EVEN 4100 Writing Workshop

Why do engineers write?

Communicate ideas, results, plans, etc. Document activities and reasoning

“If you didn’t write it down, you didn't do it” Fundamental component of engineering!

Even though writing is very important, it is often secondary in our engineering education You could probably use some practice….

What are we writing ?

Technical memorandums

Reports

Articles for journals

Proposals

Thesis, dissertation

Letters

Emails

For all technical documents:• Use formal language• Follow formats• Be clear and concise • Use correct spelling,

punctuation, and grammar

Make it look good!

From T&L 2013

Good form leads to the preparation of better reports. In 1927, C. W. Park in his text, English Applied In Technical Writing, noted that:

“Even though a reader's interest is wholly in the subject matter his [sic] first impression of a piece of writing is necessarily based on its general appearance. If the manuscript is neat and well arranged, and if it has a clean-cut, finished look, any one who picks it up is predisposed in favor of the writer and his work. The content, upon being closely examined, may prove to be disappointing; but it will need to be strikingly poor in order to [sic] wipe out entirely the favorable impression which was created at the start by its good mechanical form. On the other hand [sic], if a manuscript is illegible, untidy, scrappy, or incomplete, the reader's reaction is certain to be unfavorable. The subject matter will need to be exceptionally good in order to [sic] overcome the reader's adverse opinion.”

What are the steps of writing?

Think

Who is the audience? Is there a standard format? Should all of my data be included? Do I need more data? Outline

General outlines & detailed outlines Prepare figures and tables

Before or after you write? Write a draft

Be clear, make your point concisely, avoid repetition, do not make statements that are not supported by your work Edit and Revise

Study writing as a subject of inquiry, ask for peer review, be persistent

Writing a report

Components Title page

Executive summary (try not to have exact repetition in your document)

Table of contents

List of abbreviation and acronyms

List of units, symbols, conversions etc.

Introduction

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusions/Summary

Citations

Appendices

Writing a report

Lab reports should be written using a standard font of 12-point size. Documents should have 1” margins.

All pages should be numbered in the footer using centered or right-justified alignment.

Use a “ragged right” justification

Use line spacing of 1.5 or 2

Either indent or add a break after paragraphs, not both.

Mechanics Font size

Margins

Page numbers

Alignment

Spacing

Indentation

Page number examples

ii

Title page

Front matter

Report body

1

Back matter

A-1

• Do not include page numbers on title page

• Front matter page numbers are in lower case roman

numerals

• Report body page numbers are in Arabic numerals

• Appendix page numbers are labeled as A-1, A-2, A-3; B-1, B-

2, B-3, etc.

Justification example

As part of the Western North American Mercury Synthesis (WNAMS) effort, the goal of this study was to estimate emissions of Hg from soils resulting from wildfires in the western United States for the 2000 to 2013 period and to assess the potential emission of Hg from forest soils of the western United States as a function of forest type and soil-heating. Previously reported data on mercury in atmospheric emissions and burned soils were reviewed and a spatial model for Hg emissions developed based on the results of these previous laboratory and field measurements. We estimated that wildfire released an annual average of 3100 ± 1900 kg-Hg y-1 for the years 2000-2013. This estimate is nearly 5-fold lower than previous estimates.

As part of the Western North American Mercury Synthesis (WNAMS) effort, the goal of this study was to estimate emissions of Hg from soils resulting from wildfires in the western United States for the 2000 to 2013 period and to assess the potential emission of Hg from forest soils of the western United States as a function of forest type and soil-heating. Previously reported data on mercury in atmospheric emissions and burned soils were reviewed and a spatial model for Hg emissions developed based on the results of these previous laboratory and field measurements. We estimated that wildfire released an annual average of 3100 ± 1900 kg-Hg y-1 for the years 2000-2013. This estimate is nearly 5-fold lower than previous estimates.

Ragged-right justification reduces eye fatigue and improves comprehension!

Fully justified text causes eye fatigue due to variation in word spacing

Writing a report Table and figures –

Tables and figures should be easy to comprehend.

Place captions above for tables and below for figures.

Keep both inside of document margins.

Tables and figures should be presented in the documents just below (within reason) where they are referenced in the text.

Figure 2: Distribution of forest types throughout the western United States. Data were obtained from Thompson et al., 1999.

Writing a report

Citation examples

Journal articles:

Driscoll, C. T., Mason, R. P., Chan, H. M., Jacob, D. J., Pirrone, N., 2013. Mercury as a global pollutant: Sources, pathways, and effects. Environmental Science & Technology 47, 4967-4983.

Websites:

CDC (2006) ”Legionellosis Legionaries Disease (LD) and Pontiac Fever” in Disease Listing, Division of Bacterial an Mycotic Diseases, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Accessed 2 October 2009, <http//:www.cdc.gov/>

Professional organization papers:

ASTM (2002) D4189-95 Standard Test Method for Silt Density Index (SDI) of Water, American Society for Testing and Materials, Philadelphia, PA.

Books:

Asano, T., F.L. Burton, H. Leverenz, R. Tsuchihashi, and G. Tchobanoglous (2007) Water Reuse: Issues, Technologies, and Applications, McGrawHill, New York.

Activity: Write a paragraph describing what happened in this video using technical engineering terms

Evaluating your writing

Fog index

Reading level (grade) = (Average number of words in sentences + percentage of complex word of three or more syllables) 0.4

Count the words

Count the sentences

count words with three or more syllables

calculate.

The index for technical writing will probably be between 14 and 22.

Evaluating your writing

Working and glue words

Working words:

nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and some pronouns

Glue words:

Conjunctions (and, but, or, for, so, yet)

Prepositions (at, across, into, between, from in, over under, when, while, because)

Interjections (indeed, yet well)

Some pronouns (that, this)

Articles (a, an, the)

If the ratio of glue words to working words is greater than 75%, the sentence should be rewritten.

Tools for writing – things to avoid

Use an active or passive voice?

T & L (2013) suggest to avoid the active voice.

Avoid using “This” to start a sentence. Can be ambiguous.

Avoid “Figure XX shows” or “Table XX presents”. Inanimate objects do not show or present anything. Use “As shown on Figure…”, or “as presented in Table…”

Adverbs

Hyperbole

Avoid empty language “In order to”, “in the event that”

Stumbling blocks in writing

Lindsay, D., 2011. Scientific writing = Thinking in words. Csiro Publishing

Clusters of nouns Noun string: MHS has a hospital employee relations improvement program.Correction: MHS has a program to improve relations among employees.

Beginning sentences with subordinate clausesDue to the high rate of flow, the disinfection process was ineffective.

Nouns instead of the verbs from which they are derivedNoun form: The weight of sand was measured Verb form: Sand was weighed

Using imprecise wordsFew, a couple, many, several, most, some..

Using too many acronyms Long sentences

Can you improve your paragraph?

Edit this:

The velocity profile for Boulder creek was measured using a tape measure marking the distance across the stream and a pygmy meter to measure the velocity of the flow. Velocity measurements were taken at 2 foot increments and depth measurements were also taken every 2 feet. However, the velocity and depth measurements were offset by 1 foot in order to get an average velocity between each depth. A pygmy meter is used to measure velocity by counting the amount of rotations of the measurement pin. The rotations are indicated by a clicking sound. Therefore, it is necessary to convert the amount of clicks per second into feet per second. This is done using a chart of data and equation that accompany the pygmy meter. This chart can be found in the appendix. The discharge was calculated using the depth and velocity for each measurement across the stream. This was done by first estimating the area between each depth measurement by Equation 1 with the assumption it could be accurately estimated by a trapezoidal shape. The area was then multiplied by the velocity to get the discharge for the given section as shown in Equation 2. Table 3 presents the recorded measurements and the resulting discharge calculated values.