Some thoughts on technical writing

An email I wrote to someone a while ago; ended up never sending it (thank God). Makes for better reading in the blog-context.


Dear Ms. S,

I am --, a graduate student of Mechanical Engineering here at UT. This email is to inform you that I would be interested in judging the Braden Writing Competition.

It would perhaps be appropriate here to speak of what I have learnt about writing so far.

The right verb is one of the most important components of a good piece of technical writing. All activities entailed by research possess an accurate verbal description; "research is *conducted*", "experiments are *performed*", "projects are *undertaken*", goals are *identified* and then *fulfilled*, and references *highlight* important concepts. The correct verb reassures the reader of the writer's authority and his attention to the topic being discussed.

Less important are adjectives, except as qualifiers to critical nouns. Decorative adjectives are to be generally avoided, and depending on the register of the written piece may be unnecessary (register is discussed below). Adverbs are even worse than adjectives, and must be excised from the written piece unless they add significantly to its semantical content (for example, the previous sentence could have done without the adverb 'significantly').

Register -- by which I mean the tone of the written piece -- is also important. A good example to take is this email, which is written in a formal, rather prim tone. In such a piece of writing, certain forms of sentences must always be absent. I cannot here speak of my 'awesome experiences writing for my college mag dude!', or how I feel that 'UT is freakin' great! :) ' More correctly, I must be able to maintain throughout my piece the tone I choose to adopt at its beginning. Any register is acceptable as long as it is consistent.

So much for style; what of substance? I am sure that the students who participate in this contest will possess a degree of intellectual maturity matched by few peers. Their thought processes are no doubt advanced enough to develop complex but well constructed solutions to a posed problem. What remains to be seen, however, is whether they are capable of communicating their arguments in a manner that is both efficient and expressive. I believe that style is the key to this particular mystery; that it must (ideally) elevate the substance and (at the very least) not vitiate it. Style is the unseen mediator of the written word.

I don't have much else to say. I do apologize, though, for the tone of this email; I began with 'Dear Ms.S', instead of perhaps (first name deleted) (which would have been presumptuous anyway) and the rest of the email followed in a similar vein.

Regards,
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