Tenets of Technical Writing

Below are a list of guidelines for writing a technical journal paper

Grammar and formatting

• Do not use soft language
  • Ex) The temperature was high → The temperature was 150C
• Figures
  • Figures appear after the paragraph where they are first referenced. (Helps with flow)
  • Figures must not have titles (Descriptions of figures will be in caption, Redundant)
  • Figure captions must go below the figure (standard Formatting)
• Tables
  • Tables appear after the paragraph where they are first referenced. (Helps with flow)
  • table captions must go above the tables (standard formatting)
• Equations
  • Equations appear after the paragraph where they are first referenced. (Helps with flow)
  • sentences preceding equations must end in a comma (standard formatting)
  • sentences following equations must not have an indent (standard formatting)
• No introductory sentences (Start sentences with what is IMPORTANT, not needless fluff)
  • Example: Due to this reduced accuracy, measurements taken at 900 mm were excluded from the final training datasets.
  • Would be rewritten as: Measurements taken at 900 mm were excluded from the final training datasets due to reduced accuracy.
• No starting a sentence with (Typically an indication of an introductory sentence, Mention specifically what “This” and “These” are to avoid confusion)
  • This
  • To
  • These
  • An
  • A
  • For
• Descriptions of work done need to be past tense. (You already did the work, This is standard formatting)
• Citations appear within the period (Standard Formatting)
  • The sky is blue [1].
• Do not use contractions (Never do this in any form of technical writing)
  • Don’t → do not

Structure

• Abstract
  • 250 Words max (Typically enforced by journals)
  • A tiny overview of the entire paper, includes intro, literature, methods, results, conclusion
• Introduction
  • Two paragraphs
  • First Paragraph
    • What is the topic, Why does it matter
    • What is currently done
    • What are the GAPS in current approaches
    • What is the GOAL of the paper
      • What you did to solve the problem statement
    • What is the PROBLEM STATEMENT of the paper
      • The problem to overcome
      • avoid technical details specific to your approach
      • keep very high level
  • Second Paragraph
    • Brief overview of your methodology
      • Talk about what you are “Going to do”
      • Present tense
    • Bring in the contribution that this work will bring, and its estimated impact
• Lit Review
  • The purpose of a literature review is to help sell the gap you identified in the intro and explain your contribution more explicitly.
  • Review the existing literature, Show that you have done your homework
    • You explain what they did, why its good, what problem it solves, and what is wrong with using it for your specific goal/problem.
• Methods
  • Be highly specific
    • List model numbers, Specific Equipment names, Parameters, Ect.
      • The VNA (Libre VNA 300hz - 6GHZ) was used to record S21 signals.
  • The methods are a story of what you did, Follow chronologically what steps you took to solve your problem
• Results
  • This part is mostly figures, you should talk about those figures in this section
  • Compare your results with existing literature
• Conclusion
  • One paragraph
  • Tie back in with your introduction
    • Have you met your goals
    • Did you solve the problem statement
  • End conclusion with an IMPACT STATEMENT, What is the overall impact of this paper at large