One thing I've always thought I do well, or at least sufficiently, is write. Contrary to most engineering types I've met, I like to read and write. Lab reports? Class papers? Inter-office memos? No problem, easy. All those things abound during the first years of engineering classwork but start to trail off as one does more math, equations, and technical drawings. I'm a bit out of practice now I think.
I was cruising around the website, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and stumbled upon this little gem: 10 Tips on How to Write Less Badly. This article really resonated with me because of my recent writing adventure: my master's thesis.
When it came to writing my thesis I had great ideas on how to make everything flow together and on what to write. Getting these ideas from my head into a word processor? That was more like pulling teeth. I had no idea how hard it was going to be! Or how long it was going to take. That experience made me go "yes!" when I read points four (give yourself time) and five (everyone's unwritten work is brilliant). Not to mention point number ten: edit your work, over and over. My goodness did my thesis need work on the editing front. I tend to write how I talk, which is not a very good way to write technical work. Reading and rereading helped me to catch the numerous errors I made.
The other suggestions that the article had, such as "write, then squeeze other things in" and "set goals based on output, not input," I thought were helpful. I'm soon going to try to turn my thesis into a paper I can publish, there are two grants I want to apply for, and my current adviser thinks I will have enough laboratory results to publish another paper by December. Whew. In other words, I have a lot of upcoming writing I need to be working on and if I start employing some of the tactics from this article, the whole process should be much less painful than my thesis was.
I was cruising around the website, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and stumbled upon this little gem: 10 Tips on How to Write Less Badly. This article really resonated with me because of my recent writing adventure: my master's thesis.
When it came to writing my thesis I had great ideas on how to make everything flow together and on what to write. Getting these ideas from my head into a word processor? That was more like pulling teeth. I had no idea how hard it was going to be! Or how long it was going to take. That experience made me go "yes!" when I read points four (give yourself time) and five (everyone's unwritten work is brilliant). Not to mention point number ten: edit your work, over and over. My goodness did my thesis need work on the editing front. I tend to write how I talk, which is not a very good way to write technical work. Reading and rereading helped me to catch the numerous errors I made.
The other suggestions that the article had, such as "write, then squeeze other things in" and "set goals based on output, not input," I thought were helpful. I'm soon going to try to turn my thesis into a paper I can publish, there are two grants I want to apply for, and my current adviser thinks I will have enough laboratory results to publish another paper by December. Whew. In other words, I have a lot of upcoming writing I need to be working on and if I start employing some of the tactics from this article, the whole process should be much less painful than my thesis was.
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