Write It Right— Improve Your Technical Writing Skills
Warren V. Bush

Two principles are important to keep in mind when preparing written documents of all types:

• Do not assume that everyone knows what you are talking about.
• Come to work prepared to sell yourself and your ideas.

Consider the needs of your readership: your boss, your colleagues, and your technicians. Each has a different, specific need for information but they all share a common goal: "Tell me quickly what I need to know." Or, KISS-Keep It Short and Simple.

Your objective is to satisfy your readers' needs. You can accomplish that objective easily by following these principles for any form of communication:

• Organization: the sequence in which you present your ideas.
• Clarify: the manner in which you express your ideas.

The ability to write well is an essential non-technical skill for scientists. You need to be able to communicate your ideas persuasively and concisely to your managers, your peers, your assistants or technicians, and also to audiences that have only limited backgrounds in science. In order to accomplish this goal, your writing must be well organized, clear, and timely. These three principles will apply to every document that you write. The sections that follow will show you how.

Organization: The Sequence in Which You Present Your Ideas

Ask yourself the following questions to be sure that you have done a good job of organizing what you write so that your reader will be able to read and understand your writing quickly and easily.

Is the subject obvious from the beginning? Every technical report you write will have a title, which should describe the subject of the report completely and concisely-using no more than 10 words. A properly descriptive title is almost impossible to write until you have written the entire document, so although you may have a working title you should write the actual title last.

Is there a summary very near the beginning? The summary statement allows the reader to decide whether he or she needs to read further, or whether the information in the summary is sufficient for the current purpose. A good summary should convey, in not more than 200 words

1. What is the new information-a new discovery in the laboratory, a projection of an insufficient supply of raw material-that puts the report into context?
2. What is the value of this information?

Like the title, a brief, accurate, and fully descriptive summary is almost impossible to write until you have written the entire document. Although you may have an outline of your document from the beginning, you should wait until you have completed the document before you attempt to write the summary.

Science-based companies are not in business to "do science" in the manner of large research universities. Corporations of all kinds are in business to earn a return on the investment of the stockholders so your ability to demonstrate that you understand the value of your new information will be significantly important in your career progress.

Note, too, that a summary is not the same as an abstract. An abstract condenses all the information in the document: the field of study, the reactions used, the analytical techniques employed, and so on. An abstract is useful to a scientist who is exploring what has been accomplished in a specific field. A summary, in contrast, is business related. A summary describes the key conclusions in the document, and the business import of those conclusions.

Is the document complete? Is all of the information that the reader will need presented somewhere in the document? Not all the information on the subject that you can think of, but all that the reader will need.

Here is where you need to consider carefully how you will accommodate the various readers' requirements in your document. Your boss will want some kinds of information; your colleagues, other kinds; and possibly your technicians, still other kinds. Some, but not all, of your readers will value figures, tables, experimental details, and recommendations for further study. With some thought, though, you can accommodate them all.

Figures can be used to illustrate points made in the text and like a picture, a well-constructed figure is worth a thousand words. Tables can present essential supporting data in an organized fashion. But no matter how useful, do not place tables or figures where they will interrupt the reader's smooth train of thought.

Here are some guidelines for tables and figures:

1. A small table or two might be conveniently placed in the text, where the table is mentioned for the first time.
2. One or two single-page tables or figures might be placed in the text on the page immediately following the first reference to the table or figure.
3. More than two tables or figures should be placed together, immediately following the main text, but before any appendix.
4. Supporting, but nonessential, information should be placed in an appendix or appendices.

Is the information presented in some logical sequence? To help your reader maintain a smooth train of thought, present your information in some logical sequence. You have a number of options: chronological, reverse chronological, geographic, ascending or descending dollar value, just to name a few. But if you do not organize your thoughts in some coherent fashion that the reader can follow, the resulting chaos will cause your reader to lose interest.

Journalists use the inverted pyramid technique for writing articles. This style places the headline first, followed by the most important information, and then information of less and less importance. In the process, the writer's goal is to identify the "five W's": who, what, when, where, and why, in that order.

This general principle can be applied to technical writing as well. The headline is your title, from which the reader will determine whether to read further. Next is your conclusion, followed by supporting information of less and less importance, organized in some logical manner.

A technical report-or a letter, memorandum, or any other document-can have as many as eight distinct sections: title, abstract, summary, introduction, conclusion, recommendation, discussion, and appendix. You are not required to have all of these sections in every document that you write, and some of them can be combined, such as an introduction and summary. In writing a shorter document, you can even omit some of them.

This sequence differs from the typical sequence that appears in academic writing, where the conclusions are presented last, as if the writer were writing a detective story, revealing "whodunit" on the last page.

Is the relative emphasis of the various ideas appropriate? If you are writing to describe an ingenious synthesis that can save steps and so produce a product at decreased cost, write about those things. Don't provide extensive details about the difficulties you had with the analytical procedures you used to prove the structure of the intermediates and the final product. Analytical procedures and experimental procedures are properly summarized in an appendix.

If you really did discover a novel way to avoid a common problem with an analytical technique, write a separate document on that subject.

Are there headings to guide the reader? Courtesy to your reader demands that you inform your reader what topic will be covered in the next section. Your reader may very well decide to skip a section that does not seem to fit his or her needs. This is not an insult to you-it's an indication that you have written well to satisfy the needs of various readers. Not every reader will read every word of your magnum opus, and your headings will guide the reader to find just what she or he needs.

These questions will apply to every document you write, from a lengthy technical report describing the results of a major research project to a brief report on a sales call on a client. However, the list is sufficiently generic so the manner in which you use it may not be exactly the same in each case.

Clarity: The Manner In Which You Express Your Ideas

We've all wrestled with passive writing, a style favored heavily by lawyers and governments. Which of the following two paragraphs is easier to understand?

Management has become cognizant of the necessity of eliminating undesirable vegetation surrounding the periphery of the facility.

Please kill the weeds around the building.

The second paragraph illustrates what we mean by clarity. Clarity makes it easier for your reader to understand clearly what you are talking about. Clarity also brings with it two additional benefits:

1. Speed: The speed with which you can get your message across.
2. Image: The image with which you present yourself as a knowledgeable, organized, effective employee.

The image you project is very important to your career development. The manner in which you express your ideas will ultimately determine whether your ideas will be accepted with confidence. If you succeed, your subordinates will see you as an effective leader; your supervisors will see you as an effective persuader; and your customers will see you as an effective salesperson.

There are six elements, analogous to those for good organization, to help you write with clarity.

Use clear, familiar words. Your English teacher may have insisted that when writing an essay, you should not use the same word more than once. The educational benefit of this constraint was to help expand our working vocabulary. But for many of us the unintended consequence is that we now tend to use fancy words when simple words will do. You can use a thesaurus to find lots of illustrations, but these simple examples often appear in scientific documents:

Consequent(ly) and subsequent(ly) are among the most frequently misused words in "scientific" writing. Consequent(ly) and subsequent(ly) should be avoided, and the simpler words-next, later, resulting, and as a result-should be used instead.

Keep most sentences short and simple. Some sentences, usually because they contain lengthy subordinate clauses and descriptive prepositional phrases, may become quite long, as this sentence is, and so may be hard to understand quickly. Other sentences may, at times, be quite short. Like this one.

A good goal is to write sentences that average 15 to 20 words. You should monitor your writing from time to time by calculating the average length of your own sentences, but base the calculation on one to two pages of text rather than a single paragraph.

Try to express only one idea per sentence. If you find yourself trying to express more than one idea in a sentence, chop the sentence in two, and insert a period to heal the wound.

Another rule that you probably learned from your English teacher is never begin a sentence with and or but. Of course you can begin a sentence with either of these conjunctions, when the sense demands and as long as you don't overdo it. Likewise, it's permissible to end a sentence with a preposition and to repeat words, as I mentioned earlier.

Include people in your writing. Refer to people and companies by their names, not in the third person such as "the vendor", "the company", or "the management." Once the antecedent has been established, it is permissible to use the pronoun. (And don't refer to yourself in the third person. Even "I", once in a while, is ok.)

Use a conversational style. How many times have you heard someone say, "What I really mean is…", followed by a simple, conversational-style explanation that was easy to understand? How many times has that happened to you?

When you write, think about how you would express your idea in a conversation with a friend who is educated but not an expert in your subject. Or how you might explain the concept to a neighbor, perhaps, or to your spouse at dinner. The most effective way to express an idea in conversation is to use a style that is relaxed, and that style is effective in writing as well. However, be sure that what you write is not so relaxed that it becomes sloppy or idiomatic.

Use the active voice. The passive voice is used extensively in academic writing, under the mistaken assumption that it frees the document from personal influence or bias. That's nonsense, of course, because of all the work that is reported was done by a person, not by a machine. The passive voice merely makes the document sound stilted at best, or quaint, and difficult to read and understand at worst.

The real reason to avoid the passive voice is not that it is stilted or difficult to read, but that it is awkward, and can lead to very complicated sentences. Consider the following:

1. The proposal, having been read by the auditor, was approved by her.
2. The auditor read the proposal and approved it.

Which one do you think your always-pressed-for-time boss would prefer to read?

Assemble all the information before you begin writing. Clear writing requires clear thinking. However, clear thinking is not possible unless and until you have all of the information that you will need.

Consider carefully those last few words, "all the information that you will need." Not all the information there is on the subject or all the information that it might be nice to have to impress your boss. Just all the information you absolutely need, and no more. Timely reporting is essential in industry, so you must judge when you have all the information that you need. The most successful employees are experienced enough to make this judgment quickly and accurately.

Timeliness: Producing a Document Promptly

Writer's block happens to everyone, even to the very best, most prolific authors. If you find yourself experiencing writer's block, here are some suggestions to get you back on track.

• Begin writing something-anything-evenif it will be changed later.
• Preferably, begin by preparing an outline.
• Write the elements of your outline in complete sentences.

Write something-anything. Writer's block often occurs when you begin to write your report or memorandum or letter. You just don't know how to get started but you do have some idea of the thoughts that you want to express. The real problem is that you cannot keep more than one or two ideas in your brain at one time. So as each idea comes to you, write it down. Then write down the next idea that comes to you, and so on.

When you have a few ideas written down, you will see that one idea may need to come before another. For the time being, just draw a circle around the idea that needs to be moved, and draw and arrow on the paper to where the idea should go.

You can also accomplish the same objective using your word processor, simply cutting and pasting ideas in the sequence that they need to be.

Prepare an outline. Develop an outline by inserting ideas one at a time in their proper sequence. Never try to begin an outline with Roman numeral I; that's a sure way to cause writer's block if you don't have it already.

Write the elements of your outline in complete sentences. Some people can hold a concept, completely formed, in their minds. They can remember and accurately recover that concept simply by writing down a word or short phrase. However, most people can do a better job by writing down the elements of their outline in complete, grammatically correct sentences. Writing in complete sentences helps writers learn a concept so well that they will have no trouble explaining it to someone else. Writing in complete, grammatically correct sentences can also reveal if there is a missing piece of information that must be found before proceeding further.

The ability to communicate well in writing (as well as orally) is a critical non-technical skill in science. Technical competence alone will not get you where you want to be. Communication is the basis of the scientific enterprise and if you want your work to be understood and accepted, you need to be able to communicate your ideas and results effectively.

Warren Bush is an active Career Consultant and presenter for the American Chemical Society. He is also an independent consultant in the chemistry of petroleum refining, sulfur recovery processes, and air and water conservation.

Bibliography

William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White, The Elements Of Style, Fourth Edition, MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc., New York, 2000.

The ACS Style Guide: A Manual for Authors and Editors, Second Edition, Janet S. Dodd, Editor, American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C.; published by Oxford University Press, 1997.

Marilyn F. Moriarty, Writing Science through Critical Thinking, Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Inc., Sudbury, Massachusetts, 1997.

Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Graphics Press, Cheshire, Connecticut, 1983.