Blog

Wishing all our subscribers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Tech Speak A Compendium of Elements Designed to Stimulate One's Humerus

An Engineer's Glossary

Functionality = Working condition. Example: instead of writing "The intern broke the copier," use "The functionality of the copier has been compromised by the Associate Coffee/Errand Assistant I" Energy Saving = Achieved when the power switch is off. Close project coordination = "We know who to blame." Basic Technical Writing I:

Avoid using common phrases in technical documents. They will confuse the reader. If using a colloquialism is absolutely unavoidable, set it out in quote marks, then define it for good measure. That way you can be sure your readers understand what you're trying to say. Here is an example of how to use a colloquialism:

Instead of writing "it was raining cats and dogs," say "it was raining so hard that it seemed almost as if domesticated animals (e.g., cats and dogs) were falling from the sky rather than raindrops."...