Source: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mounib-khanafer-732a35135_towards-proficiency-in-technical-writing-activity-6942153143233183744-VIFE
23 tips on how to become
proficient in technical writing for a better presentation of your research
contribution
By:
Dr. Mounib Khanafer
Associate Professor, PhD, SMIEEE at
the American University of Kuwait (AUK).
Motivation:
After reading, writing, and
reviewing thousands of technical reports, project documents, research
proposals, articles and research papers in the field of electrical and computer
engineering, I can really convey this message to those considering a career in
research and academia: work hard on your technical writing skills since the
early days of your undergrad studies 📒📔👨🎓
I will be posting more on this matter in the coming
days. Stay tuned if interested and drop me your thoughts in a comment📝
Here
we go!
Tip 1 💡:
Your basic calculus🧮, physics🔭,
and chemistry 🧪courses are highly helpful in developing the skill of
describing systems of equations, models, algorithms, flowcharts, diagrams,
graphs, schematics, and designs. They help you recognize how to refer to
figures, tables, plots, paragraphs, sections, and chapters and how to compare
designs, models, and systems. Most importantly, they help you enrich your pool
of technical/scientific vocabulary and language you need in your field of
interest in engineering. These basic skills are the nuts and bolts of any
technical document you will write.
Always remember the golden rule🏆: read the textbooks of
these courses and don’t confine yourself to summaries, handouts, or slides.
Tip 2💡:
As you move to major courses in
engineering👷♂️, building the habit
of reading engineering textbooks 📚
is essential towards improving your technical language and writing. These
textbooks shine in introducing complex systems ⚛️
in a friendly language; trust me, you need that skill! Remember that at a later
point in your major (and eventually in your career) you will need to
communicate 📡 your ideas clearly and
effectively; your engineering textbooks just help you achieve that gradually.
The good news 📰 is that after some
patience and persistency in reading those textbooks 📖 you will be amazed to
see how frequent the typical technical phrases get repeated👌! You will get to know
them by heart and find yourself using them automatically . As a full-time undergraduate student you
have the luxury of time ☕️that
you may not (and probably will not) have later in your graduate studies or
while working! The ease of finding enough time to read your textbooks in depth
with minimum distractions 💥is
one of the blessings during your undergraduate studies. Use that time wisely⏳!
Always remember the golden rule🏆: read the textbooks of
these courses and don’t confine yourself to summaries, handouts, or slides.
Tip 3💡:
You will need the interaction🧐
in the classroom, so never skip classes! Your course/lab instructors 🧑🏫 will be using the
technical language typical in your field of interest🤔; you need to hear
them and interact with them. This will finetune 🛠
your technical language skills and improve your confidence in using them. You
will start to get used to the nomenclature of your field. Even if you are one
of those who are able to ace 🧞♂️
all assignments, projects, and exams while skipping all classes (if your
instructor allows it 😅);
you will be missing a lot in your journey towards shaping your technical
language if you think that you don’t need your instructors! Since learning at
college/university should be taken as a complete package 📦(attend, read, review,
practice, interact), each aspect of this package will be adding to your
technical language skills, trust me!
Remember the golden rule🏆:
interaction with the experts in your field is a major factor in improving your
technical language skills.
Tip 4💡:
Always remember that patience ⛵️is an essential virtue when it
comes to building your foundation for effective technical ✍️. Becoming comfortable with
producing well-written articles will never happen over night🎆. Be patient while
reading your college textbooks📚.
Be patient in collecting and memorizing those technical terms to create your
own database 💿of them. This database
will be your sign of how good you are doing👌:
in your first couple of years at college it will grow in size fast📈, and that growth must
slow down as you progress in your studies👨💻; otherwise, you are
not inching up🤔!!! But this patience will be highly rewarding 🏅 at a later point in
your career. When you find yourself crafting 👨🎨top-class reports and
holding captivating technical talks💬,
you can’t imagine the feeling of confidence that will instill in yourself. That
feeling will be shaping your whole career😎!
Another golden rule🏆:
Be patient 😉
Tip 5💡:
When you reach your capstone project🛠, it’s the time that
you will learn the power of your words✍️.
No matter what system your school follows for capstone, there will be
requirements on reporting📝and
presentation🎤, and that’s where most
students lose marks😔!!!
You may design and deliver the best capstone project that is technically sound💪.You may even deliver a
groundbreaking, innovative product🧞. However, failure to convey the
details of your design and the contribution you have made in a clear,
well-written report is a major loss😩!!!
Also, the lack of communication skills using good technical language will
backfire☄️ big time. Beside the
preparatory steps I mentioned in my previous tips, one winning way🎖 to circumvent such a
situation is through preparing a sound literature review🤓. The latter
is usually the first step in your capstone; benefit from it. Don’t hesitate to
read tens of articles 📚
that tackle the same area you are working on. See how others present their work
and describe their designs👷♂️.
Reading the literature and preparing literature reviews is one essential step
towards shining in technical writing✨.
Another takeaway🏆:
make it a habit to read the literature in your field; don’t miss the wealth of
vocabulary and phrases available there!
Tip 6 💡:
Your masters studies 📜 is the point where you
will delve into extensive, deep dive readings 👓into
the track of interest to you. Several masters courses will have a weight on
preparing a term paper📝
. Usually, the style of this paper requires selecting a research topic and
writing a comprehensive review about it📄.
This is a twofold chance✌️:
🥇building knowledge, and
🥈improving your technical language.
Never get tired of these readings💪; the more, the
merrier. This is a golden opportunity 👑to
build a strong foundation for your language skills that will flourish and pay
off later in your PhD🚀.
A takeaway🏆:
at the masters level start building the attitude of a voracious reader😋
Tip 7💡:
During your masters and PhD studies👨🎓, you will be part of a
lab 🧑💻of graduate students
and researchers that conduct weekly or monthly series of seminars🗣. Attending, and
actively holding, these seminars is a must🧐. Not only you will learn
hot topics of research✌️,
but you will also enrich your vocabulary and learn how to communicate your
ideas effectively and with confidence👌.
These seminars teach you how to use clear language to:
🏅describe your research
problem
🎖set your motivation
🏅define your objectives
🎖introduce your system
🏅highlight your results
and conclusions, and
🎖identify your future
directions
Each of these items will be just a section or chapter
in your next report or paper 📝
.
Takeaway🏆:
to flourish 💪in technical writing,
join the crowd of researchers 🤩 and be involved in the technical talks
happening in your lab and school 🏫
.
#research #engineering #writing
Tip 8💡:
Be selective 🥸 in what journals and conference
proceedings you read. Focus on well-reputed 🌟journals
in your field of interest; they go through a rigorous 🧐 peer-review
process and publish well-written works. Read top-tier 🥇conference
proceedings; they are serious about selecting well-written papers📝. Know the top
contributors 👨🏫 in your field and read
their publications; you will learn a lot from them. As you go through these
quality works, get to learn how to:
🎖Format your
paper/report
🏅Present your ideas
clearly
🎖Achieve a smooth
reading of your work
🏅Ensure the coherence in
your paper/report
Takeaway🏆:
the reader must enjoy reading your paper/report🤩. Otherwise, you’re in
trouble!🧐
#publications #writing #research #engineering
Tip 9💡:
Use simplified language👌!You
need to develop the skill of presenting your work in the clearest,
user-friendly language🤝. When you use complex😓, less-popular language
you lose the interest of your readers🤨! This means that you will need
to spend some time in structuring 👷♂️your
paragraphs 📝to remove any vague or
less-direct 🔄 phrases. Of course,
this is a skill that you don’t acquire overnight and comes after intensive
readings🏅, but you need to keep
it in mind 🤔 and make it an essential component in your style 👨🎨of writing.
The golden rule for today🏆: keep it simple and
clear; readers don’t like to spend time in deciphering 🔐 what you mean!
#writing #research #engineering
Tip 10💡:
Some essentials:
1. When referring to a specific equation, figure,
table, section, chapter, and appendix, you should capitalize🔠 (Equation 1.1, Figure
3.2, Table 4.1, Section 3, Chapter 5, Appendix A).
2. When you state an equation, you must define 📝each term appearing in
the equation and what the equation measures.
3. When you refer to a figure, you must describe ✍️everything that appears in the
figure.
4. When you refer to a table, you must explain its
content.
5. When you present a system model 📳 through a schematic,
an architecture, a flow chart, or a block diagram, you must describe to the
reader what you are showing.
6. Even if the equation, table, figure, or system model
seem to be quite simple to you, never☝️
assume they are self-explanatory. You must describe them to the reader 🤝.
The takeaway 🏆:
respect the etiquette🧐 of technical writing and be generous 👍in your descriptions🖌. Help the reader to
understand you☝️!
#writing #research #engineering
Tip 11 💡:
(one of my students suggested that I
be more specific. So, here you go Laila Dallol 👍)
1. ☝️When
referring to a figure, table, or system model and what they are for, write
something like ✍️:
· “This figure
shows/illustrates/depicts/describes/demonstrates/highlights/exemplifies/clarifies
…”
2. ☝️When
explaining an equation that you have provided, write something like ✍️:
· “This equation
presents/states/introduces/describes/relates/associates/explains/proves …”
· “The first term in this equation
reflects/means/states/indicates/shows/refers to/compensates for …”
· “The second coefficient in this equation
indicates/results from/is used to/represents the weight of/reduces the impact
of the associated term/boosts the impact of the associated term ….”
3. ☝️When
describing your contribution, be specific on whether it is a new “algorithm,”
“system,” “model,” “protocol,” “product,” “invention,” “implementation,”
“analysis,” “evaluation,” “comparison,” “simulation,” “emulation,”
“deployment,” “extension,” “survey,” or “review.”
Takeaway🏆:
These tips are based on extensive readings through books, papers, and reports.
Keep reading🚀.
#research #engineering #writing #technicalwriting
Tip 12 💡:
(one of my students suggested that I be more specific. So,
here you go Laila Dallol 👍)
1. ☝️When
explaining the contribution 🥇 of your work, you must have a clear
statement ✍️ about it in both the
“Abstract” and the “Introduction” of your report:
· “In this work we introduce a new algorithm/system/protocol/model/…”
· “In this paper we devise a new
algorithm/system/protocol/model/…”
· “Our contribution in this work is …”
· “In this paper we propose a new
algorithm/system/protocol/model/…”
· “In this work we describe a new algorithm/system/protocol/model/…”
· “In this work we evaluate/analyze a new
algorithm/system/protocol/model/…”
2. ☝️When
describing the performance of your new system write something like:
· “The performance of our new algorithm is superior to
algorithm X”
· “The performance of algorithm X is inferior to our
algorithm”
· “Our new algorithm boosts up the performance in terms
of …”
· “Our proposed protocol increases/decreases the ….”
· “Our product solves the problem of …”
· “The impact of X declines/diminishes by using our
proposal”
· “Our invention supports this targeted group in our
community”
Takeaway🏆:
Once again, these tips are based on extensive readings through books, papers,
and reports. Keep reading🚀.
#research #technicalwriting #engineering
Tip 13💡:
Keep in mind that there is a direct relation between
how you do research 🧐 and how you report it✍️. Simply stated, look at the
diagram 🗺below: These are the
stages 🐾of any research
project; each stage corresponds (roughly) to a chapter/section in your
report/paper📝.
Takeaway🏆:
writing your final report/paper follows the same methodology ☝️you followed in conducting
your research project👌.
#research #project #technicalwriting #research
Tip 14💡:
It’s essential to let someone else have a look at your
work before final submission🧐🤔. Approach those who have
published 📝before. Talk to
colleagues👨, PhD students👨🎓, postdoctoral fellows🙋♂️, and most
importantly your supervisor👨🏫. There is always
something you will learn from them📖.
Never assume that you have it all covered; nobody is perfect🤨. Their
recommendations will finetune 🛠😓your
work at an early stage. Be ready to hear and accept even the harshest critique😓🧏♂️; trust me
it will better shape 👨🔧your way of reporting.
Even if someone advises you to add clarifications or enhancements that will
require couple of weeks of work, it is worth it☝️.
Corrections and amendments at this stage are not costly🤩!!! Keep in
mind that after any submission to a conference or journal you will have to wait
for few months before receiving the feedback of the reviewers👮♂️. In case you
haven’t done your homework properly, you may take another couple of months to
entertain all reviewers’ requests, and that is the costly part💰💰💰😩😩😩.
Takeaway🏆:
take a second opinion☝️☝️☝️
#research #technicalwriting #engineering #publishing
Tip 15💡:
Reports/papers should have an abstract📝. The abstract is an
executive summary of what your document is about🏁.
In a condensed paragraph, you need to educate your reader about the problem you
are working on and the solution you are proposing for it☝️. That is, this is the place
in your document where you tell the reader what you are going to talk about📣. I prefer 300’ish-word
abstracts designed using the 100/100/100 rule (my invention🤩; see the
diagram).
Do’s:
☝️Include typical keywords in
your area
☝️Highlight how your work is
distinguished
☝️Specify names of
algorithms/systems/models/tools that you use in your solution
☝️Include
readings/statistics/results that you have generated
Don’ts:
😑Talk about the details
of your implementation
😑Use complicated
language
Takeaway🏆:
Learn how to describe what you want to say using 300 words only.
#research #engineering #technicalwriting
Tip 16💡:
As my PhD supervisor (Prof. Hussein Mouftah) one day taught me: “90% of
the readers of your thesis will decide to keep on reading till the last page
only if the “Introduction” is well-written!”😓😱😰😡
In your “Introduction”, you should cover the following
aspects (my supervisor continued):
1️⃣ Background
2️⃣ Motivation
3️⃣ Objectives
4️⃣ Contributions
5️⃣ Thesis (or paper) Outline
The “Outline” subsection, which is the closing section 🎬of your “Introduction”,
should be structured 🏛as:
“The rest of this thesis (or paper) is organized as
follows. Section 2 covers … etc. Section 3 introduces … etc. Next, in Section 4
we describe … etc. After that, Section 5 provides … etc. Finally, Section 6
concludes this work and sets the future directions.”
Takeaway🏆:
Your “Introduction” is the gateway to your work. Make sure it is
well-structured and well-written😊.
#research #engineering #technicalwriting #thesis
Tip 17💡:
Writing literature reviews is time-consuming and
tiresome, but essential in building your case! 👨💼
At the end, in your paper 📝 you are trying to
prove 🤔to the reviewer and the reader that you are presenting something
new🤩; something that does not exist in the literature 😎! Therefore, it’s
important to spend enough time reading into the work related to your problem 📉. The benefits 🏅of these readings are:
☝️To keep yourself up-to-date
with respect to the solutions proposed to solve your problem of interest
☝️To discover trendy
tools/methods/approaches to tackle this problem
☝️To learn how performance analysis
is conducted to evaluate the efficiency of your solution
☝️To shape your solution
uniquely so that it distinguishes itself from the work of others
☝️Most importantly: To continue
improving your technical language through these intensive readings
Takeaway🏆:
Conducting literature review is part of your personality as a successful
researcher👨🔬. Keep reading!😊
#research #engineering #technicalwriting
Tip 18💡:
Your literature review must be up to date! ☝️
This means that you should cover recent contributions
in the field towards solving your problem🧐. An up-to-date literature
review means:
1️⃣ You are limiting yourself to
the papers that have been published in the recent three to five years🗓. Of course, some
fields are so active that you may find a large set of contributions that have
happened just over the last year; capture those☝️.
2️⃣ You are citing the landmark
papers 🏁that made a major
difference in your field; ignoring those papers undermines the strength of your
paper and may discredit your results😰!
Landmark papers can be identified through reading survey and tutorial papers.
3️⃣ You are citing landmark papers
that are highly influencing 💪in
your field even though they are kind of old. Citing these papers reflects that
you are aware of the seminal works in your field and that you are standing on
solid grounds when you compare your results to what has been published.
Takeaway🏆:
A good, up-to-date literature review makes your paper shine✨. It requires patience in
reading the works of others. Keep reading!🌟
#research #engineering #technicalwriting
Tip 19💡:
Documenting your contribution is the most important
section of your paper☝️.
This is where you need to be:
1️⃣Clear
2️⃣Thorough
3️⃣Readable
4️⃣Coherent
Your abilities of technical writing should shine 🌟exactly here! This is
the part that you are proud of👏;
be generous in the details. This section can be titled generically as “System
Model” or “System Design.” Alternatively🧐, you can be more specific by
using the name of your new system/model/algorithm/protocol/design in the title,
or even writing something like “A New Model for…” or “The New Proposed System
of …”. Size-wise, this section should be the largest in your paper🤔;
you can’t have an “Introduction” of two pages and a “System Model” that is
barely half a page🤔! In describing your contribution, you need to use
schematics, flowcharts, architectures, tables, figures, graphs … etc.;
engineers are obsessed 😊
with description tools and hate 😡just
viewing long pages of text without an ability of visualizing your proposal.
Your ability to make your contribution stand out is essential here👌; the reader should not
struggle to understand where your touch is! It is highly recommended that your
contribution is pinpointed 👉clearly
in bullet form in the beginning of the contribution section. State it as
follows:
“Our contribution in this paper is summarized as
follows:
1….
2…
3…”
Takeaway🏆:
Show pride in your contribution by describing it properly!
#design #engineeing #technicalwriting #research
Tip 20💡:
After you have introduced your proposal in the “System
Model” section🧐, you need to focus next on how you will be evaluating
the performance of your proposed solution🤔. This happens in a section
titled as “Performance Evaluation” or “Performance Analysis”🔬. With a clear language🗣, you should explain to
the reader how systems like yours should be evaluated and tested 🧪for
performance and efficiency. The performance metrics 📏should be selected in
consistency with what your proposal is promising to achieve☝️. Your ability to introduce
these metrics and relate them to your problem of interest in a convincing
language is essential in getting your work recognized👍, appreciated👌, and praised🙏.
Takeaway🏆:
Use careful, convincing language to educate the reader about how to evaluate
your system.🌟
#research #engineering #technicalwriting
Tip 21💡:
Done with “Performance Evaluation” 🤔? It’s time
to generate results and comment on them☝️
in a section titled “Results and Discussions”. Your results may be generated
using several tools:
1️⃣ Simulations🎥
2️⃣ Mathematical modeling🧮
3️⃣ Experimentation🧪
4️⃣ Emulation 🔬
5️⃣ Actual direct implementation⚙️
Presenting your data and results is an art👌. Use a proper language
in relating your findings to the background you have established in the
“Introduction”, “System Model,” and “Performance Evaluation” sections.
Coherence is essential here; don’t create conflicts between the promises you
have made in previous sections and the way you are interpreting your data.
Takeaway🏆:
Your results should be carefully generated and discussed. Craft this section
properly🌟.
#research #engineering #technicalwriting #uottawa
Tip 22💡:
When preparing your list of references keep in mind:
1️⃣ The number of references:
— Usually, a conference paper shouldn’t have more than
15 quality references while journal papers need a wealth of references (more
than 20)
2️⃣ The variety of the references:
— Cite both conference and journals papers. Focus on
flagship conferences and high-end journals. You need a variety of conferences,
journals, and even authors to show that you have based your research on deep
knowledge
3️⃣ How current the references
are:
— Try to restrict yourself to what has been published
in the past 3 to 5 years. Of course, certain relevant, landmark papers must be
cited in your work even if they were old; skipping them may discredit your
findings!
Takeaway 🏆:
Your references should tell the reader that you know your area. Select them
carefully 🧐☝️.
#research #engineering #technicalwriting #uottawa #iot #wirelessnetworks
Tip 23💡:
(concluding tip)
Writing your technical report or research paper needs:
1️⃣ Planning
2️⃣ Time
3️⃣ Patience
4️⃣ Revision
Never underestimate the importance of any of these
factors🧐.
When I generated my final results for my master’s
thesis, I thought that I’m done with my master’s since writing is not supposed
to take time!!!!
My supervisor asked me: “How long do you think you need
to finish writing?”🤔
I replied with full confidence and happiness: “Two
weeks”😎
He replied with a smile: ”If you finish writing in two
weeks, I will pay you $10000”🤭
I accepted his challenge and started writing✍️✍️✍️. It turned out that I needed
another six weeks to complete the writing🔨🤯🤕.
Final takeaway🏆:
Take technical writing seriously and give it all it needs of planning, time,
patience, and revision.☝️🚀
#technicalwriting #engineering #uottawa #iot #wirelessnetworks #research
Motivation: https://lnkd.in/diBAsP9C
Tip 1: https://lnkd.in/dm_CfJvC
Tip 2: https://lnkd.in/dcwZXeTN
Tip 3: https://lnkd.in/dEfHt3Dp
Tip 4: https://lnkd.in/dwEXT_Ux
Tip 5: https://lnkd.in/dfwjt5ju
Tip 6: https://lnkd.in/di6dhtWU
Tip 7: https://lnkd.in/dGu7g-CQ
Tip 8: https://lnkd.in/dMdjJRaW
Tip 9: https://lnkd.in/dqKtmemP
Tip 10: https://lnkd.in/dDvqA4sg
Tip 11: https://lnkd.in/d2h5fcKk
Tip 12: https://lnkd.in/duYnN495
Tip 13: https://lnkd.in/dgdBRJ7R
Tip 14: https://lnkd.in/dkHiq3gR
Tip 15: https://lnkd.in/d5Y5yssy
Tip 16: https://lnkd.in/dkC6b4Xt
Tip 17: https://lnkd.in/d2tmUEPF
Tip 18: https://lnkd.in/dt47qra8
Tip 19: https://lnkd.in/dukQS4Nj
Tip 20: https://lnkd.in/dH5FQTiq
Tip 21: https://lnkd.in/dXPiXPeV
Tip 22: https://lnkd.in/dvk4igmd
Tip 23: https://lnkd.in/d_5q85WE
