TECHNICAL WRITING PURPOSE SCOPE AND STYLE OF WRITING

TECHNICAL WRITING: PURPOSE, SCOPE, AND STYLE OF WRITING SUPPLEMENTED BY FORMATTING TIPS HP 101 – MATLAB Wednesday, 10/1/2013 www. clarkson. edu/class/honorsmatlab

Professor Quotes “Look, I’m a cat!” “…it’s the cat’s pajamas to use their type of column!” Wick Mc. Cluskey “But Bob, you don’t have to watch a horror movie! You can just pay close attention to my lecture on rigorous theory!” Also Mc. Cluskey https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=MTLp 14 MKDDU

Overview Goal: Effective and rapid delivery of information Three Components Content scope and level of information Style the way you communicate Form format etc: and mechanics of writing – layout, grammar,

Content: Overview Nuts and bolts of writing Capture proper scope/audience Ex: Summary of PSE 1 for Congress vs. coworkers Emphasis on proper sections Significant findings/conclusions vs. background

Content: Types of Detail Technical Memo/Technical Brief VERY SHORT More emphasis on recommendations, lessons learned Journal Article More emphasis on theory & development of tool, etc. Technical Report (HP 200 Report) Most detailed of all writings Include structure of group and responsibilities

Style: Overview Not a story Summary of findings Not blow-by-blow recount of what and how you did Dry, thick, concentrated Streamline Don’t use 7 words when 3 will do Practice – this is an art

Style: Grammar Active 3 rd Person GOOD: As expected, results indicate a quadratic relationship between height and weight. BAD: I found the data has a quadratic relationship between height and weigh.

Form: Formatting Tips Figures (text boxes, captioned) Equations on one line (captioned) Justify text Works Cited/Endnotes More advanced topics: Section Headings, Table of Contents, Table of Figures, Drop Caps

Notes About PSE 1 Highlights Don’t be too brief Include a sentence about the background, the problem, the general method, and the conclusion that was made Problem Statement Write about what needs to be done, not what you did Should stand apart from the Highlights and Methodology sections

PSE 1 Methodology Do not write about specific lines of code or functions Review general concepts Matrix multiplication was used to evaluate the salary equation for each year of interest. Results, Recommendations Include all relevant outputs of your code Explain how all pieces of information relate to a central conclusion