8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exactly what the title says, May 30, 2002
This review is from: A Guide to Writing as an Engineer (Paperback)
This book is exactly a guide to the types of writing engineers have to do, put in terms engineers understand.
The authors present analogies that help engineers understand "soft" topics like revising for clarity. For example, they describe poor writing as having a lot of "noise" in the "signal", and then describe specific strategies for reducing noise.
They describe most of the common types of documents that engineers write, such as reports, specifications, proposals, and even business letters and email messages. They describe the format and typical contents for each type of document, while also noting what *not* to worry about. For example "Don't get hung up on the names of reports. Sorry, there is no ANSI standards committee on the proper names, contents, and formats of reports."
This is an excellent book for any engineer who has to write on the job, which is to say, any engineer.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Useful as a quick reference, July 5, 2006
This book does a good job of focusing on the projects (e.g., reports, memos, proposals, presentations) that engineers are commonly asked to write. It also covers the most common writing mistakes made by engineers (e.g., passive voice). If you need a quick, short answer for a specific task, this book will likely be useful. But it will not provide in-depth training on how to become a better writer. I was also disappointed that it did not address how to work effectively with professional writers or how to provide useful input & reviews - both are common activities for engineers.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Good for engineers, terrible for technical writing instructors, July 26, 2007
This handbook provides a decent, quick-and-dirty introduction to technical communication for engineers . It does a good job of dealing with letters and oral presentations (though it does not discuss how to create a good slideshow--just the actual presenting itself). For engineers, then, I give this book three stars.
For technical writing instructors like myself, however, it is almost worthless, and deserves one star.
The main problems which I have with this book include:
* A lack of example documents;
* Some very bland, colorless formatting (though this is better, I suppose, than the unnecessary pyrothechnics to be found, for example, in the Lannon book);
* Virtually nothing is provided for technical writing students who are not themselves going into engineering;
* The advice provided by this book on most topics is extremely minimal. For example, there is a mere four pages on tables, with most formatting advice appearing as a bulleted list with no illustrative examples.
If you are an engineer who wants a cheap and simple introduction to some basic documents, this book will fill the bill--barely. If you are looking for a technical writing textbook to teach with, however, or if you will be writing a wide variety of sophisticated engineering documents and presentations for demanding audiences, then this is not the book for you. For such people, I would instead suggest the 8th edition of Mike Markel's Technical Communication. Alternately, one could buy this book ALONG WITH Alred, Brusaw, and Oliu's Handbook of Technical Writing so as to get fuller writing advice, a large number of sample documents, and so on.
Either way, this book does not impress.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
