{"id":2067,"date":"2014-06-07T10:06:24","date_gmt":"2014-06-07T14:06:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/gradpd\/?p=2067"},"modified":"2025-07-11T10:29:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T14:29:08","slug":"some-notes-on-technical-writing-rozita-rashtchi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/gradpd\/2014\/some-notes-on-technical-writing-rozita-rashtchi\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Notes on Technical Writing – Rozita Rashtchi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Some Notes on Technical Writing – Rozita Rashtchi\n <\/h1>\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Science and engineering programs often require grad students to produce technical documents including conference papers, journal papers, reports, a proposal and a thesis. These documents are all formal scholarly documents that have certain writing \u2018rules\u2019 to follow. This article summarizes some of the key rules to writing including connectivity, tense, tone, use of pronouns and vocabulary.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Connectivity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Any technical document must have a smooth flow of ideas. Each paragraph should contain one idea. If your paragraph is too long, it most likely contains more than one idea, so break it into shorter paragraphs. Each paragraph has to connect to the idea presented in the previous paragraph to make a smooth transition from one to another. There is a rule of thumb that, in each paragraph, the first sentence introduces the idea. The middle sentences describe and develop the idea, and the last sentence summarizes it. Keep in mind that every sentence in a paragraph should be connected to the previous one with a \u201cvisible connection\u201d like a common word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tense<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It is pretty common to write your thesis in either simple past or simple present tenses. But whatever you choose, stick to that tense throughout your thesis. There may be a preference within your discipline, so be sure to consult your supervisor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tone<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Writing in an active tone is preferred to writing in a passive tone because it makes your text more engaging. For example, use: \u201cThis guide provides some general tips\u201d instead of \u201cSome general tips are provided by this guide.\u201d Just use passive tone sentences when it is necessary or appropriate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pronouns<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Using an active tone doesn\u2019t necessarily imply the use of personal pronouns. Indeed, it is recommended not to use personal pronouns as much as you can. However, there is an exception – in introduction and conclusion parts. In these two parts, the personal pronoun \u201cwe\u201d is appropriate. Keep in mind that you shouldn\u2019t use the second pronoun, \u201cyou,\u201d in the thesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vocabulary<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

English may not be your first language. It is a very rich language with a lot of alternatives for each word. It is common to use these alternatives when you are writing a document. It is always good to use a thesaurus to find synonyms but make sure to look up their meaning in a dictionary. Keep in mind that it is always better to write short and simple sentences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are some tips on how to choose your words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Do not begin a sentence with \u201cThis is.\u201d Be more specific, this what?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Never use words like \u201cobviously\u201d or \u201cclearly,\u201d as it can be an insult if the reader doesn\u2019t get that point.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Do not use superlatives in claims like \u201cthe best algorithm is\u201d or \u201cthe perfect performance.” Instead, use comparatives like \u201calgorithm x is better than algorithm y.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The phrase \u201cin order to\u201d can always be replaced by \u201cto.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Do not make qualitative judgements like \u201cgood,\u201d \u201cbad\u201d or \u201cterrible.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Be careful about time adverbs. Using words like \u201ctoday\u201d or \u201csoon\u201d is inappropriate.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Never use \u201ckind of\u201d or \u201csomething like\u201d because they are informal and vague.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Be careful of using “few, most, all, any, every.” Each has a different meaning and you should be able to justify it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Do not use contractions like \u201cdon\u2019t\u201d or \u201chaven\u2019t.\u201d Instead, use them in their complete form like \u201cdo not\u201d or \u201chave not.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Use formal adjectives. For example, \u201cbig or huge\u201d can be replaced with \u201clarge\u201d or \u201cwonderful, fantastic or amazing\u201d can be replaced with \u201csignificant.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Be careful of using \u201cvery\u201d before adjectives. For example, when you use \u201cvery large,\u201d it should be understandable from your text about what is \u201clarge\u201d and what is \u201cvery large.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Be careful of singular and plural words. For example \u201cmatrix, appendix, thesis, axis, index and radius\u201d are singular words whereas \u201cmatrices, appendices, theses, axes, indices and radii\u201d are the corresponding plural words.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Science and engineering programs often require grad students to produce technical documents including conference papers, journal papers, reports, a proposal and a thesis. These documents are all formal scholarly documents that have certain writing \u2018rules\u2019 to follow. This article summarizes some of the key rules to writing including connectivity, tense, tone, use of pronouns and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contributions"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/gradpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/gradpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/gradpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/gradpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/gradpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2067"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/gradpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2068,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/gradpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067\/revisions\/2068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/gradpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/gradpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/gradpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}