English Language Issues in Technical Writing


    Mechanical Content Usage Vocabulary Collaboration


    This commentary is intended for students in the author's MIS 202 and Tier III 415A classes. The former work in groups, the latter individually; all are presumed able to transpose the wording appropriately (especially between singular and plural forms).

    Richard D. Piccard


    I. Mechanical Aspects

    There are several items that are not so much matters of "correctness" as simply the personal preferences of the instructor:
    1. Have a cover page with title, author's name(s), date, course, and instructor. Do notdisplay the author's name(s) on anyother pages. This will permit grading of the papers to be somewhat less biased.
    2. Use margins of about one inch and staple the paper at the upper left corner. Do not waste your money on fancy binding or covers.
    3. Number your pages. Please learn how to make your first page of text be numbered 1 (or, better yet, not numbered) and the second page of text be numbered 2, etc. The cover sheet, abstract, etc., should not be numbered. (In theses, or other documents modeled on books, the preliminary pages are numbered, with lowercase Roman numerals, suppressing the "i" on the title page.)
    4. Use a reasonable-size font and line spacing. With some type faces, 10-point is too small to read easily; with some type faces, 12-point is so large that it creates the impression you were trying to inflate the page count. Double-spacethe lines when you print a copy (either for yourself or for the instructor; this will make it easier for the you or the instructor to write comments on a submitted draft or the final version of the paper). Leaving the line spacing at single-spaced during composition and revision permits you to see a more complete context on the screen while you work.
    5. Use end-note rather than (bottom-of-the-page) footnote format for your references.
    6. Bibliographic citations of internet resources should include the date it was read; the revision date, if stated in the document; the full URL(so that if I type that URL into my browser, I will need only to scroll to find the information); and the author's name and internet E-mail address, if available. If the resource is a Web page in a "frame" set, the URL will take your reader only to the home display of that frame set. You will need to include notes of what links to select in order to bring up the information that you are citing.
    7. Other bibliographic citations must be in a consistent format and include the author(s) full name(s) ( do notuse just the first and middle initials if the full name is known), the year of publication, and for all articles, or chapters within larger works, boththe starting and the ending page numbers.
    8. Dates of your references are an issue; waiting too long to begin your research will result in others having foraged the library. Using some older references may be quite appropriate; using only older references is not good.
    9. You should be able to find, and therefore should use and cite, references that are on-line, that are books (or chapters within books), andthat are hardcopy periodicals. The appropriate proportions will depend on the topic.
    10. The entire bibliography should be submitted as part of the hardcopy paper and should alsobe E-mailed to the instructor ( piccard@ohio.edu ) prior tothe deadline for submitting the paper. This will permit the intructor to provide a more complete list of references to the next class of students to take the course.
    11. Please use Arabic numerals(1, 2, 3, ...), not Roman numerals (i, ii, iii, ...), for footnotes, if you use numbered footnotes.
    12. Multiple-item lists are routinely best displayed as bulleted lists or with hanging indents (like this list), rather than as continuous text in a paragraph . Make sure that you know how to use your word processor to produce these structures. (The instructor might be persuaded to help you figure out how!)
    13. Use "widow/orphan control" to prevent the first line of a paragraph being by itself at the bottom of a page, or the last line of a paragraph being alone at the top of a page. Most word processing software can be told to do this for you.
    14. Headings should not appear alone at the bottom of the page; instead, they should be at the top of the next page, along with the material they are the heading for. Use mixed-case, boldface type for headings, notitalic, notall uppercase, notunderlined. A step or two larger font size than the main text is acceptable, but not required.
    15. Paragraphs may be presented flush left, including the first line (no indentation) or with a first line indentation of approximately one-half-inch. Indentation is best accomplished with a <Tab> keystroke, not with multiple <Space> keystrokes.
    16. In the body of your paper, do not let footnote numbers appear at the start of a line. If necessary, insert spaces or a hard-return (paragraph break) prior to the last word of the sentence to force it onto the next line, along with the footnote number.
    17. Usage consensus on new terms is often slow to evolve, but you should at least be consistent: "the world-wide web," or "the WWW," or "the Web," or ...; make your choice and stick with it.
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    II. Content Decisions

    One of the difficult decisions you will need to make, in your papers and in your presentations, is what level of detail is appropriate. For both contexts, bear in mind the audience or recipient of the report, as identified in the project problem statement. In particular, you will at times be tempted to explain something by listing the stages or items that constitute it. If the names of those stages or items can reasonably be expected to be known and understood by your nominal audience, then the mere listing may well be adequate. If they are new technical terms, further explanation should be provided. In some cases, the oral presentation might reasonably refer the listener to the written report for more complete details.

    A criterion for evaluation of your presentation and paper is content that goes beyondthe material presented in class and beyondthe material in the course text(s).

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    III. English Usage Issues

    This discussion touches on a handful of specific topics that recur in technical writing.


    A. Passive vs. Active Voice

    Whenever possible, write sentences in the active voice rather than in the passive voice. For example, instead of writing "It is recommended that ...," you should write "We urge that ..." or "We suggest that ..." For another example, compare the active-voice sentence that introduces this paragraph to the passive-voice sentence, "Whenever possible, sentences should be written in the active voice rather than in the passive voice."

    There are two primary reasons to avoid the passive voice. First, the passive voice is impersonal. Second, the passive voice generally leads to more complex grammatical constructions, which are more challenging to read.

    "It is estimated that ..." is a passive voice construction that forces the reader to conclude that one of the following two statements applies:

    1. You don't know who made the estimate.
    2. The person who made the estimate has so little credibility that telling the reader who it was would have weakened your case.

    Neither of these creates a positive impression.

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    B. That vs. Which

    Common usage of the English language does appear to be changing in the direction of blurring the distinction between "that" and "which." Academic writing, however, still distinguishes these two words, and we are an academic community. If the phrase or clause that is set off by the word could properly be presented in parentheses, i.e., if it is an aside, an amplifying comment, then it should either actually be presented in parentheses, or it should be introduced by the word "which" andset off by commas.

    If a phrase or clause is a "restrictive" one, i.e., it completes the definition by eliminating one or more possibilities, then removing it from the sentence would create a significant change in the meaning communicated, not just a reduction in the information content. In such cases, the appropriate connecting word is "that," and neithercommas norparentheses should be used to set off the phrase or clause.

    For example, consider the sentence, "In this section we consider several English usage issues that have arisen in technical writing." We are restricting our attention to only those usage issues meeting the specified description, hence the use of "that" and the absence of commas.

    For another example, consider the sentence, from a software user guide: "Any punctuation that is not supposed to be typed by the user will be outside the quotes, regardless of the conventional style otherwise used, which is described in the next point." Here we see both cases illustrated. The punctuation to be placed outside the quotes is restricted, it includes only that not to be typed by the user. The fact that the conventional style is described in the next point does not change the meaning of this point, it is simply extra information.

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    C. Note

    The word "note" is frequently misused to call attention to an obscure or unimportant point in the text. If something is truly important, it should be emphasized by selective boldfacing, or by encapsulating it in a text box with a simple or emphatic border, centered between the margins.

    For example, the phrase "It should be noted that ..." should nearly always be removed, and the rest of the sentence presented as a straightforward declaration. This changes the sentence from passive to active voice, andavoids the word "note." For another example, sentences or paragraphs introduced by constructions such as "NOTE: " will usually benefit from the removal of that word.

    In some of these cases the information involved is a side-comment embedded within an extended discussion or example, and may therefore be a candidate for presentation within a marginal, plain-framed text box.

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    D. Compound Adjectives

    Use a hyphen to combine two or more words that precede a noun to modify it, if
    1. The words involved are not adverbs ending in "ly" and if
    2. Any one of those describing words couldbe misleading when applied individually to describe the noun.

    The hyphen makes it clear that they belong together as one compound describing word. For example, "compound describing" in the previous sentence is nothyphenated, because each of those two words individually describes "word," without being misleading. An example of a missing, but needed, hyphen was provided by a Canadian subscriber to the usenet newsgroup comp.os.vms , as follows:

      The City Fathers [of Vancouver, British Columbia], in their infinite wisdom, said:
      "Vancouver is a Nuclear Free Zone."

      when what they really meant was:

      "Vancouver is a Nuclear-Free Zone."

    When a quantity in the form of a number with units of measurement is used as a noun, no hyphen joins the number to the units, but when used as a modifier, the number and units are joinedwith a hyphen. For example, "a four-gigabyte disk" but "a disk that can store four gigabytes." This is true whether the number is written out with letters or as a number with Arabic numerals.

    "Client-server" is hyphenated. "Client-server" is an adjective, so it must modify a noun (commonly, "software" or "application").

    "Hands-on" is hyphenated.

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    E. The Verb "to be"

    The verb "to be" is often left out of sentences in casual speech, but should not be left out in formal presentations or papers. For example, "that device needs worked on" should instead be "that device needs to beworked on."
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    F. The Slash ("/") Character

    The slash character should hardly ever be used as a punctuation mark; it is entirely proper to use it as an arithmetical operator, indicating division (including the presentation of fractions, such as "3/4"). In most cases it results from the writer being indecisive, and its use displays that indecision! If one of the two words is not the correct choice, by itself, there is probably some other word that is. English is a rich language! At the very least, it would be better to use the word "or," the word "and," or the construction "..., or ..., or both." There are a very few places in information technology where the use of the slash is so thoroughly embedded that it is useless to fight it any more (for example, "I/O" for input-output).
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    G. Agreement

    Be careful about agreement between related parts of a sentence (singular verb forms for singular subjects, etc.), and between related words that may be in different sentences (plural pronouns for plural nouns, etc.).

    See the discussion on "wandering tenses" .

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    H. Commas in Lists

    The standard usage is that
    • Two items need a conjunction (such as, "and" or "or") but no comma.
    • Four or more items have commas after eachitem, including one before the conjunction that precedes the last item.
    • Three items always have a comma after the first item, but it is the author's choice whether to have the comma after the second item, before the conjunction.

    In technical writing, where the listed items are often themselves complex grammatical structures, it is a very wise habit to consistently include the second commain a three-item list, even though the standard usage would permit its omission.

    When one or more of the individual items are so complex grammatically as to require commas or parentheses within the item, then it is sensible to use semicolons (";") instead of commas to separate the list items.

    A comma should be found before but not afterthe word "including" and the phrase "such as" when they introduce a list.

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    I. Trite Expressions

    Some expressions occur so frequently that they will get on your reader's nerves (or at least on your instructor's). It is therefore almost always wise to avoid the use of such expressions, including the following:
    • "At the push of a button..."
    • "... is when ..." in a definition.
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    J. Numbers

    • Numbers should be written as words if they are integers of value ten or smaller.
    • Otherwise (decimal fractions, larger values, etc.), use numerals.
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    K. Typographical and Spelling Errors

    • A common typographical error that most word processors will not reliably catch is failure to leave a space before an open parenthesis(like this!).
    • Dospell-check your work, but don't count on that to catch all your mistakes:

      Spellbound

      by Janet Minor

      I have a spelling checker,
      It came with my PC;
      It plainly marks four my revue
      Mistakes I cannot sea.
      I've run this poem threw it,
      I'm sure your pleased too no,
      Its letter perfect in it's weigh,
      My checker tolled me sew.

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    L. Use Consistent Tenses

    Be careful to avoid "wandering tenses": it will distract your reader if the different sentences within a paragraph have different tenses, or if the paragraphs within a section have different tenses. A scientific paper that reports on research is especially likely to have such problems: the author didcertain work in the past, and obtainedcertain results, but the author believes that the conclusions arethe way the world works now and willwork in the future. The conventional style in many disciplines is to consistently use the present tense, to emphasize the generality of your results. When the meaning is intrinsically past or future, you should of course use the appropriate tense.

    Care should be focussed especially on any paragraph that contains sentences in more than one grammatical tense. Sometimes this will indeed be a logical necessity, but often the paragraph would be improved by using one tense consistently throughout.

    In your abstract, use the present tense when referring to the rest of the paper. Although your reader will probably read the abstract first and the rest later, by the time your reader is reading the abstract, the whole paper already exists, so the present tense is logically correct.

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    IV. Vocabulary

    • You choose between twothings, but you choose among several.
    • "Enter" is the verbfor the action of providing data to a computer system.

      "Input" is the objectof the verb, "to enter."

    • "Earth" is a planet that goes around the Sun;

      "earth" is dirt, often found on the surface of the Earth.

    • Some papers and presentations have displayed confusion between the two words, "types" and "examples." An example is a particular case of a type. A type is a category into which typically more than one example will fall. Thus, "spreadsheet" is a typeof software; Microsoft EXCEL is an exampleof a spreadsheet package.
    • When defining terms, avoid the construction, "... is when ...", because "when" implies a temporalstatement. It is not appropriate for a general definition.
    • Quantities that must be whole numbers (such as people) are described with "fewer" or "number"; quantities that can have any value (such as snowfall) are described with "less" or "amount."
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    V. Collaborative Writing

    Collaborative writing is a special skill, whether two people are helping each other improve their term papers or whether a single paper is being submitted by a group.

    When individuals assist each other with their term papers, they should be very carefulto avoid the possibility that the instructor will perceive that one person is submitting under his or her own name work that was done by someone else. This should not be a problem if the help that each one provides to the other is comparable to the help received. If the two papers are on the same or similar subjects, be sure to consult with the instructor beforereading each other's work.

    Minimally acceptable results can be obtained for group projects if each person in the group writes a portion of the paper and one person assembles the final product.

    Goodresults are much more likely to result from a process in which everyone contributes to all of the final product. Each person ought to read and mark up a draft of the complete paper. For larger projects that would go through many drafts, this might be done with one person seeing one draft, the next person seeing the next draft, and so on. It would usually be more reasonable to have everyone see the same draft, with the group assembling to talk through each person's suggestions for changes. Explaining whyyou think something ought to be changed or kept as-is will bring the critical issues to a conscious level. Often everyone in the group will agree as to the problem, even though it may take some discussion to reach an agreement on the solution. One or two cycles of such complete-draft revision should polish the paper quite well.

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    Return to MIS 202 or Tier III 415A

    Dick Piccard revised this page ( https://people.ohio.edu/piccard/english.html ) on January 25, 2006.

    Please E-mail comments or suggestions to piccard@ohio.edu

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