Finding the best engineering writing suitable for your needs isnt easy. With hundreds of choices can distract you. Knowing whats bad and whats good can be something of a minefield. In this article, weve done the hard work for you.
Reviews
1. Engineering Writing by Design
Description
Engineers are smart people. Their work is important, which is why engineering material should be written as deliberately and carefully as it will be read.
Engineering Writing by Design: Creating Formal Documents of Lasting Value demonstrates how effective writing can be achieved through engineering-based thinking. Based on the authors combined experience as engineering educators, the book presents a novel approach to technical writing, positioning formal writing tasks as engineering design problems with requirements, constraints, protocols, standards, and customers (readers) to satisfy. Specially crafted for busy engineers and engineering students, this quick-reading, conversational text:
- Describes how to avoid logical fallacies and use physical reasoning to catch mistakes in claims
- Covers the essentials of technical grammar and style as well as the elements of mathematical exposition
- Emphasizes the centrality of the target audience, and thus the need for clear and concise prose
Engineering Writing by Design: Creating Formal Documents of Lasting Value addresses the specific combination of thinking and writing skills needed to succeed in modern engineering. Its mantra is: to write like an engineer, you must think like an engineer. Featuring illustrative examples, chapter summaries and exercises, quick-reference tables, and recommendations for further reading, this book is packed with valuable tips and information practicing and aspiring engineers need to become effective writers.
2. A Scientific Approach to Writing for Engineers and Scientists (IEEE PCS Professional Engineering Communication Series)
Description
A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO WRITING
Technical ideas may be solid or even groundbreaking, but if these ideas cannot be clearly communicated, reviewers of technical documentse.g., proposals for research funding, articles submitted to scientific journals, and business plans to commercialize technologyare likely to reject the argument for advancing these ideas.
The problem is that many engineers and scientists, entirely comfortable with the logic and principles of mathematics and science, treat writing as if it possesses none of these attributes. The absence of a systematic framework for writing often results in sentences that are difficult to follow or arguments that leave reviewers scratching their heads.
This book fixes that problem by presenting a scientific approach to writing that mirrors the sensibilities of scientists and engineers, an approach based on an easily-discernable set of principles. Rather than merely stating rules for English grammar and composition, this book explains the reasons behind these rules and shows that good reasons can guide every writing decision.
This resource is also well suited for the growing number of scientists and engineers in the U.S. and elsewhere who speak English as a second language, as well as for anyone else who just wants to be understood.
3. Writing in Political Science: A Brief Guide (Short Guides to Writing in the Disciplines)
Description
Writing in Political Science: A Brief Guide applies the key concepts of rhetoric and composition--audience, purpose, genre, and credibility--to examples based in political science. It is part of a series of brief, discipline-specific writing guides from Oxford University Press designed for today's writing-intensive college courses. The series is edited by Tom Deans (University of Connecticut) and Mya Poe (Northeastern University).4. Writing Power: Communication in an Engineering Center (SUNY series, Studies in Scientific and Technical Communication)
Feature
Used Book in Good ConditionDescription
Adds to our understanding of the powerful nature of texts and writing.5. Writing in Engineering: A Brief Guide (Short Guides to Writing in the Disciplin)
Description
At once sophisticated and practical, Writing in Engineering: A Brief Guide leads students through how to compose design reports, lab reports, and other key engineering genres while attending to the principles of argument, style, and visual design. It is a part of a series of brief, discipline-specific writing guides from Oxford University Press designed for today's writing-intensive college courses. The series is edited by Thomas Deans (University of Connecticut) and Mya Poe (Northeastern University).6. A Guide to Writing as an Engineer
Description
Written for engineers, this book provides more than technical know-how and focuses on how to be an effective communicator. This new edition helps to eliminate the glitches that trip up the busy reader or listener, causing annoyance, confusion, or misunderstandingso that their writing and speech are crystal clear. This text also focuses on the technical writing and speaking issues encountered in day to day work, writing reports, business letter, memoranda, proposals, emails, presentations, and more. The new edition includes new coverage of social media, including coverage of popular forms, best practices, dangers and ethics of using social media, and expanded coverage of informal communication.7. Making Sense in Engineering and the Technical Sciences: A Student's Guide to Research and Writing
Description
Part of the bestselling Making Sense series, this fifth edition of Making Sense in Engineering and the Technical Sciences is an indispensable research and writing guide for students in any area of the discipline - from electrical and mechanical engineering to systems design and computer science.8. Requirements Writing for System Engineering
Description
Learn how to create good requirements when designing hardware and software systems. While this book emphasizes writing traditional shall statements, it also provides guidance on use case design and creating user stories in support of agile methodologies. The book surveys modeling techniques and various tools that support requirements collection and analysis. Youll learn to manage requirements, including discussions of document types and digital approaches using spreadsheets, generic databases, and dedicated requirements tools. Good, clear examples are presented, many related to real-world work the author has done during his career.
Requirements Writing for System Engineeringantages of different requirements approaches and implement them correctly as your needs evolve. Unlike most requirements books,Requirements Writing for System Engineeringteaches writing both hardware and software requirements because many projects include both areas. To exemplify this approach, two example projects are developed throughout the book, one focusing on hardware and the other on software.
This book
- Presents many techniques for capturing requirements.
- Demonstrates gap analysis to find missing requirements.
- Shows how to address both software and hardware, as most projects involve both.
- Provides extensive examples of shall statements, user stories, and use cases.
- Explains how to supplement or replace traditional requirement statements with user stories and use cases that work well in agile development environments
- Understand the 14 techniques for capturing all requirements.
- Address software and hardware needs; because most projects involve both.
- Ensure all statements meet the 16 attributes of a good requirement.
- Differentiate the 19 different functional types of requirement, and the 31 non-functional types.
- Write requirements properly based on extensive examples of good shall statements, user stories, and use cases.
- Employ modeling techniques to mitigate the imprecision of words.
9. The Handbook of Technical Writing
Description
PACKAGE THIS TITLE WITH OUR 2016 MLA SUPPLEMENT, Documenting Sources in MLA Style (package ISBN-13: 9781319086787). Get the most recent updates on MLA citation in a convenient, 40-page resource based on The MLA Handbook, 8th Edition, with plenty of models. Browse our catalog or contact your representative for a full listing of updated titles and packages, or to request a custom ISBN.From formal reports and manuals to everyday e-mails, The Handbook of Technical Writing uses smart, accessible language to spotlight and clarify technical writing today. Hundreds of topic entries, 90+ sample documents, at-a-glance checklists, and dynamic videos break down the best-practices, models, and real-world skills that successful writers use to clearly and persuasively communicate technical information and data.Developed by a legendary author team with decades of combined academic and professional experience, the books intuitive, alphabetical organization makes it easy to navigate its extensive coverage of grammar, usage, and style. Plus, updated, in-depth treatment of pressing issues like the job search, the writing process, documenting sources, and social media resonates both in class and on the job.With a refreshed, integrated focus on the ways technologies shape writing, the Eleventh Edition of the Handbook is the indispensable reference tool for writing to workplace success.
10. Pocket Book of Technical Writing for Engineers & Scientists (McGraw-Hill's Best: Basic Engineering Series and Tools)
Description
The focus of this text is to teach engineering students the skill of technical writing. The book is unique in that it gets to the point, uses practical outlines throughout, and shows students how to produce the most common technical documents step-by-step, in a manner that is fun and interesting to students. Each chapter has an end-of-chapter critique which allows students to implement what they have learned in the chapter.With ABET increasing the emphasis on technical writing, this affordable, straightforward, easy-to-understand text with flexible coverage, would be a perfect fit for your technical writing course.
