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Saturday, April 30, 2005

This Blog is Not an Engineering Report

Yesterday I went to an Advanced Report Writing For Engineers training course. It was a follow up to the Report Writing For Engineers course I did last year. I am not an engineer. I do not write engineering reports, and I am unlikely to write engineering reports in the forseeable future. Nonetheless, both courses were very interesting.

The main points that I came away with were:
  • Write for the reader, not for you
  • Put the important stuff first (top-down structure)
  • Always have an executive summary
  • Have a navigable path through the document. Use headings, sub-headings, section summaries etc...
  • Use topic sentences as much as possible
  • Plan!
I have been thinking of ways to apply what I learnt to all the things I write, including this blog and my thesis.

However after a few moments thought I decided that these guidelines are not always relevant for this blog. After all, this blog is not a report that the reader/client paid thousands of dollars for. This blog is only about what I want to write about. It can be as vague and waffly and incomprehensible as I want to make it.

Of course sometimes I like to practice writing for the reader. But really there is no intended reader. I like the idea of writing to a vacuum.



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