Posted in: writing for engineers

Posted March 17, 2023 We know that good writing matters, as good writing pays dividends in terms of generating more sales, yielding happier customers, impressing the right people, creating a more informed and educated audience, and more. In turn, poor writing can cause disasters that range from lost sales to public relations nightmares. It’s a no-brainer to want to improve the quality of writing at your organization,...
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Posted March 10, 2023 Whether it's standard operating procedures; emails to colleagues, vendors, or customers; sales presentations or proposals; or any other type of business document or content, writing isn't an add-on task for workers to try to get through before getting back to their "real" job. It is their real job. It's how they – and the organization that employs them – connect...
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What kind of response did you get after writing your last technical document? Did you get an avalanche of phone calls asking for information, even though the information was in the report? Or worse, did you get no response at all? Writing technical documents such as engineering reports are meant to provide answers. Organizations face serious problems when these reports fail to provide necessary information or obscure...
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In our classes, we always discuss reader-centered writing; that is, writing that fully considers readers and what they want and need and how they're going to use the document. Another element of this is "noise." "Noise" can be categorized as the distractions readers face when reading. Some of these, of course, are caused by the writer and some are the result of noisy offices,...
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Why oh why do some writers seem to intentionally want to muddle meaning and make reading and understanding that much more difficult for readers? It's astounding to me that some writers intentionally use words that obfuscate (how's that for a word??) meaning. Essentially, they use "pompous" language, or to put it simply, big words that aren't necessary. Using pompous language is a pet peeve of mine,...
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