When readers — including your engineering professors -- are asked to list their biggest complaints about technical writing, these items always appear:

• Unclear purpose or context
  "At the start, I don't know why I'm reading the report. I don't understand how the specific information I'm getting fits into a larger situation. Does the writer know why I requested this information?"
• Baffling organization or logic
  "I don't understand where the writer is going or why I am getting one piece of information before another. I can't figure out how idea A leads to B and how A and B relate to C or D."
• Lack of clear conclusions
  "When I finish reading, I want to understand why the information is important to me. I want a good answer to my question, 'So What?'"
• Too much or not enough detail
  "The writer spends too much time discussing unimportant aspects and not enough time on what is most significant to me. The emphasis is misplaced, maybe to hide what the writer doesn't know."
• Muddled sentences, garbled expression
  "Individual sentences are difficult to untangle—wordy and ungrammatical. I resent spending time on this report."
• Sloppy or imprecise use of technical terms and concepts
  "The writer does not understand the engineering terminology, or misapplies it, or inappropriately addresses it to a reader who is not at this technical level."
• Faulty mechanics
  "What a mess! The document has errors in format, spelling, punctuation, and units of measurement. Diagrams are labeled poorly or not at all."

Your challenge, as a writer, is to anticipate such objections. If you want readers to understand and appreciate what you write, you need to make their job as easy as possible. We can translate readers' complaints into three overall considerations and six specific writing guidelines:

• Consider your audience.
  Understand you readers' needs, attitudes, familiarity with the subject matter, and technical level. Adapt your writing to these things. Decide in advance what your audience should think when they finish reading your document.
• Consider the situation.
  Know the context in which your writing will be read and judged. Shape your writing to it.
• Develop a sound writing process.
  Good writing results from a process that includes gathering information, brainstorming and organizing ideas ("pre-writing") as well as drafting, editing, and revising. Don't expect your writing to flow out wonderfully in a single try. Although you are very busy, try to spend some time composing in stages: prewriting, drafting, and revising each assignment.

1. Organize information logically.
2. Provide cues to help readers follow and find information.
3. Make the proportion of space you give to any information reflect the relative importance of that information.
4. Choose words precisely.
5. Write clear, concise sentences.
6. Review drafts for problems in format, spelling, punctuation, units of measurement, labels for figures. Proofread! Allow some time (if only just a few hours) to pass between drafting and revising the document.

1. Organize information logically.
   
   • Group similar things together.
   • Order those groups appropriately.
     The "appropriate" order depends on the situation. For example:
     • If you are describing a process, list the steps chronologically
     • To explain something, move from general to specific points
     • To document a project try ordering by problems-methods-solutions
     • To persuade, order your arguments from most to least significant
2. Provide cues to help readers follow and find information.
   
   • Use headings, lists, and other formatting devices to make the information accessible.
   • Use forecast statements to preview what is ahead. Use summary statements to review what you've covered.
     In this example, the writer has previewed the specific points that her proposal will cover and the order in which she will discuss them:
     
     "This circuit can be broken into four blocks:

     1. The square and triangle generating portion
     2. The JFET-based circuit
     3. The module that uses the square and triangle waves to form a sawtooth
     4. An amplifier with adjustable gain
     "
3. Make the proportion of space you give to any information reflect the relative importance of that information.
4. Choose words precisely.
   • Use technical terms correctly and appropriately for the audience. Avoid unnecessary jargon.
     "We will use different capacitors in order to cancel out the glitch."
   • Avoid vague words.
     "The circuit experienced some difficulties."
     Which circuit? What is a difficulty?
   • Avoid ambiguous words and phrases (especially "this" and "it")
     "When the square wave is negative, the inputs to the op-amp are grounded, and the input signal is inverted. This produces a double-frequency sawtooth of the same amplitude as the input."
     What's "this"—a negative square wave? grounded inputs? an inverted input signal? all of these?
   • Use strong verbs.
     This example obscures the "real" verbs:
     "The component count of the circuit is kept minimal with the use of an integrated circuit (IC) JFET operational amplifier in the input stage."
     This revised version features stronger verbs:
     "The design uses an integrated circuit (IC) JFET operational amplifier in the input stage to minimize the number of components." [emphasis added]
     The following example suffers from a weak verb and from wordiness:
     "Proposal: The proposed Frequency-to-Voltage converter is part of a three person collaboration to build a circuit in lab that, ideally, could be employed, for example, in the transmission of touch tone phone conversations."
     The writer also uses a cumbersome noun phrase ("employed . . . in the transmission of") to express the real action (simply to "transmit"). Also, notice the unnecessary phrases ("ideally, could be employed," "for example"). As revised:
     "Three students propose a collaborative project to build a Frequency-to-Voltage converter that could transmit touch tone conversations."
5. Write clear, concise sentences.
   
   • Avoid wordy phrases.
     Some wordy phrases can seem to sound "smarter" than simpler ones. But wordy writing can make documents excessively long and frustrate a reader. You can often replace a bulky phrase with something more concise. Paring down such phrases can substantially shorten a long document without compromising your meaning.
   
   

   Wordy	Concise
   a majority of	most
   a number of	few, many
   subsequent to	after
   in order to	to
   in view of the fact that	because, since
   based on/due to the fact that	because
   during the course of	while
   for the purpose of	for
   with regard to	about, concerning
   in the event that	if
   so as to	to
   take into consideration	consider
   have the capability to	can

   • Combine short, choppy sentences.
     "We found a solution. The solution can be displayed on an oscilloscope."
     Revised:
     "We found a solution that can be displayed on the oscilloscope."
   • Generally, favor the active over the passive voice.
     In the active voice, the subject of the sentence ["design"] performs the action ["offers"]:
     "This design offers more advantages."
     In the passive voice, the subject receives the action. Passive sentences are usually longer, more complicated, less direct than active ones. Writers sometimes favor passive voice because it can seem to sound more scientific or objective than the active voice:
     "In this design, more advantages are offered."
     As this example shows, active sentences are usually shorter and more direct than passives. Use the active voice unless you have a good reason not to.
6. Review drafts for problems in format, spelling, punctuation, units of measurement, labels for figures. Proofread! Allow some time (if only just a few hours) to pass between drafting and revising the document.
   
   • Edit in stages.
     
     • Make a first pass to see if the organization is good and the information is correct. (You might even make an outline from your first draft after you've written it, to check whether the sequence is logical.)
     • Make another pass to check phrasing and spelling.
       
       • Reading aloud can help you spot any wording that needs revision.
       • Use your word processor's spell checker, but remember that it will not catch all errors. You must also proofread.
     • Learn from past mistakes . . . and past successes. As you write each new assignment, remember the comments your past writing has received. Keep these in mind as you revise.