Scientific Writing In Engineering

Scientific Writing in Engineering helps scientists, engineers, and students of all academic levels efficiently write scientific texts, such as scientific articles, conference papers, theses, reports, and research proposals. Drawing from long-time experience in academic teaching, the authors walk the readers through scientific writing step by step all the way from a blank first page to complete manuscripts. A comprehensive list of concise recommendations and more than one hundred examples, taken from real-life scientific texts, offer readers the chance to draw easy analogies between own scientific texts and the examples provided in this book. The elaborate recommendations, with emphasis on specific characteristics of writing in engineering sciences, serve as complete self-study material that renders the book a practical guide to effective scientific writing. Readers will enhance their knowledge on scientific text structuring and will learn to avoid pitfalls in use of English, including grammatical and syntactical phenomena. Readers are given the opportunity to handle non-textual elements in scientific writing, such as figures and mathematical equations and formulas. Finally, the book provides detailed discussions on citing and referencing along with recommendations on formal electronic correspondence.

Resumen: Are you a post-graduate student in Engineering, Science or Technology who needs to know how to: Prepare abstracts, theses and journal papers Present your work orally Present a progress report to your funding body Would you like some guidance aimed specifically at your subject area? ... This is the book for you; a practical guide to all aspects of post-graduate documentation for Engineering, Science and Technology students, which will prove indispensable to readers. Writing for Science and Engineering will prove invaluable in all areas of research and writing due its clear, concise style. The practical advice contained within the pages alongside numerous examples to aid learning will make the preparation of documentation much easier for all students.

A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO WRITING Technical ideas may be solid or even groundbreaking, but if these ideas cannot be clearly communicated, reviewers of technical documents—e.g., proposals for research funding, articles submitted to scientific journals, and business plans to commercialize technology—are likely to reject the argument for advancing these ideas. The problem is that many engineers and scientists, entirely comfortable with the logic and principles of mathematics and science, treat writing as if it possesses none of these attributes. The absence of a systematic framework for writing often results in sentences that are difficult to follow or arguments that leave reviewers scratching their heads. This book fixes that problem by presenting a “scientific” approach to writing that mirrors the sensibilities of scientists and engineers, an approach based on an easily-discernable set of principles. Rather than merely stating rules for English grammar and composition, this book explains the reasons behind these rules and shows that good reasons can guide every writing decision. This resource is also well suited for the growing number of scientists and engineers in the U.S. and elsewhere who speak English as a second language, as well as for anyone else who just wants to be understood.

This timely and hugely practical work provides a score of examples from contemporary and historical scientific presentations to show clearly what makes an oral presentation effective. It considers presentations made to persuade an audience to adopt some course of action (such as funding a proposal) as well as presentations made to communicate information, and it considers these from four perspectives: speech, structure, visual aids, and delivery. It also discusses computer-based projections and slide shows as well as overhead projections. In particular, it looks at ways of organizing graphics and text in projected images and of using layout and design to present the information efficiently and effectively.

The Craft of Scientific Presentations, 2nd edition aims to strengthen you as a presenter of science and engineering. The book does so by identifying what makes excellent presenters such as Brian Cox, Jane Goodall, Richard Feynman, and Jill Bolte Taylor so strong. In addition, the book explains what causes so many scientific presentations to flounder. One of the most valuable contributions of this text is that it teaches the assertion-evidence approach to scientific presentations. Instead of building presentations, as most engineers and scientists do, on the weak foundation of topic phrases and bulleted lists, this assertion-evidence approach calls for building presentations on succinct message assertions supported by visual evidence. Unlike the commonly followed topic-subtopic approach that PowerPoint leads presenters to use, the assertion-evidence approach is solidly grounded in research. By showing the differences between strong and weak presentations, by identifying the errors that scientific presenters typically make, and by teaching a much more powerful approach for scientific presentations than what is commonly practiced, this book places you in a position to elevate your presentations to a high level. In essence, this book aims to have you not just succeed in your scientific presentations, but excel. About the Author Michael Alley has taught workshops on presentations to engineers and scientists on five continents, and has recently been invited to speak at the European Space Organization, Harvard Medical School, MIT, Sandia National Labs, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Simula Research Laboratory, and United Technologies. An Associate Professor of engineering communication at Pennsylvania State University, Alley is a leading researcher on the effectiveness of different designs for presentation slides.

Good writing and communication skills are essential in many areas of science and engineering, to help observation, thinking and remembering, to organize work and to avoid stress. Written by a scientist for scientists, this book is much more than a textbook of English grammar – it is a valuable source of information for all aspects of writing in scientific and technical situations. The only book focusing on the ways in which writing is important to the scientific community, this book assists readers on: * how to write and choice of words * using numbers and illustrations * writing project reports, theses and papers for publication * giving a short talk or presentation. The new edition of Scientists Must Write has been fully revised and updated to take account of the changes in information and communications technology including word processing and information storage and retrieval; new appendices on punctuation, spelling and computers; and useful exercises to improve writing. This popular guide will be of great use to undergraduates, postgraduates, professional scientists and engineers.

Read this book before you write your thesis or journal paper! Communicating Science is a textbook and reference on scientific writing oriented primarily at researchers in the physical sciences and engineering. It is written from the perspective of an experienced researcher. It draws on the authors' experience of teaching and working with both native English speakers and English as a Second Language (ESL) writers. For the range of topics covered, this book is relatively short and tersely written, in order to appeal to busy researchers. Communicating Science offers comprehensive guidance on: Research reports: journal papers, theses, and internal reportsReview and publication processConference and seminar presentations: lectures and postersResearch proposalsBusiness plansPatentsPopular mediaCorrespondence, CV's, and job huntingWriting well: writing strategies and guidance on English composition and grammar Graduate students and early career researchers will be guided through the researcher's basic communication tasks: writing theses, journal papers, and internal reports, presenting lectures and posters, and preparing research proposals. Extensive best practice examples and analyses of common problems are presented. Advanced researchers who aim to commercialize their research results will be introduced to business plans and patents, so that they can communicate optimally with patent attorneys and business analysts. Likewise, advanced researchers will be assisted in conveying the results of their research to the industrial and business community, governmental circles, and the general public in the chapter on popular media. Researchers at all levels will find the chapter on CV's and job hunting helpful. The Writing Well chapter will assist researchers to improve their English usage in scientific writing. This chapter is oriented both at native English speakers, who have an intuitive command of English but often lack formal instruction on grammar and structure, and non-native English writers, who often have had formal instruction but lack intuitive grasp of what sounds good. Mentors will find the book a useful tool for systematically guiding their students in their early writing efforts. If your students read this book first, you will save time! Communicating Science may serve as a textbook for graduate level courses in scientific writing.

Case studies and pedagogical strategies to help science and engineering students improve their writing and speaking skills while developing professional identities. To many science and engineering students, the task of writing may seem irrelevant to their future professional careers. At MIT, however, students discover that writing about their technical work is important not only in solving real-world problems but also in developing their professional identities. MIT puts into practice the belief that “engineers who don't write well end up working for engineers who do write well,” requiring all students to take “communications-intensive” classes in which they learn from MIT faculty and writing instructors how to express their ideas in writing and in presentations. Students are challenged not only to think like professional scientists and engineers but also to communicate like them.This book offers in-depth case studies and pedagogical strategies from a range of science and engineering communication-intensive classes at MIT. It traces the progress of seventeen students from diverse backgrounds in seven classes that span five departments. Undergraduates in biology attempt to turn scientific findings into a research article; graduate students learn to define their research for scientific grant writing; undergraduates in biomedical engineering learn to use data as evidence; and students in aeronautic and astronautic engineering learn to communicate collaboratively. Each case study is introduced by a description of its theoretical and curricular context and an outline of the objectives for the students' activities. The studies describe the on-the-ground realities of working with faculty, staff, and students to achieve communication and course goals, offering lessons that can be easily applied to a wide variety of settings and institutions.