An individual subscription is only A$60 per year
Group and student discounts may apply
Australian manual of scientific style Start communicating effectively
Engineering writing style
Engineering is a highly technical discipline, with detailed content that often relies on complex data and information.
In this way, it is similar to science, and effective engineering writing needs to avoid the same pitfalls as science writing, such as:
- unnecessarily complex words and jargon
- long sentences, often with unnecessary words
- passive voice and the use of third person instead of first person
- abstract nouns and verbs
- long strings of modifiers (adjectives) before a noun.
Engineering can be either an academic or a professional discipline. Professional engineers have an even greater obligation to write as clearly as possible, as they will often be communicating with audiences who do not have a technical background.
Indeed, effective communication is a requirement at each stage of the Australian Competency Standards for Professional Engineers from Engineers Australia. For example, the indicator of attainment for element 3.2(b) in Stage 1 of the standards, is:
Prepares high quality engineering documents such as progress and project reports, reports of investigations and feasibility studies, proposals, specifications, design records, drawings, technical descriptions and presentations pertinent to the engineering discipline.