The revised second edition of this text provides a brief, easy to use guide to the technical writing issues critical to practicing engineers. The book deals with the content, organization, format, and style appropriate for specific kinds of engineering documents, including reports, business letters, emails, memoranda, oral presentations, and even job applications. It will enable you to improve the “signal-to-noise” ratio in your writing by eliminating grammatical errors, typos, poor organization, and fuzzy thinking. A Guide to Writing as an Engineer also addresses documentation, plagiarism and ethics; presentations using PowerPoint; the effective use of graphics and tables; writing as part of a project team; and more. Highly recommended.

From the Preface: “...Most technical writing books focus, as their titles imply, on the entire field of technical writing. In other words, they aim to prepare readers and students for a complete knowledge of everything a technical writer is called on to do. They train people to be technical writers. Engineers need to know how to write as much as anyone, but few have time to become technical writers. They are required to write all kinds of short documents and help in writing a variety of longer ones, but few need to acquire the skills of an advanced copy editor, graphic artist, or publisher...Thus we have written this book so that engineers and engineering students will have a resource that stays close to the real concerns they have in their everyday professional life...”

Target Audience: Primarily for engineering students and entry-level engineers — but this guide will also prove invaluable to veteran engineers who wish to brush up on their communication skills.

Table of Contents:

Engineers and Writing

Some Guidelines for Good Engineering Writing

Eliminating Intermittent Noise in Writing

Writing Letters, Memoranda, and Email

Writing Common Engineering Documents

Writing an Engineering Report

Constructing Tables and Graphics

Accessing Engineering Information

Engineering Your Presentations

Writing to Get an Engineering Job

Documentation and Ethics in Engineering Writing

Index