Fourteen Steps to a Clearly Written Technical Paper
by R. T. Compton, Jr.
A technical paper will usually have four sections. The purpose of each of these sections is as follows:
Section I: Introduction
The introduction should do the following: 1. Open up the subject. (The subject will be electromagnetic fields in cylindrical dielectric geometrics, adaptive arrays in packet radio, or whatever.)
2. Survey past work relevant to this paper.
3. Describe the problem addressed in this paper, and show how this work relates to, or augments, previous work.
4. Describe the assumptions made in general terms, and state what results have been obtained. (This gives the reader an initial overview of what problem is addressed in the paper and what has been achieved.)
5. Overview the contents of the paper. (“Section II contains our formulation of the problem. Section III contains the ”)
Section II: Formulation of the Problem This section should do three things:
1. Define the problem to be considered in detail. Typically this section might begin with something like: “Consider a packet radio system consisting of a single central repeater surrounded by user terminals. Each user transmits packets to the central repeater using a slotted ALOHA protocol [1]. The transmissions from all users are assumed to be on the ”The discussion should proceed in this way until the problem is completely defined.
2. Define all terminology and notation used. Usually the terminology and notation are defined along with the problem itself.
3. Develop the equations on which your results will be based and/or describe any experimental systems.
Section III: Results
This section presents the detailed results you have obtained. If the paper is theoretical, you will prob
ably show curves obtained from your equations. If the paper is experimental, you will be presenting curves showing the measurement results. In order to choose the proper curves to present, you must first be clear what point you are trying to convey to the reader. The curves can then be chosen to illustrate this point. Whether your paper is theoretical or experimental, you must provide a careful interpretation of what your results mean and why they behave as they do.
Section IV: Conclusion
This section should summarize what has been accomplished in the paper. Many readers will read only the Introduction and
英文美文Conclusion of your paper. The Conclusion
should be written so they can be
understood by someone who has not read
the main work of the paper.
This is the common format for an
engineering paper. Of course, the names of
the sections may differ slightly from those
above, but the purpose of each section will
usually be as described. Some papers
include additional sections or differ from
the above outline in one way or another.
However, the outline just presented is a
good starting point for writing a technical
paper.
To write your paper, you should proceed
as follows:
Step 1: Start by writing a complete first
draft of your paper, except for the
Introduction and Conclusion. (It is easiest
to leave the Introduction and Conclusion
until after the main body of the paper is
written.) In writing your paper, keep the
following in mind:
1. You must always present the big picture
first and then work towards the details.
The other way around will not work. This
is especially true in the beginning of
Section II, where you are explaining the
problem you are studying.
2. If you get stuck and cannot figure out
how to explain something, a useful trick is
to imagine that you are telling a very good
friend what you are working on: just put
down the words as you would say them to
your friend.
In writing your first draft, do not worry if
the wording is not perfect. Polishing the
document comes later. When you are
finished with your first draft, put it away
for a couple of days before you begin Step
2.
Step 2: Make sure the ideas in the paper
are in the right order. If not, move blocks
of the paper around with your text editor
until they are. Ask yourself: “Can the
reader understand every passage strictly
from the material up to that point?” If not,
add material or move ideas around. Make
sure there are not gaps in your logical
arguments, and make sure you are not
implicitly assuming that the reader
understands something needed to follow
your arguments, even though you have not
stated it. The reader probably understands
less than you think.
Step 3: Work on the transitions between
ideas. Make sure that at each stage the
reader has a roadmap of where he or she is
going. The reader must be able to see the
big picture. At the beginning of each
section, make clear to the reader in
advance what the purpose of that section
will be and how that section relates to the
preceding material. At the end of each
section, you may also want to remind the
reader that you have now completed what
you set out to do in that section. Then
point out what the purpose of the next
section will be, and so forth. These
connecting statements are called
transitions. The reader must always be
able to see where you are going and why
and how far you have progressed.
Step 4: Check each paragraph for unity.
Each paragraph should have one main
point. Usually the central point of each
春节的习俗英文paragraph is stated in a topical sentence at
the beginning of the paragraph, but not
always. You should not mix different ideas
together in the same paragraph. If you are
having trouble getting a certain section of
your paper to sound right, go through that
section one paragraph at a time and ask
yourself what the main point of each
paragraph is. Foggy writing is often due to
mixed-up paragraphs.
Step 5: Work on the sentences to reduce
the fog index. The Fog Index F is defined
as F = 0.4(L + P), where L is the average
number of words per sentence and P is the
average number of polysyllables per 100
words of text [1]. (A polysyllable is a word
with three or more syllables.) To evaluate
the Fog Index for your paper, count the
number of words per sentence and the
number of polysyllables per 100 words for
a representative portion of your paper five
or six hundred words long. Ideally, you
should strive for a fog index less than 10.
In technical writing, it is sometimes
difficult to get the Fog Index below 10, but
a Fog Index above 15 is a warning that
your material will be very hard for a reader
to follow.
Consider the following examples taken
from typical office memos. Note that both
memos say the same thing.
Fog Index = 35: “In order to eliminate the
possibility of errors occurring in the time
charges relating to engineering jobs
through transposition of numbers or typing
errors, each of the Division Planning
Offices should set up a file of time cards
showing all authorized project numbers
and make a daily check of the charges on
all time sheets forwarded to the
Accounting Department to be sure that
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