The Planning Process

The Planning stage of the writing process is important because the purpose, content, and general
structure of the paper is established there. A large number of students do serious damage to themselves
by skimping on this stage, or on the related process of outlining. Nobody would ever begin to build a
bridge, factory or even a single gear without a detailed plan. You should approach your writing task in
the same manner, and carefully analyze the assignment, spend some time brainstorming, thinking about
a title and, develop a well thought out outline.
1. Reading the Assignment for Audience, Purpose, and Requirements: Students often shoot themselves
in the foot by failing to read assignment statements carefully enough. If you fail to read carefully, you
may miss the stated audience, the purpose of the document, and essential requirements of the paper –
three things that can be essential to producing a strong paper. Take, for example, the following
assignment statement:
The cathode ray tube (CRT) has served and continues to serve a whole host of applications ranging from
the oscilloscope to the computer monitor. Arguably, the CRT has had a tremendous impact on home
entertainment, particularly through the picture tube, that is, the television. Today, the CRT as applied in
televisions, and indeed in computer monitors, is experiencing strong competition from displacement
alternatives which include LCD displays, projections systems, plasma screens, and others. Some of the
factors favouring these alternative products are large area display, bright and sharply defined images,
and size.
Your editor at Scientific American has requested that you prepare a technical report which describes the
science/physics of the CRT, its range of applications in home entertainment, and its limitations in the
ever evolving modern microelectronic world. Identify briefly the range of emerging alternatives to the
CRT, including those likely to emerge in the future. From these choose two generically different
alternatives and proceed to describe the scientific basis of the selected projection devices. Compare and
contrast these alternatives and the CRT, discussing their strengths and weaknesses in relation to their
application for home entertainment. In your dis cussion, consider factors such as energy consumption,
safety (radiation, eye strain, …), and others. Conclude by assessing the significance of the analysis (for
example, in view of your analysis what alternative(s) do you expect to dominate (or not) and the reasons
thereof).
In the above assignment statement, you should be able to identify a clear statement of audience, a clear
purpose, and explicit and implicit requirements.
i) Audience: Engineering writing is very audience focused. As a civil engineer, for example, may be
writing for other civil engineers, architects, managers or executives, the general public, or politicians
(among others). Each group has a different educational background, levels of expertise, expectations and
reasons for reading. These details can have a significant impact on the structure and content of your
papers.
When analyzing audience, two key factors come into play: 1) educational background and 2) reasons for
reading. Knowing the educational background of your readers allows you to pitch the document to the
appropriate level: it tells you how much and what kind of context information you need to include and
how detailed the information needs to be. Their reasons for reading turn into your reason for writing,
and helps to determine your purpose.
In the above example, the statement of audience arrives in the second paragraph, but it’s a little
complicated. The explicit audience is your editor at Scientific American, but if you’re writing for an editor
for a magazine, there is a more important implicit audience? The readership of the magazine! You’re
probably writing something that will become the basis of a magazine article. A Scientific American editor
is likely much more technologically savvy than a reader, though both share a keen interest in science. You
can assume the SA reader have some familiarity with basic physics and chemistry principles, but not
much more. You would have to avoid technical jargon and define key principles or concepts involved in
television technologies.
ii) Purpose: Engineering writing is also aims focused. Instead of a thesis statement, technical documents
use purpose statements: they differ from thesis statements in that they do not identify the actual claim
of the paper, only its purpose. It is important to identify the main purpose of your document before
going any further with planning.
There are essentially two kinds of technical reports: 1) informative and 2) persuasive. Informative reports
simply provide information objectively. Persuasive reports, on the other hand, apply that information
towards a specific claim, usually to recommend a certain course of action or to identify an outcome.
In the above example, which of the two is your purpose? It first seems like an informative report, but
when you compare and contrast items, you’re likely going to be making a claim of some sort – whether it
be that both options are equally good, or that one is better than another. The difference between a
thesis and a purpose statement can be seen in the below example.
Thesis statement: LCD TVs will soon replace traditional CRT models.
Purpose statement: This report analyses the viability of two main alternatives to traditional CRT
televisions: LCD and Plasma technology.
iii) Requirements: Assignment statements often establish a set of requirements for your document. In
the above example, paragraph two lists those requirements. It is important that you meet each of these
requirements, but don’t treat them simply as a set of questions to answer. If you do, your paper will lack
coherence. Develop those requirements into a coherent and workable plan or outline for your
document, rather than using those to structure your paper.
Some requirements are explicitly identified in assignment statements; others, however, are implicit. It
takes careful reading and consideration of the assignment statement to identify these. For example, the
above statement asks you to compare and contrast two technologies for home entertainment
applications. Although it doesn’t necessarily state it, the assignment assumes that the author will
establish criteria for comparison: it gives some examples – i.e. energy consumption – but doesn’t state
explicitly that when using criteria for comparison, you need to define them clearly (for example, what is
energy consumption measured in?) and justify them (why is energy consumption important in these
applications?)

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The Planning stage of the writing process is important because the purpose, content, and general

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