CEUs for Engineers: Technical Writing Courses
Most engineers must take some form of continuing education to renew their professional license. Some take courses and others go to meetings. Most are technical. Have you thought about taking a course to improve your writing? As we progress, we write more – but how much attention do we give to our writing skills? As kids, we learned […]
The 10 Good Habits of Technical Writers
Good technical writers never release anything until the work’s been thoroughly proofread. The best technical writers eliminate unnecessary words so that the text is as short as possible. The best writers search for “etc.” replacing it with actual content. Technically proficient writers check their detail for accuracy. If a good technical writer isn’t sure about […]
10 Essential Ideas for Engineers Delivering Technical Presentations
Technical Presentations are persuasive events. Their purpose is to persuade others to read a piece of technical writing. Technical writers shouldn’t worry about boring their readers. Minimize reading by keeping the work as short as possible, as clear as possible, and as detailed as appropriate. Presenting technical ideas doesn’t follow these rules directly, but this doesn’t mean […]
The Importance of Technical Writing for Engineers
All professional engineers have to write, but most of us dislike writing because we’ve never tried to improve. We procrastinate, which is stressful, and when deadlines force us to write, we hurry, and we write poorly. So, we are inefficient writers. Most of us recognize the value of outlines, but we copy existing outlines. This only works […]
Distilling Complicated Information for Public Consumption: Writing Tips for Engineers
One of the essential technical writing skills for engineers is learning how to distill complicated information for the lay audience. dis·till (dəˈstil): (v) extract the essential meaning or most important aspects of. For engineers to communicate effectively with the public, they must know how to simplify complex systems and distill complicated concepts into comprehensive summaries […]
Improve Inter-company Communication with Your Writing
Effective inter-company communication shouldn’t be difficult, yet a lack of writing skills across the professional spectrum has made ineffective communication the norm. And while many companies do focus on using persuasive writing and other forms of effective communication with outside parties, most companies – and leaders – neglect positive inter-company communication. Per an article from […]
Continuing Education and Professional Development for Engineers
The need for continuing education for engineers is one of the reasons that engineers are members of a profession. The education needed to enter many professional fields is not enough because such professions require that their members stay current with their practice. Many professional licensing authorities require that their members take some form of continuing […]
Why Professional Writing Skills Are Necessary For Professional Development in Engineering
Our education gives us the basics of communication. We can construct correct sentences and paragraphs because we understand the rules of grammar. We’ve acquired the basic rules and can write grammatically-correct text. Our college education afforded little in terms of courses on technical communication. An engineering degree program is already overloaded, and it wouldn’t be […]
Why Do Technical Writers Write So Passively? How To Communicate Better In Technical Writing: Part I
Passive writing adds words and detaches the action from the recipient. For example, “The cat sat on the mat,” (written in the active voice) can be written in the passive voice: “The mat was seated upon by the cat.” In this passive voice example, we go from six words to eight, a 33% increase, and […]
How To Communicate Better In Technical Writing: Part II
Now that we’ve covered active voice vs passive voice, let’s think about writing more generally. Engineers often view writing as a burden or chore that must be finished on time for an impatient supervisor. Negative attitudes influence a work task in a bad way. If a task is addressed with a positive outlook, the work […]
Why Not Leave The State of Technical Writing Alone?
Because Technical Writing Standards Are In Decline. What evidence is there of poor standards of technical writing? I have my own sources. First, there’s the material I read as a director of a research group, a higher education teacher, and the material I read from my peer researchers. Educationalists continually bemoan the falling standards of […]
Learn How To Be A Better Technical Writer
What is it about writing that troubles engineers? What makes engineers so scared of writing? Why are so many of us reluctant to write for work? OTT’s online Technical Writing for Engineers course answers these questions and shows you how to change habits to teach you how to write fluently, directly, and persuasively. It goes right back […]
6 Technical Writing Skills Every Engineer Needs
How will technical writing help engineers succeed in their job? There are many courses on technical writing for engineers. Most are delivered by writers that are not engineers. Today, professional engineers are all college-educated. Many of us took “technical writing for engineers courses” at college, but from whom? A professional technical writer is unlikely to have been a professional engineer. Our instructors were English or humanities majors who […]