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:
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.
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!
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.
// posted by suze @ 11:39 AM 
