Technical Writing

NISS ASA Workshop

JSM
Salt Lake City
29 July 1 August

Writing for a Technical Audience

Purpose: To Inform
Aspects

Structure

Choice of Material

Organization of Ideas

Depth of Detail
Style

Grammatical Structure

Word Choice

Caveat: Dont Lose the Reader!

A Technical Writer Is NOT:

J.K. Rowling
Kid at summer
camp
Norah Roberts
Peter Mayle
Ken Follett
Dan Brown or Iain
Pears

Alexandre Dumas
Thomas Hardy or
Charles Dickens
Emily Bronte
D.H. Lawrence
Cervantes
Artur Perez-Reverte
or Franz Kafka
Leo Tolstoy

A Technical Audience is NOT:

On a QUEST

Challenge to
participate
Obstacles to
overcome, each
more difficult than
the one before

Keywords

Title
Abstract
Introduction
Body of article

Prize for success

Penalty for failure

Section by section

Result

Theorem
Discussion/Conclusion

Starting Point

Decide Purpose

Breakthrough (ground-breaking) new formulation to

solve old or new open problem
Progress / development often new methodology or
extension to higher dimension, a new context, or relaxation
of assumptions
Comparison of existing methods with/without modification
Reprise new more elegant proof of known result yielding
greater insight, often entirely new technical approach
Illustration application to real problem/ data of
importance, typical of other applications
Scientific result not primarily statistical innovation

Identify Major Results

Determine Audience

Structure: Logical
Introduction
Problem Statement
in Technical Form
Sequence of Lemmas
and Theorems
Primary Result

Simple Case / Progression

to General Case
Primary Result

Example / Simulation /
Proof of Concept

Application Example /
Simulation / Data Analysis
Discussion or
Conclusions

Structure: Signposts

Goal: Provide reader with a map to the article

Introduction

You are here and What comes next

Outline for article, section by section

Section - preamble or paragraph

Outline for section

Extensive proof or complex algorithm

Overview of sequence of lemmas, theorems

Overview of model development, inferential method
construction
Overview of data, analytic sequence

Paragraph (as preamble) outlining proof or construction

Sentence (midway) summarizing what has been proved, what
comes next

Outline for subsection introductory paragraph

Paragraph opening sentence stating purpose

Pre-First Draft

Written Outline

Purpose
Problem Statement
Signposts

To subsection level

Draft Abstract

Diagram

Example with application

1.0
1.1
1.2
1.A
2.0
2.1
2.A
3.0
3.1
3.A

1.0
1.1
1.2
2.0
3.0
A.0
A.1
A.2
A.3

Choice of Material

Space allocation by importance

Of result and its consequences

For making reasoning transparent

Critical steps and keys to solution

Proofs

Construction / derivation of methodology

Principle finding through consequences

OTHERWISE: Skip the obvious and summarize

By straightforward but tedious algebra. . .

Following the proof by ***** in (reference)

NOT by chronology of research
NOT by pain of obtaining result

Noting that (#.#) can be rewritten as a mixed model with

correlated error structure, partitioning by . . . gives

Application orderly analysis

Substitute (#.#) into (#.##) and apply Greens theorem

Introduction

Goals

Content

Convey Importance, Impact of research results

Attract readers
General Context

What is the problem?

Why care about the work?

Technical Context

What was already known?

What was the gap (before this paper)?

Contribution of this paper

What is the approach to (nature of) the solution?

Outline of paper Signposts

References within text

Natural choices, signal papers not entire literature review

Citation without interrupting flow of text

Style:

Transparent, Clear, Precise,

Parsimonious, Concise, Spare, Lean, Direct

Overall Impression

Careful writing reflects careful work

Precise word usage Standard English

Precise notation usage

1:1 Word:Concept

Definition before first use of notation or symbol

1:1 Notation:Definition
Numbered for internal referencing throughout text (as
appropriate)
Repeated (brief) definition for delayed use or for
modification (e.g., dropping subscript)

Grammar!

Spell and grammar check

Useful
Neither Necessary nor Sufficient

References: Strunk & White

Style:

Transparent, Clear, Precise,

Parsimonious, Concise, Spare, Lean, Direct

Effective Writing

Verbs

ACTIVE not passive when possible

Correct verb tenses

Clear Sentences

CONSISTENT voice either 1st person (I or we) or 3rd person

USE PARALLEL structure for series

Data Exist Present (NOTE: Data ARE - plural)

Papers Exist Present
Experiments End Past
Theorems Hold - Present

Series of sentences
Series within sentences clauses, verbs, objects

DISENTANGLE complex sentences

Reference numbering

Equations
Figures all types
Definitions if referred to later, especially for section-long gap

Style:

Transparent, Clear, Precise,

Parsimonious, Concise, Spare, Lean, Direct

Do Not Litter

DELETE: Wasted sentences

DELETE: Wasted phrases and words

Vague, overly general

Only approximately (not precisely) true
Unnecessarily repetitive
Mixed models are important to many areas of
application.
It is easy to see that. . .
In order to. . . (To almost always suffices)
Most adjectives, especially judgmental, emotional

REPLACE: Non-standard English

Personal words . . . You are not [yet] Tukey

Cute / funny / trendy / jargon /TXT expressions

Abstract: Illustration

This article proposes. . .[a general

semiparametric model . . .]. . . This model
provides. . . [tests]. . . This contrasts with
previous approaches based on . . . We
demonstrate that conditional likelihood is
robust to . . . Its main advantages are that. . .
A case study of spike data illustrates that this
method. . .