How-To

Directions:
Writing in
Engineering
By: Sean Bowman, Yousif Alsanea,
and Jacob Weaver

Contents:
Communication...2
Memos and Letters....3
E-Mailing..3
Formal Reports....4-7
Front Cover..4
Title Page.....4
Contents Page....5
Summary.....5
Main Text..5-6
Back Matter..6-7
Format Type.7-9
Illustrations......8
Citations...8
Sources.9

Communication:
Correspondence in Engineering is a huge and important part
of the job that also has a great impact on the quality of the
work. Correspondence for Engineers can be divided to
memos, letters and electronic mails. Engineers use these
communication ways for making requests, update work
status and deliver specific information. Using these ways to
communicate is a much better and effective way than using a
telephone because it is saved and dated which may help in
someway such as supporting a claim in the court of law.
However, correspondences have to be clear, precise and as
short as possible in the engineering field. This is because
people who work in this field are mostly busy and want to
get the message in the clearest and shortest possible way.
Moreover, A mistake that most Engineers fall in is their tone
in their writings. Tone in writing is something difficult to
control, and specially for engineers because of the nature of
their work where they are always straightforward, or in other
words they just write what they want to get across without
thinking about how is the reader going to react with what
they wrote.

Memos and Letters:

Memos are mostly written for people who are in the same
place of work unlike letters, where letters are mostly for
people outside the place of work. Memos and letters are
two different things. In a memo, sub headings and subsubheadings can be included, unlike letters. Letters
format vary from place to another and from company to
another. For example, some call for paragraph indents and
others dont. Nevertheless, people who are mentioned in a
memo or a letter should receive a copy.

E-Mailing:
A new less formal kind of memos and letter that hasnt
existed for too long is the Electronic mail. People started
to use this way because of this advantages such as
sending an email from a number of people who are in
different places in the world in few minutes. But, there
are many other disadvantages of the emails. One
disadvantage is that many electronic mail systems dont
allow tabs and italics, which makes the email less
attractive. Another disadvantage is that you dont print
you writing out where you have the ability to check you
paper physically and find the spelling errors and the
grammars errors.

Formal Reports:
A formal report is a methodical presentation of a subject that
includes summaries of important points, and appendices on
secondary points. An appendix is a section of additional
information at the end of a document. This section will
explain how to format a formal report.

Front Cover:
The front cover of a formal report should include the title of
the report as well as the authors name. It also should
contain the date that is was published. The front cover has
no page number, and the title should be capitalized. This is
the very first page that the reader will see, so make sure
everything is pleasing to the eye.

Title Page:
Most of the time, the title page contains most of the same
information as the front cover; sometimes, a summary of the
report is included on this page. The summary is just a
descriptive summary, though because there isnt much space
on the title page. It is an initial, informative summary that is
for the technical readers. Abstract is another name for this
summary. In most engineering courses, you will hear this
word instead of summary. This page should be numbered
i.

Contents Page:
This is where the table of contents should go. Headings
and subheadings are here with the page numbers that they
are on, so they can be located with ease. This is important
if the reader wants to go back and look at a specific
section. It should also include the glossary, appendices,
and references.

Summary:
The two types of summary for a formal report are
informative summaries and descriptive summaries. A
descriptive summary describes what kind of information
is in a report. It is basically the paragraph version of the
table of contents. An informative summary is an outline
of the content in the report.

Main Text:
This part of a formal report contains the introduction,
discussion, and conclusion of the report. Begin each
major heading on a new page, and the first page of this
section should be numbered 1.
Introduction: The introduction of the report helps
readers prepare for what the discussion will be about. It is
very similar to the summary on the title page.

Discussion: The discussion is the story of the report. Make

sure that the results are presented in a way that is easiest for
the reader to understand. This doesnt necessarily have to be
in the order that they were found. In this part, the results
presented are evaluated. The heading for this section doesnt
always have to be Discussion. It can be whatever seems
fit.
Conclusion: This section analyzes the most important
results from the discussion and evaluates them in the context
of all of the work. Often, recommendations are made based
off of these evaluations. The conclusion is very similar to an
informative summary, except it is written for an audience
who has already read the report.

Back Matter:
This portion of the report is where the glossary, appendices,
and references are found. The page number is just continued
from the previous page. For example: if the last page of the
conclusion is 21, the first page of the back matter is 22.
Appendices: Use this section to present information to
secondary readers. When a situation occurs in the text, refer
the reader to the appendix. Treat each appendix as a heading.
If there is only one appendix, name it Appendix. But, if
there is more than one, name them Appendix A,
Appendix B, and so on.

Glossary: The glossary is used to describe terms that are

used, sort of like a dictionary. Make sure that the terms
are in alphabetical order. Use underlines or italics to show
which terms in the report can be found in the glossary.
Treat each definition as a separate paragraph.
Reference: Use this section to cite the sources that were
used. Skip a lie between each citation, and make sure they
are in alphabetical order as well. The most commonly
used citation style for engineers is the Chicago Style.

Format Type:
The format for engineering writing is very standard and
has certain rules that must be followed in order to meet
criteria. When talking about engineer writing, it is split up
into sections in which each section is paired together with
everything that has to do with that topic. Each topic is
usually introduced with a major heading, followed by
what is going to be talked about in that section then
followed by subheadings with further in-depth detailed
sections. Engineering writing is all single-spaced.

Illustrations:
In engineering writing, illustrations are extremely common
and important when trying to state factual information. Most
of the times these illustrations are tables or schematics but
sometimes they are images. When incorporating an
illustration into a paper, the illustration must be put in at the
bottom of the paragraph that it was introduced in. And the
illustration must be properly explained for the reader to
understand what the illustration is for. After the illustration
has been put into the paper, underneath the illustration there
must be a caption. First stating what figure it is in the paper,
i.e. Figure 1, and then a short caption of what it is. As for
tables, the caption and figure number must come before the
table, usually above it.

Citations:
One extremely important part of engineering writing is the
references you must site. When citing these sources, a
separate page for your references is created and depending
on how you must cite these sources could range from MLA
format or Chicago Manual Style. As for sources, the entire
book sources are paired together and put in alphabetical
order then all the online article sources will be paired
together and put in alphabetical order. This just keeps it
organized and helps the reviewer know right away where
you got the sources and what type these sources were. This
reference page comes at the very end of the paper.

Now you know! Writing for engineering is very laid out and
this format must be followed or the paper you just handed in
will receive a bad mark. This writing isnt typically the hardest
writing but all of your facts need to be referenced and the
format of the paragraphs needs to be in that particular order.

Sources:
Alley, Michael. "Writing and Speaking Guidelines for
Engineering and Science." Writing.engr.psu.edu. Accessed
April 4, 2015. http://writing.engr.psu.edu/.