inspection cycle, and this work is the first
step in reducing the latch failure rate to less than three ppm failure rate.

This excerpt identifies the purpose of the report as the presentation of re-
sults from a statistical study. Readers are also informed why the author(s)
did the work. If the report is done correctly, it will also close with recom-
mendations on what should happen next.

Has an Objective
The objective of a technical report is the overall reason for doing the
work. In an industrial situation, the objective of any work is usually to make
or increase profits. In the preceding example, the objective was to reduce
failure rates to a level of less than three ppm. This will save money and in-
crease profits. Discriminating between purpose and objective requires some
practice, and this distinction is discussed in more detail again in the Chap-
ters on strategies and introductions.

Conveys Information/Facts/Data
Technical writing should have substance in every statement. If a sentence
does not convey information pertinent to a study, leave it out. Technical
writing is focused on the technology under discussion.
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Engineers’ Guide to Technical Writing (#06218G)
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A report without facts or scientific evidence to support an opinion also

usually lacks credibility, and it is likely to be unsuccessful in achieving its
purpose and objective. The following report excerpt illustrates reports with
and without data. Which would persuade you?

No Data

A decision has been made to convert the machine shop grinding operations into
a three-shift operation to increase efficiency and machine utilization.

Preferred—with Data

A study was conducted to improve the elapsed time required to grind a set of slit-
ting knives. The average elapsed time for a regrind for the 1997 fiscal year was 11
days. A second study indicated that the largest time allotment in the 11 day re-
grind time was 3.4 days waiting for grinder availability. These studies were based
on one shift (day). A three-week test with three-shift operation reduced the wait-
ing for machine availability time to zero. The elapsed time for thirty knife sets that
were ground in the three-week test time was less than one day. These test results
suggest that three-shift operations should be implemented.

The use of data and factual information makes the work a technical report.
The communication without the data is not much different than a water
cooler discussion between coworkers. If the author is the leading expert of
the world on grinding, his or her opinions may make the report persuasive,
but most people are not infallible authorities on subjects.
Most reports need facts or data to support conclusions and recommen-
dations, and the verbs listed here are probably associated with factual state-
ments:

• Determined
• Solved
• Built
• Accepted
• Rejected
• Completed
• Passed
• Failed
• Broke
• Approved
• Cancelled
• Invented
• Designed
• Developed
• Discovered
• Uncovered
• Deduced
• Studied
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Engineers’ Guide to Technical Writing (#06218G)
What Is Technical Writing? / 7

Verbs that are often not associated with factual statements include words
like the following:

• Think
• May be
• Suggest
• Appear
• Suppose

Impersonal (Third Person) Voice

The use of first person pronouns is usually discouraged in technical writ-
ing. The intrusion of “I” makes the work less authoritative. Similarly, it is
inappropriate to use names of people and/or trade names unless there is no
other way to describe the item.

Discouraged

I ran a series of hardness tests on the valve seals for Bob MacArther from the shops
division, and I found that three of the seals were below normal. I also notified
Harry Randall and Phylis Carter so that the two of them could do Rockwell mea-
surements on future value seals.

The preceding excerpt from a report on metal hardness problems illustrates

how not to write a technical report. Judicious use of personal pronouns is
acceptable, but because a novice in technical writing may not know when
it is acceptable, it is probably advisable to avoid the use of personal pro-
nouns (I, you, me, we, mine) in formal reports and published papers. Writ-
ing in the third person is the style adopted in many journals and organiza-
tions. [The text contains personal anecdotes that may use personal
pronouns. I placed them within brackets so that I can follow the rule of no-
personal pronouns in the remainder of the text. Consider these bracketed
sections like the sidebars used in some texts to interject interesting facts,
like biographical sketches, to keep the reader’s interest. In my case, the
first draft of this book was deemed “boring” by several reviewers. The sec-
ond draft with personal anecdotes was not labeled boring by the second set
of reviewers, just “rough.” This third rewrite addresses the dislikes of all
ten reviewers, and I left anecdotes like this in because, let us face it—Eng-
lish grammar and writing techniques are not the most titillating subjects.]
With regard to using people’s names in reports, it is not necessary and it
reads “unprofessional.” In addition, it adds length, and anything that adds
unnecessary length to a document should not be done. If the intent of in-
cluding names is to give credit, the correct placement of credits is not in
the body of a report. Credits belong in end-of-document acknowledgments,
which will be covered in a subsequent Chapter. Personal pronouns and
names should be omitted because they are unnecessary. Trade names should
 © 2001 ASM International. All Rights Reserved. www.asminternational.org
Engineers’ Guide to Technical Writing (#06218G)
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be avoided because of liability considerations. The message can usually be

conveyed fully without their use:

Preferred

A series of hardness tests were conducted on valve seals at the request of the Shops
Division, and it was determined that three parts had abnormally low hardnesses.
The appropriate individuals were notified so that they can request hardness test-
ing on future valve-seal shipments.

Be Concise
Technical reports are usually written for business reasons. They are not
intended to entertain; they communicate information to an identified per-
son or group. Say what you want to say and get out! Wandering sentences
and extra words reflect badly on the author and often have a negative ef-
fect on the readership that you are trying to reach.

Wordy

Polymer surfaces were studied to determine if physical surface changes occur with
continued UV exposure. This program was necessitated to meet customer expec-
tations for a longtime company with world-class name recognition. If surface
degradation is in fact occurring, we need to ascertain and assess the severity of
this degradation. Moreover, it is imperative that we address any product defi-
ciencies so that the company image as a supplier of robust products is not deni-
grated.

Preferred

A study was conducted to quantify UV damage to polymer surfaces. This work

was done to satisfy customer concerns about the weatherability of sun shields
made from our outdoor grade of polypropylene.

Concision can become an acquired writing trait. There are text books on
the subject, but a major source of extra words are phrases such as “it fol-
lows that,” “in any case,” and “nonetheless.” It is often possible to replace
these phrases with a punctuation mark.

Not Concise

The biopsy results were negative. Nonetheless, the nurse-practitioner sent a sam-
ple for retest to be sure.

Preferred

The biopsy results were negative, but the nurse-practitioner sent a sample for retest
to be sure.
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Engineers’ Guide to Technical Writing (#06218G)
What Is Technical Writing? / 9

Concise writing is described further in subsequent Chapters, but every writer

should strive to state his or her message with the fewest words. Invariably, the
people who read technical documents are busy. Extra words mean extra work
for them and that they like your document (plan, proposal, etc.) less.

Directed to Readers
Chapter 4 “Writing Strategy” discusses readership of reports, but at this
point it is sufficient to say that technical reports must be directed to a par-
ticular readership. The author is responsible for determining the specific
individuals or parties who will receive a technical document. Writing
should be aimed at the readership. Directing a report determines the tech-
nical level of the writing. If you direct a report to your coworkers, you do
not have to bring them up to speed on the organization of your department.
They already know it.

Parochial Report

The attached procedure covers the operation of an infrared camera on the de-
partment’s SEM. This equipment upgrade addresses the problem that exists in de-
termining the exact location of beam impingement within the sample holder area.

The readers know what an infrared camera is, where it goes on the instru-
ment, what an SEM (scanning electron microscope) is, and about the im-
pingement problem, or they should know, if the document is correctly di-
rected. If this report was to be circulated outside the department or to upper
level management, it would be necessary to give background information
and define terms.

Style and Format

The attributes of technical writing also include style and format. Style is the
way that you write; format is the ordering and physical layout of a document.
The appropriate style for technical writing is objective. Technical doc-
uments present data, facts, calculations, test results, and theories, and these
must be presented in an accurate manner that is not opinionated. Conclu-
sions are inferred from test results; recommendations are the logical out-
come of the conclusions.

Not Objective

The damaged gear train was removed in a bushel basket. Only a miracle worker
could put this puppy back together. The operators must have fallen asleep at the
controls.
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Engineers’ Guide to Technical Writing (#06218G)
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Preferred

The damaged gear train was removed for inspection to determine the root cause
of failure. At this point in the failure analysis, it appears that the unit cannot be re-
turned to service. Testing will be completed by Wednesday.

The format (the basic elements and their placement) of technical papers
and reports is a more structured one than that used for other forms of writ-
ing. Formal technical reports have basic elements and a structure as follows:

• Introduction (why you are doing the work)

• Procedure (what you did)
• Results (what happened)
• Discussion (what it means)
• Conclusions (what was learned)
• Recommendations (what is to be done with the new information or
knowledge)

This style and format have been agreed to by international technical journals,
most educational institutions that teach in English, and most industries or or-
ganizations that employ engineers and scientists. As shown in subsequent
Chapters, all of these report elements may sometimes be put on one page.
[I recently acquired a new supervisor who is not familiar with engineer-
ing or laboratory testing. He receives a copy of all my reports. He recently
annotated one of my reports with “seems rather segregated.” He is right;
technical reports are segregated. The problem statement goes in the intro-
duction; what you did goes in the investigation section. The results go in the
results section, and so forth. Technical reports have a definite order.]
In summary, technical reports have a standard style and format, and, as
this book shows, this makes writing technical reports easy.

Archival
An intrinsic part of the value of technical writing is that it is written in
such a manner that it can be archived and produce valuable and usable in-
formation in the future. Conversely, technical documents should not be gen-
erated on transient issues or subjects that will not be pertinent in the future.

Not Archival

The BCH perforators were shut down last Thursday because of a power interrup-
tion. The shutdown caused the loss of three master rolls of product. The root cause
of the shutdown was determined to be a faulty relay in the control point of the
perforating center. The specific details of the product loss are:
____________________________________________________________________.
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