technical writing for researchers and graduate students

Technical Writingfor Researchers

and Graduate Students

Spring 2003Lincoln Campus

Instructor: Deborah Derrick

Seminar goals

To give you tools and strategies for:

Writing useful, concise, readable documents

Writing efficiently Writing to your audience

Seminar focus Content – Selecting and organizing

information

Readability – Applying language and tools to help the reader understand

Efficiency – Applying productivity strategies to the writing process

You will receive…

Checklists, models and examples that you can adapt to your writing

A concise set of guidelines and principles you can use as a reference

Help on any writing projects in progress (on a request basis)

You will not get…

An English 101 course

Remedial instruction in grammar, spelling or punctuation.

How the seminar will run…

15 weeks, Mondays and Wednesdays

Sessions divided into units (see agenda)

Lecture format plus hands-on exercises

How importantare good writing skills?

Good writing skills…

Increase your marketability

Increase your advancement potential

Help save you time when you write

Overall, researchers and their supervisors spend at least 20 to 40 percent of their time working with reports, proposals, memos and other documents.

What supervisors say…

Information is hard to read and understand quickly

Material is poorly organized Sentences are poorly constructed Incorrect word choice; jargon Documents are too long Document focus is unclear

Researchers need help with…

Deciding what and how much information to include

Organizing documents Figuring out what the audience

needs to know Structuring easy-to-read sentences Getting started; writing efficiently

Assess yourself:What are your main

problems with writing?

Unit 1: Organizing

OUTLINE OF TOPICS:

Why start with organization? A suggested organizational method How it works How to apply it to different

documents

Why organize?

It provides a framework on which to “hang” ideas.

It presents ideas in a logical, coherent sequence that is easily understood.

It helps you decide what content to include in your document.

It helps stimulate ideas.

A “top-down” approach In organizing your document, you

should follow a problem-solving approach that is already familiar to researchers.

This framework will help you organize your notes and thoughts before you write.

You can use it for both technical and business documents.

“Top-down” organization

This organizational scheme is based on science’s 5-part method for recording and reporting experiments:

Define objective Select apparatus Determine method Make observations Draw conclusions

Top-down organization

By translating these 5 scientific terms into technical/business terms, we have a framework that can be applied to both the academic and business environments.


It uses science’s problem-solving structure for conveying technical information.

It adds a parallel structure for interpreting technical information in business terms.


SCIENTIFIC Objective Apparatus Method Observations Conclusions

TECHNICAL/BUSINESS Problem Scope and goals Solution Results Conclusions and

Recommendations


By contracting, expanding, using “as-is” or otherwise modifying this structure, you can use it to organize the main research-related documents you need to write.

Applying the top-down method

This method can be applied to: Memos or business letters Single-task research reports Multi-task research reports Progress reports Proposals Other technical papers

Memo or business letter

Problem, need, or issue Solution Results expected or actions to

be taken

Single-task research report

Problem Scope Solution Results Conclusions

Example of single-task report

Researchers were asked to solve a specific problem in the production of a product.

Here’s how the body of the report might look from a technical standpoint.

1. Problem

What is the specific problem that is being addressed in this research?

Why is the problem important (from a technical and a practical/business standpoint)?

2. Scope

What has been done before to try to “fix” the problem (literature review).

What technical factors or issues had to be addressed to resolve this problem?

3. Solution What approach was taken to resolve

the problem? What specific task(s) were

performed? Did the research proceed as planned

or were there unexpected difficulties? How were these difficulties resolved?

4. Results

What results were obtained? How “good” were these results?

5. Conclusions/Recommendations

Can the results be directly applied to resolve the problem?

What technical steps should be taken to implement these results?

Has this research yielded other ideas for that should be followed up in future research?

Multi-task research report

A multi-task report may require expansion of this framework.

The following pages give an example of the components of this type of report.

1. Needs, problems, benefits What needs prompted the

company’s (sponsor’s) funding this research?

What problems are being addressed?

What opportunities or benefits will the sponsor receive if the research project succeeds?

2. Scope and goals

What has been done before to try to solve this problem?

What specific technical elements of the problem were researched?

What technical goals did the research attempt to achieve?

3. Solution

What approach was selected to solve the specific problems and achieve the identified goals?

How did it compare to other possible approaches?

What specific tasks did the research include?

Solution (continued)

What difficulties were encountered? How were they solved?

What “shortcuts” or other unexpected advantages were found that could be useful in other research projects?

4. Results

What results did each task yield? From a scientific viewpoint, how

“good and complete” were these results?

5. Conclusions

To what extent did the research solve its stated problems and achieve its intended goals?

What future research should be done?

6. Recommendations What future research in this area should

be conducted? What steps could be taken in future

projects to prevent the difficulties found in this project and to improve results?

What actions should be taken in future projects to utilize the shortcuts and other efficiencies found during this project?

Variations

The basic top-down scheme lends itself to other variations, such as: Need Problem, scope, and goals Solution Results Conclusions

Progress reports

Engineers (in business and academe) often need to write quarterly or monthly progress reports on projects to funding agencies or clients.

Here is a simple way to organize a monthly progress report, based on the planned tasks outlined in your proposal or work plan.

Progress reports (continued)

Current month Solution

What tasks did you work on? What problems, if any, occurred? How

were they resolved? Results

What main data did you get? Were such data expected? If not, what is

the impact?

Progress reports

Next month: Solution

What tasks do you plan to do? What problems, if any, do you anticipate?

Results What main results do you expect to get?

Benefits of this scheme Each section builds logically on

preceding sections. It can be used for almost all types of

documents. It can help reveal gaps in logic and

data. It helps you decide what information is

needed. It saves you time during the writing

process.


A caveat: This is a method to help you organize your notes and thoughts before you start writing. It is NOT a prescribed format or outline.

Formats vary across disciplines and journals. (We will discuss formats in future sessions of this seminar.)