Write Like a Scientist

A Guide to Scientific Communication

What is scientific writing ?

Scientific writing is a technical form of writing that is designed to communicate scientific information to other scientists. Depending on the specific scientific genre—a journal article, a scientific poster, or a research proposal, for example—some aspects of the writing may change, such as its  purpose , audience , or organization . Many aspects of scientific writing, however, vary little across these writing genres. Important hallmarks of all scientific writing are summarized below. Genre-specific information is located  here  and under the “By Genre” tab at the top of the page.

What are some important hallmarks of professional scientific writing?

1. Its primary audience is other scientists. Because of its intended audience, student-oriented or general-audience details, definitions, and explanations — which are often necessary in lab manuals or reports — are not terribly useful. Explaining general-knowledge concepts or how routine procedures were performed actually tends to obstruct clarity, make the writing wordy, and detract from its professional tone.

2. It is concise and precise . A goal of scientific writing is to communicate scientific information clearly and concisely. Flowery, ambiguous, wordy, and redundant language run counter to the purpose of the writing.

3. It must be set within the context of other published work. Because science builds on and corrects itself over time, scientific writing must be situated in and  reference the findings of previous work . This context serves variously as motivation for new work being proposed or the paper being written, as points of departure or congruence for new findings and interpretations, and as evidence of the authors’ knowledge and expertise in the field.

All of the information under “The Essentials” tab is intended to help you to build your knowledge and skills as a scientific writer regardless of the scientific discipline you are studying or the specific assignment you might be working on. In addition to discussions of audience and purpose , professional conventions like conciseness and specificity, and how to find and use literature references appropriately, we also provide guidelines for how to organize your writing and how to avoid some common mechanical errors .

If you’re new to this site or to professional scientific writing, we recommend navigating the sub-sections under “The Essentials” tab in the order they’re provided. Once you’ve covered these essentials, you might find information on  genre-  or discipline-specific writing useful.

U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

  • Publications
  • Account settings
  • Advanced Search
  • Journal List
  • Prev Chronic Dis

Successful Scientific Writing and Publishing: A Step-by-Step Approach

John k. iskander.

1 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia

Sara Beth Wolicki

2 Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health, Washington, District of Columbia

Rebecca T. Leeb

Paul z. siegel.

Scientific writing and publication are essential to advancing knowledge and practice in public health, but prospective authors face substantial challenges. Authors can overcome barriers, such as lack of understanding about scientific writing and the publishing process, with training and resources. The objective of this article is to provide guidance and practical recommendations to help both inexperienced and experienced authors working in public health settings to more efficiently publish the results of their work in the peer-reviewed literature. We include an overview of basic scientific writing principles, a detailed description of the sections of an original research article, and practical recommendations for selecting a journal and responding to peer review comments. The overall approach and strategies presented are intended to contribute to individual career development while also increasing the external validity of published literature and promoting quality public health science.

Introduction

Publishing in the peer-reviewed literature is essential to advancing science and its translation to practice in public health ( 1 , 2 ). The public health workforce is diverse and practices in a variety of settings ( 3 ). For some public health professionals, writing and publishing the results of their work is a requirement. Others, such as program managers, policy makers, or health educators, may see publishing as being outside the scope of their responsibilities ( 4 ).

Disseminating new knowledge via writing and publishing is vital both to authors and to the field of public health ( 5 ). On an individual level, publishing is associated with professional development and career advancement ( 6 ). Publications share new research, results, and methods in a trusted format and advance scientific knowledge and practice ( 1 , 7 ). As more public health professionals are empowered to publish, the science and practice of public health will advance ( 1 ).

Unfortunately, prospective authors face barriers to publishing their work, including navigating the process of scientific writing and publishing, which can be time-consuming and cumbersome. Often, public health professionals lack both training opportunities and understanding of the process ( 8 ). To address these barriers and encourage public health professionals to publish their findings, the senior author (P.Z.S.) and others developed Successful Scientific Writing (SSW), a course about scientific writing and publishing. Over the past 30 years, this course has been taught to thousands of public health professionals, as well as hundreds of students at multiple graduate schools of public health. An unpublished longitudinal survey of course participants indicated that two-thirds agreed that SSW had helped them to publish a scientific manuscript or have a conference abstract accepted. The course content has been translated into this manuscript. The objective of this article is to provide prospective authors with the tools needed to write original research articles of high quality that have a good chance of being published.

Basic Recommendations for Scientific Writing

Prospective authors need to know and tailor their writing to the audience. When writing for scientific journals, 4 fundamental recommendations are: clearly stating the usefulness of the study, formulating a key message, limiting unnecessary words, and using strategic sentence structure.

To demonstrate usefulness, focus on how the study addresses a meaningful gap in current knowledge or understanding. What critical piece of information does the study provide that will help solve an important public health problem? For example, if a particular group of people is at higher risk for a specific condition, but the magnitude of that risk is unknown, a study to quantify the risk could be important for measuring the population’s burden of disease.

Scientific articles should have a clear and concise take-home message. Typically, this is expressed in 1 to 2 sentences that summarize the main point of the paper. This message can be used to focus the presentation of background information, results, and discussion of findings. As an early step in the drafting of an article, we recommend writing out the take-home message and sharing it with co-authors for their review and comment. Authors who know their key point are better able to keep their writing within the scope of the article and present information more succinctly. Once an initial draft of the manuscript is complete, the take-home message can be used to review the content and remove needless words, sentences, or paragraphs.

Concise writing improves the clarity of an article. Including additional words or clauses can divert from the main message and confuse the reader. Additionally, journal articles are typically limited by word count. The most important words and phrases to eliminate are those that do not add meaning, or are duplicative. Often, cutting adjectives or parenthetical statements results in a more concise paper that is also easier to read.

Sentence structure strongly influences the readability and comprehension of journal articles. Twenty to 25 words is a reasonable range for maximum sentence length. Limit the number of clauses per sentence, and place the most important or relevant clause at the end of the sentence ( 9 ). Consider the sentences:

  • By using these tips and tricks, an author may write and publish an additional 2 articles a year.
  • An author may write and publish an additional 2 articles a year by using these tips and tricks.

The focus of the first sentence is on the impact of using the tips and tricks, that is, 2 more articles published per year. In contrast, the second sentence focuses on the tips and tricks themselves.

Authors should use the active voice whenever possible. Consider the following example:

  • Active voice: Authors who use the active voice write more clearly.
  • Passive voice: Clarity of writing is promoted by the use of the active voice.

The active voice specifies who is doing the action described in the sentence. Using the active voice improves clarity and understanding, and generally uses fewer words. Scientific writing includes both active and passive voice, but authors should be intentional with their use of either one.

Sections of an Original Research Article

Original research articles make up most of the peer-reviewed literature ( 10 ), follow a standardized format, and are the focus of this article. The 4 main sections are the introduction, methods, results, and discussion, sometimes referred to by the initialism, IMRAD. These 4 sections are referred to as the body of an article. Two additional components of all peer-reviewed articles are the title and the abstract. Each section’s purpose and key components, along with specific recommendations for writing each section, are listed below.

Title. The purpose of a title is twofold: to provide an accurate and informative summary and to attract the target audience. Both prospective readers and database search engines use the title to screen articles for relevance ( 2 ). All titles should clearly state the topic being studied. The topic includes the who, what, when, and where of the study. Along with the topic, select 1 or 2 of the following items to include within the title: methods, results, conclusions, or named data set or study. The items chosen should emphasize what is new and useful about the study. Some sources recommend limiting the title to less than 150 characters ( 2 ). Articles with shorter titles are more frequently cited than articles with longer titles ( 11 ). Several title options are possible for the same study ( Figure ).

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is PCD-15-E79s01.jpg

Two examples of title options for a single study.

Abstract . The abstract serves 2 key functions. Journals may screen articles for potential publication by using the abstract alone ( 12 ), and readers may use the abstract to decide whether to read further. Therefore, it is critical to produce an accurate and clear abstract that highlights the major purpose of the study, basic procedures, main findings, and principal conclusions ( 12 ). Most abstracts have a word limit and can be either structured following IMRAD, or unstructured. The abstract needs to stand alone from the article and tell the most important parts of the scientific story up front.

Introduction . The purpose of the introduction is to explain how the study sought to create knowledge that is new and useful. The introduction section may often require only 3 paragraphs. First, describe the scope, nature, or magnitude of the problem being addressed. Next, clearly articulate why better understanding this problem is useful, including what is currently known and the limitations of relevant previous studies. Finally, explain what the present study adds to the knowledge base. Explicitly state whether data were collected in a unique way or obtained from a previously unstudied data set or population. Presenting both the usefulness and novelty of the approach taken will prepare the reader for the remaining sections of the article.

Methods . The methods section provides the information necessary to allow others, given the same data, to recreate the analysis. It describes exactly how data relevant to the study purpose were collected, organized, and analyzed. The methods section describes the process of conducting the study — from how the sample was selected to which statistical methods were used to analyze the data. Authors should clearly name, define, and describe each study variable. Some journals allow detailed methods to be included in an appendix or supplementary document. If the analysis involves a commonly used public health data set, such as the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System ( 13 ), general aspects of the data set can be provided to readers by using references. Because what was done is typically more important than who did it, use of the passive voice is often appropriate when describing methods. For example, “The study was a group randomized, controlled trial. A coin was tossed to select an intervention group and a control group.”

Results . The results section describes the main outcomes of the study or analysis but does not interpret the findings or place them in the context of previous research. It is important that the results be logically organized. Suggested organization strategies include presenting results pertaining to the entire population first, and then subgroup analyses, or presenting results according to increasing complexity of analysis, starting with demographic results before proceeding to univariate and multivariate analyses. Authors wishing to draw special attention to novel or unexpected results can present them first.

One strategy for writing the results section is to start by first drafting the figures and tables. Figures, which typically show trends or relationships, and tables, which show specific data points, should each support a main outcome of the study. Identify the figures and tables that best describe the findings and relate to the study’s purpose, and then develop 1 to 2 sentences summarizing each one. Data not relevant to the study purpose may be excluded, summarized briefly in the text, or included in supplemental data sets. When finalizing figures, ensure that axes are labeled and that readers can understand figures without having to refer to accompanying text.

Discussion . In the discussion section, authors interpret the results of their study within the context of both the related literature and the specific scientific gap the study was intended to fill. The discussion does not introduce results that were not presented in the results section. One way authors can focus their discussion is to limit this section to 4 paragraphs: start by reinforcing the study’s take-home message(s), contextualize key results within the relevant literature, state the study limitations, and lastly, make recommendations for further research or policy and practice changes. Authors can support assertions made in the discussion with either their own findings or by referencing related research. By interpreting their own study results and comparing them to others in the literature, authors can emphasize findings that are unique, useful, and relevant. Present study limitations clearly and without apology. Finally, state the implications of the study and provide recommendations or next steps, for example, further research into remaining gaps or changes to practice or policy. Statements or recommendations regarding policy may use the passive voice, especially in instances where the action to be taken is more important than who will implement the action.

Beginning the Writing Process

The process of writing a scientific article occurs before, during, and after conducting the study or analyses. Conducting a literature review is crucial to confirm the existence of the evidence gap that the planned analysis seeks to fill. Because literature searches are often part of applying for research funding or developing a study protocol, the citations used in the grant application or study proposal can also be used in subsequent manuscripts. Full-text databases such as PubMed Central ( 14 ), NIH RePORT ( 15 ), and CDC Stacks ( 16 ) can be useful when performing literature reviews. Authors should familiarize themselves with databases that are accessible through their institution and any assistance that may be available from reference librarians or interlibrary loan systems. Using citation management software is one way to establish and maintain a working reference list. Authors should clearly understand the distinction between primary and secondary references, and ensure that they are knowledgeable about the content of any primary or secondary reference that they cite.

Review of the literature may continue while organizing the material and writing begins. One way to organize material is to create an outline for the paper. Another way is to begin drafting small sections of the article such as the introduction. Starting a preliminary draft forces authors to establish the scope of their analysis and clearly articulate what is new and novel about the study. Furthermore, using information from the study protocol or proposal allows authors to draft the methods and part of the results sections while the study is in progress. Planning potential data comparisons or drafting “table shells” will help to ensure that the study team has collected all the necessary data. Drafting these preliminary sections early during the writing process and seeking feedback from co-authors and colleagues may help authors avoid potential pitfalls, including misunderstandings about study objectives.

The next step is to conduct the study or analyses and use the resulting data to fill in the draft table shells. The initial results will most likely require secondary analyses, that is, exploring the data in ways in addition to those originally planned. Authors should ensure that they regularly update their methods section to describe all changes to data analysis.

After completing table shells, authors should summarize the key finding of each table or figure in a sentence or two. Presenting preliminary results at meetings, conferences, and internal seminars is an established way to solicit feedback. Authors should pay close attention to questions asked by the audience, treating them as an informal opportunity for peer review. On the basis of the questions and feedback received, authors can incorporate revisions and improvements into subsequent drafts of the manuscript.

The relevant literature should be revisited periodically while writing to ensure knowledge of the most recent publications about the manuscript topic. Authors should focus on content and key message during the process of writing the first draft and should not spend too much time on issues of grammar or style. Drafts, or portions of drafts, should be shared frequently with trusted colleagues. Their recommendations should be reviewed and incorporated when they will improve the manuscript’s overall clarity.

For most authors, revising drafts of the manuscript will be the most time-consuming task involved in writing a paper. By regularly checking in with coauthors and colleagues, authors can adopt a systematic approach to rewriting. When the author has completed a draft of the manuscript, he or she should revisit the key take-home message to ensure that it still matches the final data and analysis. At this point, final comments and approval of the manuscript by coauthors can be sought.

Authors should then seek to identify journals most likely to be interested in considering the study for publication. Initial questions to consider when selecting a journal include:

  • Which audience is most interested in the paper’s message?
  • Would clinicians, public health practitioners, policy makers, scientists, or a broader audience find this useful in their field or practice?
  • Do colleagues have prior experience submitting a manuscript to this journal?
  • Is the journal indexed and peer-reviewed?
  • Is the journal subscription or open-access and are there any processing fees?
  • How competitive is the journal?

Authors should seek to balance the desire to be published in a top-tier journal (eg, Journal of the American Medical Association, BMJ, or Lancet) against the statistical likelihood of rejection. Submitting the paper initially to a journal more focused on the paper’s target audience may result in a greater chance of acceptance, as well as more timely dissemination of findings that can be translated into practice. Most of the 50 to 75 manuscripts published each week by authors from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are published in specialty and subspecialty journals, rather than in top-tier journals ( 17 ).

The target journal’s website will include author guidelines, which will contain specific information about format requirements (eg, font, line spacing, section order, reference style and limit, table and figure formatting), authorship criteria, article types, and word limits for articles and abstracts.

We recommend returning to the previously drafted abstract and ensuring that it complies with the journal’s format and word limit. Authors should also verify that any changes made to the methods or results sections during the article’s drafting are reflected in the final version of the abstract. The abstract should not be written hurriedly just before submitting the manuscript; it is often apparent to editors and reviewers when this has happened. A cover letter to accompany the submission should be drafted; new and useful findings and the key message should be included.

Before submitting the manuscript and cover letter, authors should perform a final check to ensure that their paper complies with all journal requirements. Journals may elect to reject certain submissions on the basis of review of the abstract, or may send them to peer reviewers (typically 2 or 3) for consultation. Occasionally, on the basis of peer reviews, the journal will request only minor changes before accepting the paper for publication. Much more frequently, authors will receive a request to revise and resubmit their manuscript, taking into account peer review comments. Authors should recognize that while revise-and-resubmit requests may state that the manuscript is not acceptable in its current form, this does not constitute a rejection of the article. Authors have several options in responding to peer review comments:

  • Performing additional analyses and updating the article appropriately
  • Declining to perform additional analyses, but providing an explanation (eg, because the requested analysis goes beyond the scope of the article)
  • Providing updated references
  • Acknowledging reviewer comments that are simply comments without making changes

In addition to submitting a revised manuscript, authors should include a cover letter in which they list peer reviewer comments, along with the revisions they have made to the manuscript and their reply to the comment. The tone of such letters should be thankful and polite, but authors should make clear areas of disagreement with peer reviewers, and explain why they disagree. During the peer review process, authors should continue to consult with colleagues, especially ones who have more experience with the specific journal or with the peer review process.

There is no secret to successful scientific writing and publishing. By adopting a systematic approach and by regularly seeking feedback from trusted colleagues throughout the study, writing, and article submission process, authors can increase their likelihood of not only publishing original research articles of high quality but also becoming more scientifically productive overall.

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge PCD ’s former Associate Editor, Richard A. Goodman, MD, MPH, who, while serving as Editor in Chief of CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report Series, initiated a curriculum on scientific writing for training CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service Officers and other CDC public health professionals, and with whom the senior author of this article (P.Z.S.) collaborated in expanding training methods and contents, some of which are contained in this article. The authors acknowledge Juan Carlos Zevallos, MD, for his thoughtful critique and careful editing of previous Successful Scientific Writing materials. We also thank Shira Eisenberg for editorial assistance with the manuscript. This publication was supported by the Cooperative Agreement no. 1U360E000002 from CDC and the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health. The findings and conclusions of this article do not necessarily represent the official views of CDC or the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health. Names of journals and citation databases are provided for identification purposes only and do not constitute any endorsement by CDC.

The opinions expressed by authors contributing to this journal do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Public Health Service, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the authors' affiliated institutions.

Suggested citation for this article: Iskander JK, Wolicki SB, Leeb RT, Siegel PZ. Successful Scientific Writing and Publishing: A Step-by-Step Approach. Prev Chronic Dis 2018;15:180085. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5888/pcd15.180085 .

  • Science Writing vs. Scientific Writing

by admin | Apr 1, 2020 | Reviews | 0 comments

scientific and technical writing vs research

There are many types of writing in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) community which range from formulas to academic publishing. The two main styles of writing are technical and plain language also known as scientific and science writing. So, what’s the difference between the two types of writing and why does it matter?

The main difference is the style, purpose and audience. It’s important to understand the difference because you want to make sure the message being conveyed is clearly understood by the target audience.

Scientific writing 

Purpose: To convey scientific information in a clear and concise format

Style: Technical language

Audience: Industry peers, academics, scientific journals

Science writing

Purpose: To convey scientific or technical terms in an easier to understand way

Style: Plain language

Audience: General public, policy makers, non-technical audience, media

Scientific Writing vs. Science Writing Example

Scientific Writing:

“The longer timeframe provided by this study also provides for increased constraint on the parameters used in semi-empirical models of sea level rise. That increased constraint points toward projected sea level rise lying at or near the upper range of current projections, more than a meter by the end of this century under business-as-usual carbon emissions.”

Science Writing:

“A group of colleagues have succeeded in producing the first continuous proxy record of sea level for the past 2000 years. According to this reconstruction, 20th-Century sea-level rise on the U.S. Atlantic coast is faster than at any time in the past two millennia.”

How can we help with your science writing skills? 

The most important aspect of any type of writing is that your audience understands your concept. CCSC-CCCS can help scientists ensure their research is being understood by helping them develop their message for their target audience.

References:

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/06/13/1015619108.abstract

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/should-technical-science-journals-have-plain-language-translation/2011/06/22/AGhiY8fH_blog.html

Recent Posts

  • What is Science Writing? The Essentials Guide to Communicating Science
  • Communication Training and Science: Making Sure the Right Results Are Heard
  • Reviews Test Post 3
  • Reviews Test Post 2
  • February 2020

Share This Post

This page has been archived and is no longer updated

Technical Writing and Editing

Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510), Madonna of the Magnificat (portion), 1481–1485. Do you love to write or edit and love biology? There are a number of career options that allow you to combine these two passions.

First, ask yourself whether you love scientific writing or love scientific editing. Some people prefer the creativity that comes with writing, telling a story and figuring out the best way to let it unfold. Others love the puzzle-solving aspects of editing that makes a story or set of stories fit together well. It is important to know which you prefer. A person who loves writing may not be happy in an editorial position, and vice versa.

  • Scientific Writing: Lewis Chang
  • Scientific Editing: Catherine Goodman
  • Scientific Editing: Wendy Grus
  • Science Administration: Elizabeth Prescott

If you love telling stories, you might be interested in a career in science journalism, freelance science writing, or even fundraising for research. Each of these professions involves translating research into a story that the audience can understand. The audience might be, for example, a reader of a technology trade magazine, an interested lay person, or a foundation that your institution is soliciting for funding. A science journalist or fundraising position affiliated with a company or institution will be more secure than a freelance position. I know an excellent freelance writer who did very well in the technology boom of the 1990s, but who has struggled since then to find consistent work. On the other hand, she loves the freedom that she has in her work.

The changes in journalism over the past several years as a result of the Internet is affecting science writing as well. Some jobs, particularly those for the science pages of newspapers, have disappeared; on the other hand, there have been new jobs created through the rise of websites devoted exclusively to reporting research and business developments, such as Xconomy.com. It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next several years.

With an ever-increasing need for more funds to do research, writing proposals to foundations or grant writing for federal funds tends to be a very stable and rewarding profession. Telling a story about a scientist's research in a way that captures the attention of a foundation can also be a creative endeavor.

Editing and Technical Writing

  • American Medical Writers Association
  • National Association of Science Writers
  • Science Communication Program, UC-Santa Cruz
  • AAAS Mass Media Fellowships
  • NCI Health Communications Internship Program

Do you enjoy reading what someone else has written and figuring out how to say it better? Editors often love to make writing more clear and concise, or make suggestions for how to make a story stronger or more interesting. If editing is your passion, there are several careers that can match your interests. An increasing number of research groups and departments are employing scientific editors to help them be more successful, because good editing of scientific manuscripts and grants can help a scientist get the manuscript accepted for publication, or increase the chances of successfully obtaining funds.

Some professions combine both writing and editing. Editors at scientific journals or technical magazines, for example, frequently edit submissions and write their own reviews, analyses, and features.

This page appears in the following eBook

Topic rooms within Career Planning

Topic Rooms

Within this Subject (45)

  • Self-Evaluation (3)
  • Career Options (7)
  • Building Experience (3)
  • Additional Training (5)
  • Interviews (27)

Other Topic Rooms

  • Gene Inheritance and Transmission
  • Gene Expression and Regulation
  • Nucleic Acid Structure and Function
  • Chromosomes and Cytogenetics
  • Evolutionary Genetics
  • Population and Quantitative Genetics
  • Genes and Disease
  • Genetics and Society
  • Cell Origins and Metabolism
  • Proteins and Gene Expression
  • Subcellular Compartments
  • Cell Communication
  • Cell Cycle and Cell Division

ScholarCast

© 2014 Nature Education

  • Press Room |
  • Terms of Use |
  • Privacy Notice |

Send

Visual Browse

Library homepage

  • school Campus Bookshelves
  • menu_book Bookshelves
  • perm_media Learning Objects
  • login Login
  • how_to_reg Request Instructor Account
  • hub Instructor Commons
  • Download Page (PDF)
  • Download Full Book (PDF)
  • Periodic Table
  • Physics Constants
  • Scientific Calculator
  • Reference & Cite
  • Tools expand_more
  • Readability

selected template will load here

This action is not available.

Humanities LibreTexts

2.3: Technical Writing Research and Writing Process

  • Last updated
  • Save as PDF
  • Page ID 50687

  • Adam Rex Pope
  • University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

Technical Writing Research and Writing Process

Below, I’ll be discussing what I see as seven phases of the writing process for technical writing. I use the term phases because these are not really steps, but instead ways of viewing the project that you go through. In general, you go through these phases in order. However, you may jump back to the mindset of one phase or another without ever really leaving your current phase. (You might question purpose, for example, while identifying document goals). Or, you might decide once you reach a certain phase that you need to take what you’ve learned and revert to a previous phase or even the first phase. That might sound horrifying, but some of the best writing comes from those types of responsible decisions. Trust me, if you think it might be best to start over and you don’t, someone else is going to eventually see your text and likely come to the exact same conclusion.

Writing Project Phases

Phase 1: Coming to a Purpose

The first phase of a writing task is often coming to a purpose. Sometimes this phase, like all of the phases, can take a long time. Other times, you can get through the entire timeline in the space of a minute or two (such as when you’re writing a work email).

What usually controls the direct of the first phase is the origin of your writing task—is this something you want to do or is this something you’ve been asked to do. If you’re being asked to do something, you have much less control over the purpose that you’re carrying out. If you’re doing something on your own, you’re going to be able to craft purpose with a bit more control.

Identifying Your Purpose

• What am I doing?

• Who am I doing it for?

• How will they use it?

• What will it be about?

• When will it be used?

• Why am I being asked to do this?

The answer to the above questions will give you a sense of your purpose. You don’t always need to know all the answers to the above, and really you just want a sketch of the answers at this point. But, you need to know the general gist of each of these questions to have a clear idea of purpose. Once you’ve figured these questions out, you should have a clear idea of what you will be doing and who you will be doing it for.

For an example, you might be asked to write a white paper on a new service your company is creating. Below, you’ll find the rundown for this project via the questions on purpose:

What: I am drafting a white paper, an informational and persuasive text designed to education folks enough to know why they should want a service.

Who: I am doing this work for my immediate supervisor, but really this is a service to the entire company and getting new clients helps us keep the doors open.

How: The reader should use this paper to understand our service and why it is valuable and worth having.

What: It will be about our new service that provides on-site minor medical care for construction firms.

When: It will be used in the early part of the sales process. It may be used as a cold-call tool.

Why: I am a technical writer and familiar with the program and our sales process, so I am being asked to write this document.

Notice in the example above, most of what I’m writing is coming from the writer’s own understanding of things. Understanding your purpose, ideally, shouldn’t involve a ton of research. You just need to know the parameters of your project and what is going to be required and what will be recognized as success. These are primarily internal metrics, not external ones. Once you know these things, you can move on to the real work of research in Phase 2.

Phase 2a: Identifying Research Goals

In Phase 2, we move away from the internal understanding of the project we started with in Phase 1 and expand to understand the project from outside perspectives. We’ll also carry out research in this phase, so we’ll really be going past simply identifying. In doing all of this, we’ll be trying to figure out what we need to know to be effective writers in the situation we’re currently in. This phase is a long one, but it is one of the most important steps in good technical writing!

To identify research goals, we need to know what we don’t know. I won’t go into the full Donald Rumsfeld quote on known-knowns and known-unknowns, but we do need to get a sense of what we need to find out. This is a fairly natural course of events if you think about it—what would be the purpose of research if we already knew what we were going to find out?

To help out in identifying what we need to find out, I like to work through a series of questions. (You may be noticing a pattern at this point). Below, you’ll find the first set of questions I often ask:

Identifying Research Goals

• Who is going to be the primary user of this text?

• Who might they consult when reading this text?

• Who might be interested in this text for secondary reasons?

• What laws and regulations will govern this text?

• Who in my organization is going to control the release of this text?

• What will they expect?

In each of the above questions, we’re trying to get at the question of who. We need to figure out the identity of the users of our documents, and we need to know who is going to be assisting them in that use. At first, that might seem like an odd question, but if you examine your own use of important documents as well as workplace practices, it makes more sense.

When you use an important document, you often ask folks that know more about specific parts of that text for assistance. For example, if you’re looking over an application for a college, you might ask someone who has applied successfully to that college or another college for assistance in a particularly tricky part. If you’re in a business situation and you are reviewing a bid for a new service, you might ask one of your employees or coworkers with expertise in a particular part of the package you don’t understand or know much about. In each case, these consultants are not the primary user, but they’re using the text nonetheless.

Once you’ve identified consultants and users, you’re going to want to at least consider who might run into this text for secondary reasons. This might be someone who is a competitor—they want to see your text so they can make sure they’re staying competitive with your offerings. It might be a news organization that wants to report on your business practices. It might even be an advocacy group that has decided you are their enemy! (For example, you might be building a new shopping development near a historic neighborhood full of folks who simply don’t want your traffic in their streets).

The next who you want to identify is the governmental who—which federal, state, and international laws might govern this text? What government agencies might you need to interact with? What will the expect? This question doesn’t always come into play, but when it comes into play, it can be of the utmost importance. There is nothing quiet like running afoul of a governmental agency’s paperwork demands.

Finally, you’re going to want to know who in your organization is going to control this text’s release. This might be the person that tasked you with the purpose you’re operating under. This might be the legal department. What matters is that you know who they are and what they want. If you’ve done your homework in assessing Purpose, this may well be the easiest bit of research.

Phase 2b: Researching Context

Once you’ve identified all of the relevant who answers, you’ll need one more pass to do some actual research. Yep, it’s time for another list of questions. For each of your who’s, you’ll need to answer the following questions:

Research Context

• What does this user need from the text?

• What will be this user’s attitude towards my text?

• What will this user appreciate in my text?

• How will this user’s political situation impact their interaction with my text?

In each question, we’re going to be trying to find out what exactly we need to know when we’re doing our writing of the text. With the question on need, we’re trying to figure out what use is going to look like for an individual user. With the question on attitude, we’re trying to ascertain how we need to present the information to get a good response. With the question of appreciation, we need to know what will win over a particular user. With the idea of politics, we need to know the internal stakes for each user when working with our text. (Note: when we discuss politics in this text, we’re almost always talking about politics in the general sense—what groups exist and how will they respond to our choices? We usually aren’t talking about political parties and elections and the like.)

These questions likely make more sense when they’re given some context. Below you’ll find an example of answering each one of these questions for a primary user in our example of the service white paper:

Need: The user will need to know what we offer, how the service is carried out, what the cost of the service will be, the benefits of the service for their business, and the competitive advantage the service will offer them.

Attitude: As this will be drafted as a cold-call document, it will likely be met with some skepticism. In order to get past this, we’ll need to make the document quite informative for the users and make sure it doesn’t come across as a hard sell from page one.

Appreciation: The users will appreciate timely and up-to-date research on industry best practices. Anything we can do to make the reader feel like they’ve got a better appreciation of what is current and cutting edge in the business will be advantageous. If we can do this without coming across as someone after a sale at all costs, we’ll likely get a good response, even if we don’t get a sale for this service at this time. Building a solid relationship matters.

Politics: We will be sending these documents to the owners of the companies we want to address. There will be generally fewer political hang ups over this because they will be the final decision maker. However, there may be some political issues that arise if the employer already has a service provider for healthcare. Additionally, there could be internal pressure from employees or external pressure from governmental agencies to provide better healthcare for employees on the job site, so this may be something we can take advantage of.

For each of your users, you’ll want to answer questions just like the example above. As you can see, hopefully, these questions are designed to push you to find out information and to put that information on the page. You can also put these questions on a whiteboard for discussion purposes. Often having generative questions can make group writing more effective because it gives you a way to get the expertise out of each member’s head and into the shared discussion space.

Gathering Research on Users and Context

Before we move further into the phases, we should pause to note that the questions above on the context we’re researching are fundamentally different than the internal-facing questions from Phase 1. In Phase 1, we could easily answer questions because they were from our own situation and our own circumstances. In Phase 2, especially in 2b, we’re looking at other people’s circumstances—that’s a totally different animal. You can’t just wing it when you’re answering questions about other people because you aren’t other people. You’re you.

To gather information on other people, you need to actually do some research. Some of this research can be research from academic sources and trade publications. Some of it can be from the experiences you’ve had as well as the experience of others you might be writing with. But, all of that is no substitute for actually interacting with the folks you’re going to be writing with!

In the back of this text, you’ll find several smaller chapters on research methods. You’ll likely need to consult at least one or two of these methods to gather information on the context of your audience/ users. To start off, interviews might be a useful place to begin if you have access to the folks you will be writing for. Read through the various approaches’ introductions and you’ll get a feel for which might fit your situation best.

After you’ve carried out your research, you’ll be in a much better place to make decisions about your audience and writing for them. You’ll be able to ask yourself questions and then have data to answer them instead of relying on suppositions, anecdotes, and hunches.

Section Break - Purpose, Goals, and Context

  • When you write a paper in a course, how do you assess the purpose of the assignment? What helps you in this process? What impedes you?
  • What documents can you think of that, in your mind, represent a firm understanding of purpose but a poor understanding of context? Why?
  • Create two short texts, each with the same purpose, but designed with different contexts. They might be a tweet or an email body message or a text. How do they differ and why?

Phase 3a: Identifying Document Goals

Once you’ve identified your research goals and done some research, you’ll be ready to move on to the next phase of the writing process, the phase where we turn from users and audience to the structural makeup of our text.

When we talk about document goals, you may be tempted to conflate that with coming to a purpose in Phase 1. While they do sound similar, the focus in Phase 3 is on the actual document—the key features of the text and the expectations that readers will have for it. The difference here is that we’re looking at the ways that the actual document, its features and its structure and appearance, helps meet our purpose and satisfy the expectations of our audience. Again, they sound similar but have an altogether different focus.

Document goals come in a couple of forms, each with their own focus and point of view. Some goals are focused on the document’s genre—what kind of document is this supposed to be, and what does that kind of document look like? Others are focused on the way the document’s structure will be oriented to meet the purpose of the text and the audience’s needs and expectations. Taken together, all of these goals help us plan out the drafting of our text to make sure we’re as effective as possible in our writing efforts.

Identifying Document Goals

• What genre will the document be?

• What topics will the document need to cover/convey?

• What types of information will need to be highlighted?

• What accommodations will be needed?

Each of the questions for this phase focus on identifying key aspects of our text’s structure and content that will need to be researched to gain a clear understanding of what will be required. Some of this research can be internal, and some may be external.

Document Genre

For the question of document genre, you will need to look to your internal and external expectations. This may be a fairly simply step—your purpose may explicitly discuss what genre will be required. If not, you’ll need to do some primary research. Look for similar documents in the professional world that carry out the same goal as yours. What genre are the documents? Are they all the same? Are they different? Identify one genre that you feel would best fit your current goals, or make a mashup that meets your own internal goals.

One example might be the police procedural television show. In these shows, the audience follows along with police officers as they go about their daily work. Not all of these are framed the same way of course, and older shows like Dragnet maintain a focus just on the cases, whereas newer shows may focus more on the people doing the policing and their lives, sometimes even with some comedy added in with shows like Castle or Brooklyn 99. In each case, there are certain hallmarks that are echoed by each show that places the show within the procedural genre. That doesn’t mean that there are hard and fast rules that must be followed—genres change all the time—but, there are expectations that must be met or at least addressed.

Document genres work the same way. When you think about annual reports, tax returns, grant proposals, or even memos, each of these texts play by a certain set of genre rules and expectations. Often you can see similarities between the function of genre examples taken from any number of places, even if the specifics of how the genre works will be tailored to a specific audience and organization.

Fundamentally, document genres (and others really) represent an approach to working with a given text. A genre is the way that a textual problem has been solved. If the solution was effective, it was likely repeated. As time went by, the solution was tweaked to meet challenges the original approach didn’t address. The genre continues onward as a way to meet a challenge until it faces one that it simply can’t address. At that point the genre is either retired or fundamentally overhauled to meet the new situation.

To research genre, you should first look to your purpose. Is there an already present genre in your organization you’ve been asked to create a text within? If you already have a standard format for something like an annual report, use that. You should never go searching for a new genre or a new approach simply because you’re making a new text. Unless the genre is no longer solving the problem, keep it as-is. Otherwise, you spend valuable time you could be writing your document trying to come up with a new approach when none is needed.

If you don’t have an in-house genre, you need to create one. Look at example documents that are doing the same thing your document is doing. What structural choices are present? What kind of language is used (informal vs formal)? Take notes about all of this and sketch out your own model based on the examples. It will be a bit shaky on the first go, but that’s what happens anytime you create a new approach to a technical writing task. This is why versioning and revisions exist.

Topics and Audience

Once you’ve got an idea of genre, you need to think about the topics you need to cover. Look at the purpose of your text and look at your audience and their context. What will you need to cover in order to complete your purpose and satisfy your audience?

For example, if you’re being asked to write a series of instructions on how to upload video content to the web for grade schoolers, you will approach this much differently than if you were writing the same content for a retirement community looking to get their members more engaged with social media. In the first example, fundamental questions about video, the web, and social media wouldn’t need to be addressed. Kids get those things. However, the elderly members of the retirement community may not have a firm grasp of how the web works, how video hosting on the web works, and they may even distrust computers! With that said, both groups would likely benefit from a robust set of tips on privacy, so that isn’t to say each group is totally different.

Make a list of your topics and try to make a note next to each item explaining what you mean and why you think that topic needs to be included. You may think this level of documentation is silly (and it would be for something like a three-sentence email to arrange for your friend to meet you for lunch), but being able to look back and explain to your superiors why you’ve made the choices you did in a document based on research and evidence can be a powerful tool when your choices are called into question or someone wants to know why your work is so successful.

Thinking About Types of Information

We we ask about types of information, we’re really thinking about formatting. What types of information in your text will need to have custom formatting? Will there be keywords? Will there be warnings? Will there be cautions? Will there be movies and books listed? Will you be using non-standard characters a lot, such as names in Arabic or Japanese? Each of these questions is a formatting question.

You’ll want to make a list of each of the types of information that will have a special format. If you want to be exhaustive, you could even include numbers and symbols associated with chemical formulas or mathematical equations. The goal here is to have a handle on what will be represented in the text.

Once you have a list of these types of information, sketch out what your formatting for each will be briefly. Will caution be yellow? Will warnings be red? Will formulas be inline or separate from text? Sketch out those answers now. If you’re not sure, do some research. Look at how others have presented the same data in their texts. If you have an internal style guide, use it. If you have a normal way of doing this in your own organization, use that. Otherwise, do the research and make your notes!

Thinking about Accommodations

When we think about accommodations, we’re trying to identify alterations to the text that will be necessary to make sure our users will be able to use it without unnecessary burdens being placed on them. When we think about accommodations, you’ll be thinking about things like the following list:

• Do we have users with special color needs for color-coding?

• Do we have users that will access the text via a screen-reader that will require image captions?

• Do we have users that will need the text translated into another language?

• Do we have users that will need the text written to a specific reading level?

These questions and others will help you identify any accommodations you might need to make.

Your goal here is to make sure you know any sort of need that will be have to be addressed by your or your organization as you write. In some cases, you will have an office in the organization that handles this type of content. In the US, this type of content usually falls under Section 508 rules and regulations when dealing with government agencies. Other countries and organizations may differ in their approaches.

By approaching accommodations early in the writing process, you’ll be in a better position to ensure your text will serve its audience well, regardless of the way they’ll be reading it.

Phase 3b: Implementing Document Goals

Once we’ve identified document goals, we need to do some research and planning to get those goals ready to draft. We need to explicitly identify what genre means for us in this context, we need to connect our list of topics with a series of sections in the text, and we need to create a miniature style guide for any special information and accommodations that will be needed.

Genre Requirements for Drafting

First, we need to explicitly write down how the genre of our text will work. This usually involves two steps: identifying the specific sections that will be needed, and identifying the voice used in the text. For the specific sections, we’ll need to identify what sections are expected in our genre. Next, we’ll need to make sure we have a consistent voice throughout—this may be casual, formal, or something in between.

For example, if we’re going to be working on an annual report, there may be some expected sections that will be present. Now, we’re not getting to the point of topics and sub-topics here, but we need to know about major segments of the text. For an annual report, there may need to be a special executive summary that will be present. Knowing that needs to be in the text helps us plan our our writing task. There might also be an expectation of appendices with hard data included. Knowing that helps us make sure the document meets the expectations given by the genre.

When it comes to voice, we just need to make sure we know what voice we’re using. This can be the start of our mini style guide. Simply describe the voice and how it should work. Will it be formal with no contractions? Will it be informal with a lot of “you” and other direct address use? Will it be silly? Jot down your goals and then use this later as a rubric for your own writing. This type of work is especially useful when you’re working in a team environment where several writers need to use the same voice to write sections that will be combined into one larger document.

Setting up Topics and Sections

Next, you’ll want to connect your topics that need to be covered with specific sections for the document. You’ll want to sketch out the major sections and then map your content to each area. You’ll rely on your research on the audience as well as your purpose here to craft a table of contents for your text.

This will be a rough outline of the text and may look something like the list below:

I. Introduction

i. Salutation to readers (familiar customer for 10 years)

ii. Background on project (reworking of a project by other contractor

iii. Description of rest of text

II.Project Approach

i. Previous work (Current CEO ordered this work)

ii. Current method (Focus on environmental factors)

III. Project Staff

i. Leadership structure (Emphasize experience)

ii. Team member bios (Structure around leads)

IV. Project Timeline

i. Overall timeline (Focus on Earth Day deadline)

ii. Possible delays and challenges (Highlight variables)

V. Goals and Outcomes

i. Overall project goals (Connect with ongoing relationship and with ongoing relationship and environment)

ii. Rubric for measuring success (Use contract for detailed specifics)

VI. Closing (Personal thanks and contact information)

In the above example, I’ve sketched out a potential structure for a project report that might be given to a client at the outset of the project, presenting the reader with a simplified and accessible version of the existing technical plans that emphasizes the why of what will be going on. In each case in parenthesis are some notes that will be useful regarding the audience and the writing. For example, when talking about previous work, there is a note that the current CEO ordered the infrastructure being replaced. Knowing this, we would want to be rather gentle with our critiques of what is currently being done—there is no reason to throw our client under the bus, especially when that can make the boss look bad to an entire organization.

In your own work, you may want to follow a structure like the above, or you might try something altogether different. What matters is that you come up with a structure for the text that covers all the content you’ve identified as necessary while creating sections that make sense within the genre you’re drafting, sections that will help this text meet your stated purpose. We’re trying to put all the stuff we now know into a plan that we can use for the actual writing work ahead of us.

Style and Accommodations

Last, you’ll want to come up with a mini style guide addition that covers any content that needs special formatting or accommodation. A style guide for our purposes is really just a list of things that should be done in the document to maintain consistency. It doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does need to be clear and accessible those doing writing and editing. We’ll get into this in much more detail later when we talk about project management in a later chapter.

Think about the style guide as the place you go to answer any questions regarding how something should look. When someone is writing a warning, the style guide should give them instructions on how that should be formatted. When someone is including an image, the style guide should list any special instructions for accommodations. The text will work as a reference for your writing, and a living one at that.

Style guides can and do grow over time. Anytime you have to spend more than a moment deciding what something should look like, make a new entry in your style guide. By doing this consistently, you’ll make sure you have a record of the choices you’re making and an explanation of those choices. In a group situation, this allows you to hash out your approach once and then maintain it consistently across multiple authors and perhaps even multiple documents. In the world of coding, you often see a similar documentation alongside code, but also within code in the form of explanatory comments. In all of the situations above, you’re trying to remain consistent and help future you remember what past you wanted done.

The style guide can be fairly simple, as you see in the below example:

Style Guide for Green Infrastructure Project

Voice: The overall voice of this document should be formal, though contractions will be allowed. Formal titles, names, and address should be used throughout

Major Sections: Each major section should be in Impact font, 14pt, bold. The color for each major section should be green (color code should be decided by end of project)

Sub-Sections: Sub-sections should have titles in 12pt Times New Roman and should use italics. The color should be standard black.

Images: All images should include descriptive captions that will be screen-reader accessible.

Revision Log for Style Guide:

Version 1.0 Original style guide added

Version 1.1 Image caption guidelines stipulated to accommodate screen readers as client has several members of team that will be using these devices.

Again, the style guide doesn’t have to be too terribly complicated, but it should be a place you can go to make sure you’re addressing document issues consistently throughout your writing. Making a decision once and then referring back to it makes life simpler.

Section Break - Document Goals and Structure

  • What is your favorite genre of television? What do you like about that genre, and how do you identify it? What boundaries can be broken? What boundaries do you consider to be firm?
  • Pick a genre of text like a report or a memo. Find as many examples as you can within ten minutes of searching online. Quickly catalog the examples. What do the extremes look like?
  • Find a style guide online. What types of information does the style guide contain? Why do you think it is there?

Phase 4: Drafting

Though you might have wondered if we’d ever get here, we’re now at the phase of writing where they actual document comes into shape—drafting. The drafting phase is the most important phase in that this phase actually creates your text, but it can only be successful if it is built upon a firm foundation of research from the previous phases. (And yes, this is even true of short emails with an abbreviated version of the process).

When drafting, you’ll be taking your style guide and section outline and fleshing out the content you’ll be creating. In each section, you’ll want to draft a text based on your guidelines and your audience research. When you wonder how to approach a particular subject, think back to your research on audience and purpose and genre. Any choices you make should be, whenever possible, grounded in research and tied to your users.

When drafting, I find it is often helpful to skip the introduction of your text and to move directly into the body. An introduction is designed to introduce a text, but that is fairly difficult if no text exists. By skipping your introduction and moving into your body you are able to get going on content you can actually create without needing to know the entire document’s content. Once you’ve finished the text, go back and introduce it. It may seem counter-intuitive, but it helps quite a bit.

As you go, think a bit about how you’re saving your text and how it is accessible. You’ll likely want to have at least one backup of your text, and you may even want to save versions as you go. This will allow you to revert to an older copy or an earlier point in the process if you realize you’ve gone in the wrong direction or realize an earlier draft of a section was better than the current one. Saving your text can also be useful when accidents happen. If you lose the device with your text, accidentally delete your current draft, or have a file that gets corrupted, backups make things much less stressful.

Collaborative Drafting

You’ll also want to think about making your text accessible to any collaborators. I won’t go through the trouble of advocating for any particular type of solution to share with your collaborators—these services change and morph all the time. But, I will say that it is ideal to use some platform that hosts files with synchronized updates when you’re doing a lot of work on the same document at once.

If you and your team need to be in the same text at the same time, use a platform that will host the file natively—a platform that lets you edit in browser in real time. If you just need to have the files available, you can use different options that will sync up as you need them to.

Above all, don’t use email! Nothing in life is worse than trying to reconcile multiple files and multiple versions of a text into a final document from a chain of emails. Emailing files leads to poor communication in highly collaborative texts. If you’re editing, it’s not a big deal. If you’re actively drafting, it can ruin your text, or at least your life for the duration of the project.

Finally, as you draft collaboratively, think about voice and tone. Make sure you’ve all got the same supporting documentation to draw on. Make sure that you all have an idea of what the text is supposed to sound like and how it is supposed to relate to the audience and subject. Life is not fun when you get a text with two to four authors and each author has written with a different tone and vocabulary. At the end of that process you’re either rewriting the word choices or putting together a series of texts that simply don’t belong together. Neither is fun. Create a style guide. Use the style guide. Love the style guide.

Phase 5: Editing and Revision

Alright, so you’ve finished your text. Congratulations. Next, you need to make some decisions based on your goals, timeline, and resources. You may wonder why editing comes first as you gaze at this list, as editing is normally treated as a secondary/final concern—you don’t edit something you are going to revise heavily. It all comes down to the decision you’ll make based on the three topics I mentioned at the start of this paragraph: goals, timeline, and resources.

In some cases, you will want to immediately jump into editing a text when it is finished. Why? Your goal may be to get the text out the door quickly and to respond to a pressing request. This would be a useful workflow if you’re writing an email reply to an important client or member of your organization. You need to get information back quickly in this case, so editing immediately makes sense. You aren’t going to spend too much time on this text because, frankly, it isn’t a major document.

Think about the level of importance of your text—is your goal a simple response or a durable document that will withstand continued scrutiny and use. Some documents just aren’t worth as much time as others. That may feel a bit sacrilegious in a writing course, but it is true. If I’m texting someone a quick reply, it is nowhere near as important as a formal assessment document for a graduate program I might be writing the same day. As such, I should set my goals accordingly.

Another item to consider is the timeline you need to meet. Sometimes, you simply don’t have a lot of time. In those cases, you may need to jump directly into editing. In those types of situations, I recommend focusing much of your time on the first two pages. Most readers are going to set their mental image of your in the first few pages; if you have a ton of errors in that space, they are not going to like you very much. However, if your first two pages (or first page even) are immaculate, then you’re going to get a less critical reader that will forgive more later in the text. In short, you don’t want to trip the “gotcha” response in your reader. If you start out with tons of errors, then it almost becomes a game to find more. If you start out flawlessly, the text becomes a narrative rather than something to be read critically while looking for errors.

In situations where you have ample amounts of time, do not edit first. To do so would be a colossal waste of resources and time. Editing is hard work and it takes a lot of focus and time. You don’t want to spend an hour editing three pages that get deleted from the final text or entirely rewritten after testing. If you have more time than a few moments, save editing for last!

A final consideration is resources. You may note that in the middle of the next section is a testing phase. Testing is an ideal step in any technical document that will be used. There is almost always a gap between what happens in the writer’s head and what happens when the text is used. Sometimes that is a gap that has been created because the author is so familiar with a process they skipped a step. Sometimes it is simply a mismatch in terminology between an interface and a document. In any case, testing is very useful. But, it is not always something you have resources for.

Testing really can run a spectrum, something we’ll talk about later and in the final segment of this text with research method, but sometimes there just aren’t any resources to carry out testing. That may be because of budgets or timelines, but it can also be due to institutional views of the writing process. Some organizations simply don’t have testing on their radar as something that is done in technical writing.

In cases where testing is not feasible, go through the text as closely as you can. Think about how accurate the text will be for its intended use. Read the text aloud if at all possible—this catches more errors than you’d realize because of the way we read texts of our own creation. Once this is done, move along to revision or editing, depending on your timeline and goals.

Phase 5a: Editing

Editing, as we discussed previously, is going to be your last phase in virtually any writing context. Even when you briefly look over a text before you send it, you are in essence editing. But, it comes first in this list because many times when you are writing you will simply stop here. There won’t be time or need for testing or revision. And, as we discussed—that is okay.

When we talk about editing, we usually think about two types of editing—copyediting and comprehensive editing. In some situations, you’ll just do copyediting. In other cases, you’ll be doing comprehensive editing that goes much further. Think about your goals, timeline, and resources when you make this choice.

Copyediting

Copyediting is simply looking for issues in the text related to grammar, structure, and content. Does the text do what is says it will? Do the sections come in the correct order? Are terms used consistently? Is structure consistent? Is the grammar okay? Is the spelling consistent and regionally-situated?

In copyediting, you are looking at the text as a finalized document that needs some checking on the textual level. In a fast-paced environment, this is a quick glance. In a slow-paced environment, this may extend to checking terms in a style guide for consistency with institutional norms and spellings. (For example, if you have British and American clients, you need to standardize color or colour). As in everything, think about your goals, timeline, and resources.

When carrying out copyediting, you want to ask the following questions of the document before assessing the document via these questions’ answers:

Copyediting Question

• What does the document say it does?

• What sections does the document say it contains?

• What is the voice of the document?

• How is the first section formatted?

Once you have these answers, you can then assess the text. I recommend you move through the questions in the order listed above using the answers you’ve generated as a standard for testing.

For example, if the document says it will teach you how to true a bicycle wheel, does it actually do that? Can you understand the process by reading through the text? If not, you need to revise accordingly. In cases where you are the author, this is simple. In cases where you are simply an editor, pass it back to the author with instructions on what to add.

As another example, the text might reference an appendix that includes a conversion chart for converting dosing from milliliters to teaspoons. Does the text actually have that appendix? If it doesn’t, that calls for revision as well. (Or maybe just locating the lost file).

With something like voice or formatting or term use, you want to go by the start of the text versus the rest. (This is based on the assumption the author at least got the first bit the way they intended—that isn’t always true, but it can be a good strategy). If the document starts incredibly formal and then swaps randomly in one section to being informal, that requires revision. If the text has blue headings for the first half, it doesn’t need to suddenly swap to green with no reason,. The same goes for calling a process by one name and then swapping to another. In technical writing, there is no real need for creative re-naming. Consistency and intelligibility are more important than keeping things fresh and new.

Comprehensive Editing

Comprehensive editing is much more involved than copyediting—make sure you have time and resources and it meets your goals. In addition, make sure you do the comprehensive work before you copyedit! Just like with editing as a whole, copyediting is listed first because many times that will be where you stop due to limits in time, resources, or a mismatch of goals with the process.

Instead of looking at the details, comprehensive editing looks at the big picture. Does the document stand together? Does the order of the text make sense? Is the correct audience being targeted here? Should the current sections stay in the text, or should something be added or removed? All of these questions are fair game!

With comprehensive editing, you want to query the document based on the purpose and audience.

This can be as wide ranging or as narrow as you have time/desire for. The following questions can be useful in this process:

Comprehensive Editing Questions

• Who is the primary audience?

• How will their context impact their reading of the text?

• Who might be a consulting audience?

• What aspects of the text might need to be tailored to them?

• What is the purpose of this text?

• How does this text fit with other texts in the organization/genre?

Once you have these answers, you can start to comprehensively edit the text. Using these answers, you have a rubric for grading the text’s content, formatting, and style.

To narrow comprehensive editing to something that fits within this sub-section of the book—I teach an entire course on editing—you can follow the following steps as you go through a comprehensive editing:

  • Check to make sure the text has everything the audience is going to need. If the audience is made up of novices, make sure the text has ample explanation of technical terms. If the audience may need additional resources that will be hard to fine, provide them for the audience
  • Make sure the text is appropriately ordered to carry out the task at hand. Sometimes when we write texts, we don’t always write in the best order for use. Think about the way the text develops. Does it build from one section to another? Does one section later in the text need to be earlier for a section to make sense? If so, consider moving it!
  • Analyze the voice of the text—does it make sense for the subject and audience? Think about who your audience is and what they will think about your subject. Is the choice of voice appropriate? If you have a skeptical audience, you likely don’t want to have a super-excited voice that doesn’t critically engage with your subject matter. On the other hand, if your audience already agrees with you fully, it wouldn’t make sense to be skeptical of everything.
  • If the text has multiple types of users, make sure they can stay in their lanes. Sometimes, a text will have a variety of users that will have different skill levels. In those cases, you need to be wary of how the text is formatted for their use. For example, if you have expert users that know terms and processes, you won’t want to label each and every step and process—your expert users will get exasperated quickly. Instead, think about how you can signal that content is for new users. With instructions, you might have a bold, simple instruction for each step of a process that caters to advanced users or those referencing the text. Under that bold text, you can include normal formatting in paragraph form or just a few sentences that explains what the step means in detail for those who are learning for the first time. Pretty meta, huh?

Once you are done with copyediting, you’ll want to revise. If you have time, editing again can be useful, though at some point you’ll want to switch from comprehensive to copyediting. You can continually comprehensively edit a text forever. Find a stopping place that honors your goals, timeline, and resources.

Section Break - Editing and Drafting

  • When does a document warrant comprehensive editing versus simple copyediting? Come up with some criteria to help judge when a document commands enough importance to require comprehensive editing.
  • Rank the platforms you prefer for group writing, naming your top three. What influences your preference? What features matter when you’re writing with others?

Phase 5b: Testing

Testing is the middle step of our process, though if you have a great deal of time, it may well be the first one—it depends on your purpose and audience for testing. Testing can have different permutations depending on your resources and timeline. You might simply do internal testing with folks in your organization testing out your work. Alternatively, you could actively recruit testers in the generic sense to go over your text. Or, you could get the actual users that will use your text to test it—and those could be internal or external, depending on what you’re writing.

If you are simply passing something along for internal testing, it is more likely that you might send it directly to testers after drafting, or perhaps after a quick edit. With internal testers, you don’t have to be as concerned with the polish and finish as you might with external testers—they won’t be judging your organization based on this text. However, in some cases where the politics of internal testing are fraught (such as cases where the testers see all of this work as silly), you may want to make sure the text is exceptionally polished.

With external testers, you’re going to be either finding folks that fit a generic profile of users or you’ll be finding the actual users to test with. In each case, you’ll want to make sure the text is polished and doesn’t reflect badly on your organization. With a generic profile, you’ll just want to find folks that will fit a certain set of parameters to test your text. These may be individuals with similar age ranges or skill levels as your users. Or, it could just be the general public. With actual users, something we’ll cover later in this chapter in more detail, you’ll be working with the folks who would be using your text to make sure it works as intended.

Testers can be paid or unpaid, but in each case you need to treat their time and experience as valuable. If you pass along a text riddled with errors that looks like a joke, you’re going to be wasting your time and theirs. If you go through the trouble of testing a text with outside users, at least make sure you have a polished text!

Goals of Testing

When you’re doing testing, you’re asking folks to use texts as they are intended; in the process of using them, you’re hoping to find problems with the text. You might find that there are terms that are unclear to the average user. You might find an important step is mislabeled or omitted entirely. In each case, you’re trying to figure out what happens when your text actually gets used the way it would after it leaves your desk. It may seem like overkill, especially since you’re reading this text in a college classroom environment, but testing can save you and your organization time, money, and reputation losses associated with sending an awful text out into the world that simply is not fit for use, or in a worst-case scenario, dangerous.

Later in this chapter, and in the end of the text, we’ll get into the specifics of testing. For now, here is a general workflow you can use for testing:

Testing Workflow

• Identify what you want to learn from testing

• 6Find users that will be testing your text

• Have the users make use of the text in ways that will help you learn what you want

• Record or observe this use, or have the users self-report

Take your findings into the revision process or editing process, depending on the changes needed

With the above workflow, you can get a rough idea of how you can update a text to better fit the intended workflow it will be part of. Later, we’ll dive into this with considerably more detail with specific research methods.

Phase 5c: Revision

So, it has come to this. For many writers, revision is a bad word. Revision is failure to launch, failure to generate a good text the first time. Nothing could be further than the truth. Revision is central to the production of great writing—almost no one gets it right the first time. In fact, many of the most trusted types of texts, such as peer-reviewed academic work or works published by major presses, are produced in environments that are designed to lead to revision and reflection by the author!

Now, as a note—revision and editing are different in this text, and in general practice. Revision often happens when an author reflects on a text. Editing usually happens when an outsider or a non-author reflects on the text. Sometimes revision will incorporate the suggestions of an editor and will be guided by reviewer feedback. Other times, it is self-contained.

When it comes to revision, you can think about it on two levels: global and local revision. Global revision comes first and involves looking at the big picture of your text; in many ways, it is the author’s side of comprehensive editing. With global revision, you move paragraphs, you check to see if topic sentences are supported by the rest of a paragraph, you delete content or add content as needed. With local revision, you focus on small-scale stuff. Does this sentence sound right? Is this the correct word? How can I fix this comma splice?

For carrying out revision, you want to first make sure you have ample time to actually revise, and you need to make sure you’re doing it right. In regards to time, if you are pressed for time, you likely will need to focus more on local revision—large-scale changes to a text can create large-scale problems. If you don’t think you have time for a total overhaul, don’t half-overhaul. Focus on fixing what is there rather than altering it dramatically. If you do have time, focus on global before local. As with comprehensive and copyediting, you don’t want to fix something small that will be deleted later because the larger component it is part of has been removed from your text.

Much of the work of revision maps on top of the work of editing—usually revision and editing are separate parts of a process. Editing identifies the issues, and revision fixes them. (Every editor varies in how much work they do and how much the author does. At the least in modern workflows you’ll have to approve changes in your text). In the case of a single author, you often do both at the same time. Your global revision and comprehensive editing are one and the same. In larger organizations, this is broken up into individual roles with different folks doing different parts of the work.

Carrying out revision effectively takes practice—you learn how to best respond to your own writing by responding to your own writing. There isn’t one workflow that works best, but below I’ll provide some checklists for global and local revision to give you a starting point. Not all of these suggestions will fit every situation, but consider them a good starting point that you can adapt to your own writing. (For example, you might notice after a while that you tend to create a lot of extra “is” formulations where instead of saying “this takes practice,” you say “this is something that takes practice.” In cases like that, you’ll want to focus on finding these “is” formulations because you know that is your kryptonite).

Global Revision Checklist

• Is there a document map?

• Do the major sections follow the plan of the document map?

• Are there sections that shouldn’t be in the document?

• Does each paragraph have a topic sentence?

• Does the rest of the paragraph match up with these topic sentences?

In the above checklist, you focus almost entirely on how the document and paragraphs are structured. The idea is that the document map is your starting point—it tells you what should be in the text and the order that those things should be in. You’ll then audit the rest of the text based on that map before descending to the paragraph level and treating each paragraph’s topic sentence as a document map for that paragraph, auditing each paragraph’s sentences to make sure they fit with that text’s purpose. You can add in some of the extra checklist items from comprehensive editing if you’d like to make this more thorough.

Local Revision Checklist

• If you have time, read the document aloud.

• If you are pressed for time, read the first page aloud

• Search for errors you know that you often make

• Double-check terms that are important for the text

• Work on re-writing sections (important ones especially) that you feel have poor flow or read badly

In the second checklist, you’re focusing almost entirely on small-scale issues. Reading the document aloud is central to effective local editing (and copyediting many times), because it forces you to actually read each work. Often times when we read, we skim without realizing it. When we read our own work, we tend to both skim and edit the text as we read; we read what we meant rather than what it says. Reading aloud gets around both of these issues and helps with the problem most of us face— we can’t stand reading our own work. You can also have your word processor read to you, but I find reading aloud keeps you more focused and able to catch errors

Phase 6: Proofing

Proofing is a phase of the writing process that many guides and writers overlook, but it can be the most important one when it comes to costly mistakes and embarrassing errors. You’ll sometimes see it called proofreading. Proofing involves the creation of proofs—samples of your final document with all of the production choices and text choices put into the form they will have in publication.

Proofing is valuable because it can catch errors that won’t show up in the drafting process alone. For example, you might think that a certain color combination looks great with a certain type of paper when you’re drafting, but when you actually get the printed proof, it looks awful and the colors clash. Or, you might have accidentally used an RGB color code when you should have used CMYK and your text or document has colors that are nothing like what you expected and planned for. Or, you might realize that a choice of font size or style simply doesn’t allow for easy reading when placed into a real-world document. Proofing helps you catch these errors before you’ve paid for an entire run of a document.

In college writing, proofing is not something you run into that much. Most of your writing in classes is often in an office-style program that will go to your professor. Most technical writing, however, goes to outside audiences that will be using your texts. Whereas proofing doesn’t usually make sense in college settings because you rarely get something professionally printed and put together, it is a must in professional settings.

Proofing can be very project-dependent, but a few suggestions can help when you’re looking over a proof. We will cover proofing again when we discuss the production process later in the text.

Proofing Checklist

• Do all of the images look correctly colored and free of pixelation?

• Are all fonts correct or have some fonts been substituted for incorrect ones?

• Are the colors accurate?

• Is the paper correct?

• Is all content on the page, or is some content cut off due to being too close to the binding or too close to the edge of the document (the bleed region)?

• Can the document be read easily

• Are there any errors in formatting or spelling or grammar?

By following through with proofing after final revision, you can catch some last-minute errors and mismatches between what you hoped to find when you created your document and what you find in front of you. Again, proofing is about saving you money and embarrassment—you don’t want to print a run of hundreds or thousands of pages with really awkward and obvious errors throughout. Even the best editor will miss some errors—proofing gives you a chance to catch and replace those before you pay money to get them printed and sent out to your users.

If you want to take things to the next level, you can do some proofreading as well. Proofreading as part of the editing process involves taking the last version of the text that was editing and reading through it and the final proof concurrently, looking for situations where changes that should have been made didn’t make it into the final document.

Phase 7: Publication

Congratulations—you did it. Publication is the final phase of the writing process, a process you may have thought would never end in this text. With publication, you are confident in your text and your proof and you’re ready to send it out to the world. Often publication is a matter of logistics and delivery—you want to make sure the write amount of documents get out to the right people at the right time. We’ll cover publication more in Chapter 6.

For publication, you have a fairly simple checklist:

Publication Checklist

• How many copies do I need?

• Who needs a copy of the text?

• When do they need it?

Once you’ve made sure you’ve got your bases covered, the writing process for your document is over! Congrats—it got published.

Section Break - Testing, Revision, Proofing, and Publishing

  • Carry out some basic testing on an institutional website of your choosing. Pick a website from your institution you are familiar with and have someone else in the class that isn’t familiar with the site carry out some tasks. Make note of how they perform and where they have issues. Prepare a brief report on the test that you could pass along to the webmaster.
  • Revision can be a struggle for almost any writer. What do you struggle with during revision? What tactics do you use to avoid these struggles or to overcome them? Share with the rest of your class and look for common ground and new strategies for succeeding.
  • Trending Now
  • Foundational Courses
  • Data Science
  • Practice Problem
  • Machine Learning
  • System Design
  • DevOps Tutorial
  • Web Browser

Related Articles

  • Difference Between Cloudflare and CloudFront
  • Difference between Paper and Article for Scientific Writings
  • Difference between message queues and mailboxes
  • Difference between Business Intelligence and Data Warehouse
  • Difference Between WWW and Public_HTML
  • Difference between Website and Blog
  • Differences between System Analysis and System Design
  • Difference Between VB and VBScript
  • Difference Between Traditional and Online Education
  • Difference between the COPY and ADD commands in a Dockerfile
  • Difference between Bower and npm
  • Difference between Business Intelligence and Business Analytics
  • Difference Between Quantum Computing and Artificial Intelligence
  • Difference between HDFS and NFS
  • Difference between 2D and 3D Shapes
  • Difference Between VLAN and VPN
  • Differences between a Matrix and a Tensor
  • Difference Between Peloton and Echelon
  • Difference Between Latency and Throughput

Difference between Research Papers and Technical Articles for Journal Publication

Research Papers: Research Papers are write-ups which record the result/report examinations tired specific zone. For the most part, they take an up to this point obscure issue in a given field, propose an arrangement for it and assess the status of the arrangement in comparison with other modern solutions. In this way, in a sense, they move the wilderness of information within the field. Based on the nature and reason of the movement carried out, and the way the write-up is composed. Technical Articles: A technical article is an editorial for a magazine or an internet benefit that’s about a specialized point, and regularly the article drills down into a few low-level of detail. May be computers, maybe material science or chemistry or any other science. It can be around math. It can be approximately pharmaceutical or wellbeing or diet. It can be around the material science of cooking. There are truly thousands of potential points of specialized articles. Below is a table of differences between Research Papers and Technical Articles: 

Please Login to comment...

  • Difference Between
  • Gen AI and Cloud Optimization Help Asian SuperApp Grab Turn a Profit
  • 12 Best Drawing Apps for Android in 2024
  • March 2024 K-pop Comebacks: Confirmations from BTS J-Hope, Wendy, and More Artists
  • Rentomojo Raises $25 Million in Funding Round Led by Edelweiss Discovery
  • Dev Scripter 2024 - Biggest Technical Writing Event By GeeksforGeeks

Improve your Coding Skills with Practice

 alt=

What kind of Experience do you want to share?

Ask A Librarian

  • Collections
  • Research Help
  • Teaching & Learning
  • Library Home

Technical Writing & Communication: A Primer

  • Technical Writing for Business
  • Technical Writing for Engineering
  • Technical Writing for Health Sciences
  • Technical Writing for Science
  • SpeakWrite @ Eberly Writing Studio The Eberly Writing Studio promotes students' long-term academic success at West Virginia University by supporting effective communication in a variety of ways.

The Science of Scientific Writing

"If the reader is to grasp what the writer means, the writer must understand what the reader needs." - George Gopen & Judith Swan. This thoughtful article takes a look at the skills necessary for effective scientific writing. Read it  here .

  • The ACS Style Guide: Effective Communication of Scientific Information Coghill, A. M., Garson, L. R., & American Chemical Society. (2006). The ACS style guide: Effective communication of scientific information. Washington, DC: American Chemical Society.
  • The Craft of Scientific Communication Harmon, J. E., & Gross, A. G. (2010). The craft of scientific communication. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Scientific Writing and Communication: Papers, Proposals, and Presentations Hofmann, A. H. (2014). Scientific writing and communication: Papers, proposals, and presentations. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Scientific Writing Made Easy: A Step-by-Step Guide to Undergraduate Writing in the Biological Sciences Turbek, S. P., Chock, T. M., Donahue, K., Havrilla, C. A., Oliverio, A. M., Polutchko, S. K., Shoemaker, L. G. and Vimercati, L. (2016), Scientific Writing Made Easy: A Step-by-Step Guide to Undergraduate Writing in the Biological Sciences. Bull Ecol Soc Am, 97: 417–426. doi:10.1002/bes2.1258.
  • Writing in the Biological Sciences: A Comprehensive Resource for Scientific Communication Hofmann, A. H. (2016). Writing in the biological sciences: A comprehensive resource for scientific communication. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Communicating Science Effectively: A Practical Handbook for Integrating Visual Elements Thomas, J. E. (2006). Communicating science effectively: A practical handbook for integrating visual elements. London: IWA Pub.
  • Writing for Science Goldbort, R. (2006). Writing for science. New Haven: Yale University Press.
  • Professional and Technical Writing Strategies: Communicating in Technology and Science VanAlstyne, J. S., & Tritt, M. D. (2002). Professional and technical writing strategies: Communicating in technology and science. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Prentice Hall.
  • Writing Science in Plain English Greene, A. E. (2013). Writing science in plain English. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
  • Visual strategies: A Practical Guide to Graphics for Scientists & Engineers Frankel, F., & DePace, A. H. (2012). Visual strategies: A practical guide to graphics for scientists & engineers. New Haven: Yale University Press.

CSE (Council of Science Editors) Style Guide

  • CSE This comprehensive research guide provides details on citing a variety of electronic and physical resources.
  • << Previous: Technical Writing for Health Sciences
  • Next: Resources >>
  • Last Updated: Feb 6, 2024 11:22 AM
  • URL: https://libguides.wvu.edu/technicalwriting

Basics of scientific and technical writing: Patents

  • Career Feature
  • Published: 25 March 2021
  • Volume 46 , pages 354–355, ( 2021 )

Cite this article

  • Morteza Monavarian 1  

4976 Accesses

1 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

The basics on patents

A patent is a form of intellectual property (IP) that gives the right to the inventors to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a certain period of time (usually 20 years). The inventors should publish a public disclosure of the invention in return. For the inventors, however, a patent does not automatically give the right to make, use, or sell an invention. Patents are considered private law, which means if someone violates the patent law and uses the idea for commercial purposes during the term of the patent, the inventor can sue them to enforce the law.

Patentability criteria

There are three main criteria to ensure an idea is patentable: novelty, usefulness (or utility), and non-obviousness. The first major criteria of patentability is novelty, which means that the idea is not publicly known before the filing date of the patent or before any priority date of the patent. This is to avoid the patenting of prior ideas. According to the second criteria (utility), an invention needs to be useful to ensure its patentability. Utility here means the invention should provide clear benefits and should be capable of use. This may differ with various countries (e.g., European patent law and US patent law have different rules). Non-obviousness, which is a general requirement of most patent laws, means that the invention or the idea of the invention should be sufficiently beyond or above the current state of the art. For example, if a patent is filed on a method with a certain material, one may not be able to patent the same method with another material if these two materials are known to be used interchangeably.

Types of patents

Different types of patents include utility, design, and plants. Each patent type has its own eligibility requirements and is useful for a certain type of invention. One patent can have more than one suitability. For example, if we need to patent a device and reserve its right for both functionality and design, two separate patents can be filed. Utility applications are the most common and normally cover processes, materials, and devices with functions that are new and useful. Design applications normally cover the shape and configuration of an object (e.g., the exterior shape of a car, cell phone, or laptop). Finally, plant patents are to protect new and distinctive plants.

Applications

A patent application is submitted to a patent office with detailed aspects of the invention described in the specifications along with a set of claims stated in the formal document. Once the specifications are approved, a patent is granted.

A provisional application places an application on file for one year to secure a priority date, but without the complexity and expense of a standard application. After the one-year period, one can file a non-provisional standard patent application, while reserving the priority date of the provisional application. Depending on the outcome of the patent office examination, the patent may be granted. One can also file a continuation application, under certain circumstances, to include materials from an earlier application when the priority year has expired.

A patent filed in the United States is submitted to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is an office for international applications. A US patent (from USPTO) does not guarantee international protection of your IP, but, a world patent can cover several countries.

Patent structures

A patent application generally consists of (1) a patent summary, (2) patent specifications, (3) list of claims (independent and dependent), (4) drawings and descriptions, (5) references, and (6) signed Proper IP Disclosure and Declaration forms. The patent summary should provide an overview of the idea and what is to be disclosed in the patent. The main body of the patent specifications should provide details of the background, state-of-the-art features (may also include a summary of prior art search results), and descriptions of the invention, drawings, and figures. Independent claims provide an overview of the invention. Dependent claims provide details and variations of the invention. For a utility application, the claims can be either method- or device-based. Method claims are those that describe novel methods presented in the patent, while device claims are for claiming inventive devices; these claims can be separate. Drawings are in black and white, unlike figures in papers, which tend to vary in color. Other textures or pattern fills, such as shades, diagonal lines, and dashes, can be used in the schematics/figures/drawings, or each section of the figures can be numbered followed by proper descriptions. Similar to papers, patents also contain a reference section to cite prior art (e.g., patents, papers) and relevant works in the specifications. Proper IP Disclosure and Declaration forms should be submitted by each inventor.

Steps to file a patent

The figure shows a standard process flow for a patent, from idea to filing to granting. Assuming an idea is developed, the first step is to secure it. One approach is to write it down on a piece of paper, and sign and date it (this will help when you want to claim an earlier priority date in your application), or save an email sent to your co-inventors or to yourself describing the idea.

figure a

The second step is to verify whether the idea is patentable; check its novelty, utility, and non-obviousness. Particularly for novelty, perform a prior art search, including previously published patents, papers, or any other relevant documents.

Then, secure a patent type and write a summary document, which describes the field of invention, description of the prior art, invention specifications, details of the idea with figures and any simulation or experimental data, references, and tentative claims (independent and dependent, method, or device claims). The tentative claims will help the patent office to write proper final claims according to your invention. A good patent application requires illustrative drawings with proper descriptions. Most institutes have illustrators to prepare the drawings, but they will need a base figure and several iterations to achieve a decent, comprehensive drawing for the invention.

The specification document, along with any other supporting documents (e.g., relevant paper publications, thesis), should be sent to the patent office at your institution, along with signed IP disclosure forms, including the patent intellectual contribution shares for each inventor. The inventors should also mention the stage of the idea—whether it is at the concept level or if it has been fully/partially reduced to practice. The inventors should also mention whether the idea is developed or fully/partially reduced-to-practice as a result of any governmental or industrial funding source.

The patent office will conduct a patentability check to determine if it is interested in pursuing the patent. It also check the priority date to ensure there is no significant public disclosure (e.g., publications, presentations, reports). A patent may be rejected if it was disclosed to the public before a provisional or non-provisional patent is filed.

For a provisional application during the one-year period, inventors will have time to further reduce the invention to practice. The patent office will also conduct a systematic search for any industry interest in the invention. After the one-year period for provisional applications, depending on the decision of the institute, they will decide whether to re-file or file for a non-provisional application or to abandon the application. After a non-provisional application is filed, USPTO or WIPO examines the application. Upon approval from another novelty and non-obviousness check with the prior art, a patent with the inventive concepts disclosed is granted and will be approved for public disclosure.

To do or not to do, that is the question

■ Do not pursue a patent for every idea. Select those that have clear industrial applications and can be reduced to practice reasonably quick.

■ Only spend time on ideas that are worth patenting. Conduct a novelty search first.

■ Reduce your invention to practice. Gather any experimental/theoretical data that support the invention.

■ Use proper communication tools when discussing your idea with the patent office. Avoid any immature or false claims that could negatively affect your patent application.

■ Make illustrative but color-independent drawings. Drawings for patents are typically in black and white. They need proper textures/pattern fills and descriptions to replace the color-coding normally used for standard paper figures.

■ Add detailed variations to the idea description, and make drawings that cover all aspects of the invention.

■ Improvise. With patents, details and variations are encouraged, as long as they are within the scope of the invention. The patent office will decide whether to split the idea into separate patents.

■ Enjoy your idea developments!

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Materials Department, and Solid State Lighting & Energy Electronics Center, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, USA

Morteza Monavarian

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Additional information

This article is the second in a three-part series in MRS Bulletin that will focus on writing papers, patents, and proposals.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Monavarian, M. Basics of scientific and technical writing: Patents. MRS Bulletin 46 , 354–355 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1557/s43577-021-00091-7

Download citation

Published : 25 March 2021

Issue Date : April 2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1557/s43577-021-00091-7

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

  • Find a journal
  • Publish with us
  • Track your research

You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience.

Miami University Oxford, Ohio 1809

Howe Center for Writing Excellence

Scientific/technical reports.

A scientific, engineering, or technical report informs readers about research you've conducted. (In your science classes, they may be called Lab Reports). These reports often follow the pattern explained here and as shown in the figure to the right, though the section titles and organization can vary by discipline or type of information you're reporting. Remember that your audience, content, and purpose should inform the way you present and discuss information.

These general guidelines may differ from the instructions provided by your professor or TA.  ALWAYS  follow your professor’s or TA’s instructions for writing scientific reports!

Image showing the 4 main sections of a scientific report, including the introduction, methods, results, and discussion. The images narrows like a funnel (indicating it becomes narrower in scope) from the introduction to the methods and results sections and then broadens for the discussion section.

Introduction

Your introduction should justify that the study is important and worth conducting. It should have the following general structure:

  • Begin with the general topic and describe the important “big picture” problem in the field.
  • Connect the big picture to your research question
  • Justify the logic and importance of the research question
  • Set your research within the context of other research
  • Reference relevant published studies and identify gaps and unresolved issues that this study addresses (references are always paraphrased, never quoted).
  • Include only relevant information related to the crucial concepts of the study.
  • End by stating your research question, your study purpose/goal, and/or any hypotheses/predictions.

Common Pitfalls

  • Lack of focus: The introduction provides too many irrelevant details or lacks important concepts/details.
  • Lack of organization: The introduction does not follow the structure listed above.
  • Failure to justify the study: The introduction does not persuade readers that the study is worth doing and/or the reasoning behind the hypotheses is unclear.

Introduction Checklist

  • Begins with the most general topic (“big picture”) and progressively becomes narrower in scope.
  • Provides appropriate background information that justifies why the study is worth doing. For example, you might introduce the importance of the problem by identifying a gap in previous research, inconclusive results in previous research, or the need for additional information.
  • Includes only relevant information related to the crucial concepts of the study.
  • Ends by introducing the study’s purpose and clearly stating any hypotheses and predictions.

Methods Section

Your methods section should demonstrate that the research approach was appropriately designed and implemented, so that your audience trusts the results and so you establish your credibility. It will cover the details of your study, such as the following:

  • Ways you addressed the research question/hypothesis
  • Important materials used in the investigation (quantities, equipment, organisms, databases)
  • For person-based research, the data collection method (interviews, surveys, observation, etc.), number and demographics of participants, etc.
  • The outcomes/responses that were measured and how
  • Any calculations (including formulae) and statistical tests used
  • Any details that, if changed, would substantially alter the results
  • Lack of organization: The methods are written as a play-by-play of what happened in the lab (“first, we got scissors, and then we cut the plants”), or the same procedure is described multiple times.
  • Lack of detail: Follow the bulleted list above for necessary details to include.
  • Unnecessary details: You can leave out details regarding safety (e.g., wearing gloves); common scientific practice (e.g., labeling, being careful); and steps that, if changed, would not alter the results (e.g., the class being broken up into groups).

Methods Section Checklist

  • Thoroughly describes the procedure used to address the research question/hypothesis.
  • Includes all relevant details (e.g., quantities, equipment, organisms, data collection method, etc.).
  • Describes all calculations used (including formulae and definitions of the variables).
  • Avoids being repetitive (i.e., describing the same procedure multiple times).
  • Avoids unnecessary details.

Results Section

The results section organizes and simplifies the findings of the study for readers and presents objective explanations .

  • Focus on the details that are most relevant for evaluating the study question/hypothesis.
  • Begin paragraphs with topic sentences to describe a general pattern in the data. Then, describe the finer nuances of the data.
  • Make comparisons and describe trends when appropriate (e.g., this increased faster than that, or this treatment was consistently lower than the others, etc.).
  • Reference tables and figures within the text.
  • Avoid any interpretation of or explanation for the results.
  • Lack of organization: Paragraphs lack topic sentences, or the order in which results are presented is confusing or difficult to follow.
  • Lack of important details: Fails to describe patterns in the data (see examples above) or fails to describe results for the entire experiment.
  • Too many details: Too many numbers can be hard to follow and boring to read.

Results Section Checklist

  • Describe important trends and provide relevant numerical values.
  • Refer to all tables and figures within the text.
  • Avoid interpretation of results.
  • Avoid unnecessary details.

Discussion Section

The discussion section interprets and explains the study’s results.

  • Start by stating the overall conclusions with respect to the study’s goals/hypotheses.
  • Justify the overall conclusions by relating the results to the goals/hypotheses (why did you conclude this?).
  • Providing explanations using relevant disciplinary concepts
  • Comparing the study’s results to other groups in class or to published studies
  • Suggesting improvements on the experimental design and/or proposing ideas for future research
  • Conclude by discussing the implications of the results with respect to the “big picture” issue mentioned in the introduction.
  • Shallow data analysis: The analysis and explanation of the results is weak and lacks depth. Explanations may focus too much on human error rather than scientific or other disciplinary phenomena.
  • Weak ideas for improvements or future research: Fails to explain how a design improvement might affect the results, or how a proposed study would advance understanding of the topic being addressed.

Discussion Section Checklist

  • Starts with a statement of the overall conclusions with respect to the study’s goals/hypotheses
  • Briefly describes the results that led to the above conclusions
  • Provides explanations of the results using primarily disciplinary concepts
  • Explains how the results compare to other groups in class or to published studies (if applicable)
  • Provides logical explanations for unexpected results or results that differ from published studies
  • Explains how the study could be improved (if applicable) and how that might affect the results.
  • Provides well-reasoned ideas for future research that would further understanding of the topic.
  • Concludes by discussing the implications of the results with respect to the “big picture.”

Tables and Figures

Tables and figures should help the reader visualize and understand your results.

  • Focus on the most relevant results for evaluating the study question/hypothesis.
  • Include enough information so readers can interpret the tables/figures on their own.
  • Number tables and figures in the order in which they are referenced in the paper.

For help with Excel or statistics software, visit the Statistics Help Desk in BEST library.

  • Confusing or disorganized tables/figures: Readers should easily understand the data presented in a figure or table.
  • Improper formatting: Table or figure does not conform to format described below. Titles are vague and uninformative.

Table Formatting Checklist

  • Columns and rows are clearly and concisely labeled and include units (e.g., mm) where appropriate (see example below)
  • Data is neatly organized and easy to understand
  • Table titles clearly and completely describe the data being presented (see example below)

sample table

Figure Formatting Checklist

  • X- and y-axes are clearly and concisely labeled and include units (e.g., mm) (see A below)
  • When multiple lines are graphed in the same figure, the lines are easy to distinguish and the key clearly shows what each line represents (see B below)
  • Figure titles clearly and completely describe the data being presented (see example below)

sample figure

Figure 1. Change in the average height of corn seedlings treated with different concentrations of soil nitrogen. Error bars indicate the standard deviation.

Howe Center for Writing Excellence logo

Get full access to Research and Technical Writing for Science and Engineering and 60K+ other titles, with a free 10-day trial of O'Reilly.

There are also live events, courses curated by job role, and more.

Research and Technical Writing for Science and Engineering

Research and Technical Writing for Science and Engineering

Read it now on the O’Reilly learning platform with a 10-day free trial.

O’Reilly members get unlimited access to books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Book description

Engineering and science research can be difficult for beginners because scientific research is fraught with constraints and disciplines. Research and Technical Writing for Science and Engineering breakdowns the entire process of conducting engineering and scientific research. This book covers those fascinating guidelines and topics on conducting research, as well as how to better interact with your advisor.

Key Features:

  • advice on conducting a literature review, conducting experiments, and writing a good paper summarizing your findings.
  • provides a tutorial on how to increase the impact of research and how to manage research resources.

By reflecting on the cases discussed in this book, readers will be able to identify specific situations or dilemmas in their own lives, as the authors provide comprehensive suggestions based on their own experiences.

Table of contents

  • Half-Title Page
  • Copyright Page
  • Dedication Page
  • List of Figures
  • Author Bios
  • 1.1.1 Definition
  • 1.1.2 Creative–Build Something New
  • 1.1.3 Systematic–General Pattern
  • 1.1.4 Increase–Acquire and Contribute
  • 1.1.5 The Stock of Knowledge
  • 1.1.6 Summary
  • 1.2.1 Intellectual Discovery
  • 1.3.1 So, What is Good Research?
  • 1.4 Research Methods
  • 1.5 Overview of the Telehealth Systems
  • 1.6 Keyword Explanation
  • 1.7 Summary
  • 2.1 Why Is Research Integrity So Important?
  • 2.2 Be the Whistleblower When You See It
  • 2.3 Fundamental Types of Research Dilemmas
  • 2.4 Falsification/Fabrication of Data
  • 2.5 Ownership of Research Materials and Data
  • 2.6.1 Ignorance Is Not a Valid Excuse for Plagiarism
  • 2.6.2 Paraphrasing
  • 2.6.3 Summary of Useful Guidelines for Writing
  • 2.7 Authorship/Assignment of Credit
  • 2.8 Confidentiality
  • 2.9.1 CPU Scheduling: Schedulers
  • 2.9.2 CPU Scheduling: Dispatcher
  • 2.9.3 CPU Scheduling: Scheduling Criteria
  • 2.9.4.1 First Come First Serve Scheduling
  • 2.9.4.2 Shortest Job First Scheduling
  • 2.10 Keyword Explanation
  • 2.11 Summary
  • 3.1 Overview
  • 3.2 Identify an Area of Interest
  • 3.3 Browse the Literature
  • 3.4 Pick a Topic and Dive
  • 3.5 Identify a Research Question
  • 3.6.1 Artificial Intelligence
  • 3.6.2 Communications and Media
  • 3.6.3 Computer Science and Engineering
  • 3.7.1 An Example for Cost Minimization
  • 3.7.2 Greedy vs. Dynamic
  • 3.7.3 Industrial and Research Applications of Dynamic Programming
  • 3.8 Summary
  • 4.1 What Is a Literature Review?
  • 4.2.1 Stand-Alone Literature Review Articles
  • 4.2.2 Research Proposal
  • 4.2.3 Research Report in the Workplace
  • 4.3 Common Structure of Literature Reviews
  • 4.4 What is the Literature?
  • 4.5.1 Primary Sources
  • 4.5.2 Secondary Sources
  • 4.5.3 Tertiary
  • 4.6 Working Backwards
  • 4.7.1 Peer Review
  • 4.8.1 Computer Science Research Databases
  • 4.8.2 Footnote Chasing
  • 4.9 Writing the Literature Review
  • 4.10 Key Points When Writing a Literature Review
  • 4.11.1.1 IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)
  • 4.11.1.2 PaaS (Platform as a Service)
  • 4.11.1.3 SaaS (Software as a Service)
  • 4.11.1.4 Cloud Computing vs. Traditional Web Hosting
  • 4.11.2.1 Model of Task Scheduling
  • 4.12 Keyword Explanation
  • 4.13 Summary
  • 5.1 Be Patient
  • 5.2 Collect Hunches Ready to be Stitched Together Later
  • 5.3 Connect your Hunches with the Hunches of others
  • 5.4 Diverse Minds
  • 5.5 Make Space for Hunches to Incubate
  • 5.6.1 Acquire the Ability to Read and Improve Your Taste
  • 5.6.2 Recognize the Trends Associated with the Development of Research Ideas
  • 5.6.3 Make it a Habit to Think about Research Ideas
  • 5.7.1 Buffer Overflow Exploits
  • 5.7.2 Buffer Overflow Consequences
  • 5.7.3 Why C/C++ are More Vulnerable to Buffer Overflows?
  • 5.7.4 Buffer Overflow Attack Examples
  • 5.7.5 How Can We Mitigate Buffer Overflows?
  • 5.8 Summary
  • 6.1 Overview
  • 6.2 The Importance of Algorithms in Computer Science
  • 6.3 How People Benefit From Algorithms
  • 6.4 Algorithms Design Techniques
  • 6.5 Questions for yourself
  • 6.6 The useful list of questions
  • 6.7.1 Introduction and Basic Concepts
  • 6.7.2 Overview of Scratchpad Memory Management
  • 6.7.3 Basics of the System Model
  • 6.8 Keyword Explanation
  • 6.9 Summary
  • 7.1 The importance of experiments in Computer Science
  • 7.2.1 Empirical Dimensions
  • 7.2.2 Subjects and Topics
  • 7.2.3 Activities
  • 7.3.1 Feasibility
  • 7.3.2 Trial
  • 7.3.3 Field
  • 7.3.4 Comparison
  • 7.3.5 Controlled
  • 7.4.1 How a Machine Learning Model is Built
  • 7.5.1 An Adaptive Genetic Solution
  • 7.5.2 Genetic Algorithm Operations
  • 7.6 Summary
  • 8.1 Research You Topic
  • 8.2 Drafting Your Essay
  • 8.3.1 Title
  • 8.3.2 Abstract
  • 8.3.3 Main Body Structure
  • 8.4.1 Using Tables
  • 8.4.2 Using Figures
  • 8.4.3 Common Errors When Using Tables and Figures
  • 8.5 Revise Your Paper
  • 8.6.4 Motherboard
  • 8.6.5 Storage
  • 8.6.6 Power Supply Unit
  • 8.6.7 Cooling
  • 8.6.9 Final Checking List Before Your Shoping
  • 8.7 Summary
  • 9.1.1 Why Preferring Conferences?
  • 9.1.2 Why Preferring Journals?
  • 9.2 How to Submit a Research Paper to a Journal or Conference
  • 9.3 How to Write Rebuttals and Replies?
  • 9.4.1 Install Graphics Drivers
  • 9.4.2 Install CUDA
  • 9.4.3 Install cuDNN
  • 9.4.4 Install and Manage Deep Learning Frameworks
  • 9.5 Summary
  • 10.1 Introduction
  • 10.2 Purpose of Citing References
  • 10.3 Organization of References
  • 10.4 Citation and Reference Formats
  • 10.5 Authors' Responsibilities
  • 10.6.1 Choosing References for Citation
  • 10.6.2 Inducting Citations in the Text
  • 10.6.3 Preparing the Reference List
  • 10.7.1 Overview on ML Models
  • 10.7.2 Overview of DNNs
  • 10.7.3 Adversarial Attacks on DNNs
  • 10.7.4 Existing Defenses for Poisoning Attacks
  • 10.7.5 Existing Defenses for Evasion Attacks
  • 10.8 Summary
  • 11.1 Introduction
  • 11.2 General techniques for time managements
  • 11.3 Productivity and Research Writing
  • 11.4 Think Twice Before Accept a Request – How you can better concentrate on your main timeline?
  • 11.5 Summary
  • 12.1 Overview of the recap
  • 12.2 Introduction to Computer Science Research
  • 12.3 Find your ideas for research
  • 12.4 Bring your ideas to the reality
  • 12.5 Put Your Work Out and Make Impacts
  • 12.6.1 Homework One
  • 12.6.2 Homework Two
  • 12.6.3 Homework three
  • 12.7 Final Project
  • 12.8 Possible projects or presentations
  • Bibliography

Product information

  • Title: Research and Technical Writing for Science and Engineering
  • Author(s): Meikang Qiu, Han Qiu, Yi Zeng
  • Release date: February 2022
  • Publisher(s): CRC Press
  • ISBN: 9781000541298

You might also like

Scientific methods used in research and writing.

by Mangey Ram, Om Prakash Nautiyal, Durgesh Pant

The book will discuss the statistical methods involved, covers the development of academic writing skills for …

Engineering Writing by Design

by Edward J. Rothwell, Michael J. Cloud

Engineers are smart people. Their work is important, which is why engineering material should be written …

Research Methods and Applications for Student Affairs

by J. Patrick Biddix, Kristen A. Renn, Larry D. Roper

A COMPREHENSIVE RESOURCE FOR UNDERSTANDING AND APPLYING RESEARCH METHODS Research Methods and Applications for Student Affairs …

Research Methodology

by Vinod Chandra, Anand Harindran

This book offers a standardized approach for research aspirants working in the various areas. At the …

Don’t leave empty-handed

Get Mark Richards’s Software Architecture Patterns ebook to better understand how to design components—and how they should interact.

It’s yours, free.

Cover of Software Architecture Patterns

Check it out now on O’Reilly

Dive in for free with a 10-day trial of the O’Reilly learning platform—then explore all the other resources our members count on to build skills and solve problems every day.

scientific and technical writing vs research

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Scientific and Technical Writing, -->BS -->

The Scientific and Technical Writing (STW) major is ideal if you are interested in a professional career as a writer, editor, researcher or a related career in science, industry and other professions that emphasize strong analytical and interpretive skills as well as creative problem-solving skills.

It also prepares you for the writing and research skills you will need for advanced academic work, especially if you wish to pursue research in technically-dense fields. You will develop your skills in a capstone internship that prepares you for writing and designing in professional settings. If you double-major in STW and another discipline, you are doubly-prepared to succeed given your writing skills and subject matter expertise!

Eligible STW students may earn both the B.S. and a master's degree in five years.

Your Degree Plan

Aerial view of Martin and Woodburn Halls

A degree in STW provides you with the experience and credentials you need to write, design and communicate complex topics.

  • Popular Courses
  • Enhance Your Degree
  • Plan of Study

The Scientific and Technical Writing major consists of 10 courses (30 credit hours): three core courses, one professional or technical writing course, a capstone internship and two approved courses related to a specific topical area.

The topic areas below serve as examples.

Science and Health

  • WRIT 407 The Writing of Health and Medicine
  • WRIT 408 Rhetoric and Science

OR Public and Professional Writing

  • ENGL 302 Editing
  • ENGL 403 Grant Proposal Writing
  • ENGL 450: Forensic Linguistics

Tailor this major to your interests by taking one of these courses as you pursue your degree:

WRIT 301: Writing Theory and Practice

Writ 302: editing, writ 303: multimedia writing, writ 304: business and professional writing, writ 305: technical writing, engl 491: professional field experience.

Take advantage of special options related to this major:

Expand your curiosity — and enhance your curriculum — through the WVU Honors College. Two programs are offered: Honors Foundations for first- and second-year students and Honors EXCEL for third- and fourth-year students.

The WVU Difference

What sets this program apart from its competitors?

  • Eligible students may earn both a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in five years.
  • Capstone internship and professional development seminar at the end of the degree.
  • Earn academic credit through Eberly internship courses .
  • 500+ scholarships awarded annually by the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.
  • Academic Enrichment Program offers funding for activities that complement, extend and enhance your academic experience.

Scholarships

90% of WVU freshmen receive grants or scholarships (2020-2021).

Learn by Doing

Learning happens outside the classroom. Get involved.

Research and Academic Opportunities

  • The West Virginia Dialect project studies language variation and fosters understanding and appreciation of the speech of West Virginians. Undergraduate research assistants study the intricate nature of Appalachian dialects while gathering cultural information.
  • Service-learning courses in which students develop project management skills and public-facing deliverables. (Recent partnerships have included the WVU radio station, Girls on the Run, the West Virginia and Regional History Center, the Morgantown Area Partnership.)
  • WVU offers several study-abroad opportunities as well as a Certificate in Global Competency.
  • Digital/public writing opportunities (partnerships with the libraries, Wikipedia Edit-a-thon).

Student Organizations

Connect with other students who share your academic interests as a member of:

  • Sigma Tau Delta

View all of the student organizations you can join.

Professional Organizations

Network with professionals in your field as a student member of:

  • National Council of Teachers of English
  • American Copy Editors Society
  • American Medical Writers Association
  • Association for Business Communication
  • Association for the Rhetoric of Science, Technology and Medicine
  • Association of American Publishers
  • Association of Writers and Writing Programs
  • Coalition for Community Writing
  • Editorial Freelancers Association
  • IEEE Professional Communication Society
  • National Association of Science Writers
  • Society for Technical Communication

Internships

The 2021 Research Report, How College Contributes to Workforce Success: Employer Views on What Matters Most , specifically notes that “internships lead the list of what makes employers ‘much more likely to consider’ hiring a candidate” (p.10). Internships are a signature component of this degree.

Since spring of 2019, WVU students pursuing a Professional Writing and Editing emphasis within the English major have interned at over 42 distinct sites and several have resulted in job interviews or offers for permanent positions. Please see a sample of student projects from ENGL 491A–the capstone internship course.

  • American Council on Rural Special Education – Writing and Editing Internship
  • Appalachian Prison Book Project – Writing and Multimedia Design Internship
  • Appalachian Studies Association – Writing and Editing Internship
  • Berwyn Development Corporation, IL – Blog Development Internship
  • Change Seven Magazine – Digital Publishing Internship
  • Citizens Bank of Weston - Writing and Editing Internship
  • Fitness Information Technology – Publishing internship
  • Great Lakes Publishing – Editorial Internship
  • Higinbotham & Higinbotham, PLLC – Legal Internship
  • Land & Sea – Promotion and Marketing Internship
  • Mindfit Academic Enhancement – Communication and Instruction Internship
  • Morris Hayhurst LaunchLab – Multimedia Writing Internship
  • New South Media – Multimedia Writing and Editing Internship
  • West Virginia Humanities Council – Writing and Editing Internship
  • WVU College of Law – Editing Internship
  • WVU Go Media – Writing and Editing Internship
  • WVU Office of Global Affairs – Writing Internship

Learning Living Communities

Live, study and pursue outside-the-classroom learning in a residence hall community that shares your interests:

  • True Colors

Outside of the Evansdale Crossing building.

What you learn outside of the classroom is just as important as what you learn during class. We’ll help you follow your curiosity.

Careers and Outcomes

How does this degree prepare students for a career?

Career Options

Science and Technical Writing graduates are prepared to work in a range of fields including the sciences, engineering and medicine. Here's what some of our grads are doing now:

  • Editor/Editorial Consultant
  • Marketing Consultant
  • Technical Communications
  • Corporate Communications
  • Proposal Coordinator and Editor
  • Business Analyst-Editor
  • Grant Writer
  • Research Specialist
  • Website Architect or Editor
  • Documentation design
  • Government writing
  • Public advocacy (NGO work, non-profit)
  • Public policy (organizations that require analytical and research skills)
  • Speech writing
  • Education (writing for education companies or agencies)

Who's Hiring Our Grads

  • Administrative Technology Solutions
  • AMEX International, Inc. (government contractor)
  • Bechtel Plant Machinery, Inc.
  • Bodymind Institute in Wheeling, WV
  • Chevron in Pittsburgh
  • Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc. (FINRA)
  • Johns Hopkins University Press
  • JPMorgan Chase and Co.
  • KeyLogic Systems, Inc.
  • Kroger Marketing Team
  • Lockheed Martin in Clarksburg, WV
  • National Environmental Services Center (NESC)
  • National Research Center for Coal and Energy (NRCCE)
  • N-Play RE LLC
  • Red Hat, Inc.
  • Westinghouse Electric Company

Admission Requirements

To be admitted to WVU's Scientific and Technical Writing major, first-time freshmen must meet WVU's first-time freshman admission requirements for the 2024-25 academic year. Interested in transferring? Review the transfer admission requirements .

Tuition and Aid

How much does Scientific and Technical Writing at WVU cost? And how can you save?

--> Tuition and Fees

Estimated rates are available on our tuition website. Anyone who is not a current West Virginia resident, including international students, will be charged non-resident rates.

--> Scholarships

Estimate your eligibility for merit scholarships at WVU Morgantown.

--> Net Price Calculator

Estimate your cost of attendance and eligibility for financial aid and scholarships at any WVU System campus.

Ways to Save

Here are a few ways for you to save on the cost of attending WVU in addition to university scholarships .

Financial Aid

The most important step toward funding your future with financial aid for the Scientific and Technical Writing major is submitting the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA.

How to Complete the FAFSA

Transfer Articulation Agreements

To simplify the transfer process, we have formal agreements with certain institutions. These agreements outline the courses you should take to prepare for transferring to WVU.

Review the full list of transfer articulation agreements to see if your institution is listed.

Learn How to Transfer Course Credits

Ready to take the next step?

Learn how to join the WVU family.

Request Info

Want to know more about Scientific and Technical Writing at WVU? Fill out our request form to receive more information.

​​Experiencing campus is the best way to see if WVU is the right fit. Choose from in-person and virtual options.

Your first step to becoming a Mountaineer is applying for admission using our convenient online application.

Ohio State nav bar

The Ohio State University

  • BuckeyeLink
  • Find People
  • Search Ohio State

The Scientific Dilemma: Preservation vs Research

Throughout history, people’s curiosity has led to many important discoveries and innovations. In environmental science, this strong desire for knowledge has motivated people to explore different ecosystems and climates. Studying our environment helps address problems such as climate change, habitat loss, and pollution. Moreover, when exploring the environment, an ethical dilemma often arises: the conflict between sometimes invasive scientific research and the desire to preserve ecosystems. This dilemma makes us reflect on our choices and question how we study the environment, leading us to carefully consider the balance between gaining knowledge and protecting the environment.

In her article, “ Will Increasing Traffic to the Moon Contaminate its Precious Ice? ”, Alexandra Witze introduces readers to the future of moon travel. In this future, there is a potential for exploration of ice deposits that reside on the moon’s poles. Scientists believe that the ice on the moon could reveal some of the secrets to both the earth’s and its own development. Two prominent arguments have arisen as a result of this potential for exploration. One side argues that the risk of contaminating the ice is too high. It could not only make any collected samples useless but also spread contamination to the nearby ice. They suggest leaving the ice untouched to preserve it for future scientists. People on the other side of the argument assert that the scientific record held in the lunar ice is something that needs to be studied. Whether or not contamination is even a serious worry is another point of contention within this argument.

The primary issue between these two viewpoints has yet to truly be solved. There is a very apparent divide between those who believe in the preservation of moon ice above all else, and those who believe in the advancement of scientific research at the possible cost to the lunar ice’s scientific makeup. This kind of dilemma isn’t unique to the exploration of moon ice. Similar dilemmas exist in the exploration and consequent loss of rainforests , deep-sea mining , and archeological excavation among other things. In each, the general argument boils down to whether we should leave ecosystems as they are or if we should utilize the resources available to us to explore the past and potentially make new ways for the future.

Across the board, the ethical dilemma arises in that the pursuit of knowledge can potentially jeopardize the subjects of study. Intrusive research methods and the inadvertent introduction of foreign elements pose significant threats to ecosystems. It seems that the more we seek to understand nature, the more we risk disrupting its delicate balance.

As the climate crisis intensifies, the need to protect vulnerable ecosystems becomes even more important. Our obligation to preserving the environment thus compels us to rethink how we study the environment. It calls for a reflection on the potential consequences of our aspirations and a commitment to minimizing the ecological impact of our studies. Likewise, it urges us to prioritize the long-term health of ecosystems over short-term gains in knowledge.

Is it possible for seeking knowledge and preservation to coexist? Witze explains that some proponents of a middle argument for lunar ice exploration suggest preserving one of the poles while opening the other to mining and exploration. While this offers a very literal solution to the problem, there may still be some value in finding common ground. Perhaps the solution is not to jump to either extreme, but rather to combine both objectives. Finding the right balance would require teamwork from scientists, conservationists, policymakers, and the public alike. By working together, we can create ethical research methods that value both understanding and protecting the environment.

Balancing environmental research and preservation is complicated, but it is also crucial. It is necessary that we keep researching to develop new, more sustainable ways of living, but is also necessary that we are conscious of not destroying the environment in the process. By working together and being careful, we can find a good mix of curiosity and preservation, ensuring a more sustainable future for both us and the environment.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Read our research on: Immigration & Migration | Podcasts | Election 2024

Regions & Countries

A look at black-owned businesses in the u.s..

The owner of Marcus Book Store, the oldest Black-owned bookstore in the U.S., talks with her employee about a shop display in Oakland, California, in December 2021. (Amy Osborne/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

More than one-in-five Black adults in the United States say owning a business is essential to financial success, according to a September 2023 Pew Research Center survey . While Black-owned businesses have grown significantly in the U.S. in recent years, they still make up a small share of overall firms and revenue, according to our analysis of federal data.

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to examine the characteristics of Black-owned businesses in the United States. The analysis relies primarily on data from the 2022  Annual Business Survey  (ABS), conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics.

The survey – conducted annually since 2017 – includes all non-farm U.S. firms with paid employees and receipts of $1,000 or more in 2021. Firms are defined as businesses “consisting of one or more domestic establishments under its ownership or control.” Majority business ownership is characterized in the survey as having 51% or more of the stock or equity in the firm. The Census Bureau counts multiracial firm owners under all racial categories they identify with; Hispanic firm owners may be of any race. Read more about the ABS methodology .

A bar chart showing that about 3% of U.S. businesses were Black-or African American-owned in 2021.

In 2021, there were 161,031 U.S. firms with majority Black or African American ownership , up from 124,004 in 2017, according to the latest estimates from the Annual Business Survey  (ABS), conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Science Foundation. Black-owned firms’ gross revenue soared by 43% during this timespan, from an estimated $127.9 billion in 2017 to $183.3 billion in 2021.

Despite this growth, majority Black-owned businesses made up only about 3% of all U.S. firms that were classifiable by the race and ethnicity of their owners in 2021. And they accounted for just 1% of gross revenue from all classifiable companies that year. By comparison, in 2021, roughly 14% of all Americans were Black.

As has  long been the case , White majority-owned businesses made up the greatest share of classifiable firms (85%) and their revenue (93%) in 2021. About one-in-ten classifiable firms (11%) were majority-owned by Asian Americans, and no more than 7% had majority ownership by someone from another racial and ethnic group.

The Annual Business Survey classifies businesses as “majority Black- or African American-owned” if a Black owner has at least 51% equity in the firm. The same standard holds for business owners of other racial and ethnic backgrounds. The U.S. Census Bureau counts multiracial firm owners under all racial categories they identify with; Hispanic firm owners may be of any race. 

Not all U.S. businesses are classifiable by the race or ethnicity of their owners. In 2021, about 4% of all businesses in the U.S. were  not  classifiable by the race and ethnicity of their owners – though these firms accounted for 61% of total revenue. Ownership and revenue figures in this analysis are based on the roughly 5.7 million firms that  were  classifiable by the race and ethnicity of their owners in 2021, most of which are smaller businesses.

How many workers do Black-owned businesses employ?

Black or African American majority-owned firms provided income for roughly 1.4 million workers in 2021. Their annual payrolls were estimated at $53.6 billion.

Still, most Black-owned firms tend to be smaller businesses. Two-thirds had fewer than 10 employees in 2021 ; 13% had 10 to 49 employees and just 3% had 50 or more. Another 16% reported having no employees. (The ABS determines employment size by the number of paid workers during the March 12 pay period.)

What’s the most common sector for Black-owned businesses?

By far, health care and social assistance. About 45,000 of the roughly 161,000 U.S. companies with majority Black or African American ownership, or 28% of the total, were part of this sector in 2021.

Looked at a different way, 7% of  all  classifiable U.S. businesses in the health care and social assistance sector were majority Black-owned that year .

A chart showing that health care and social assistance is the most common sector among Black-or African American-owned businesses.

Other common sectors that year included:

  • Professional, scientific and technical services (comprising 14% of all Black-owned businesses)
  • Administrative and support and waste management and remediation services (8%)
  • Transportation and warehousing (8%)
  • Retail trade (6%)
  • Construction (6%)

Where are Black-owned businesses located?

A map showing that Black- or African American-owned businesses made up greatest share of firms in District of Columbia, Georgia and Maryland in 2021.

Most Black or African American majority-owned businesses (87%) are located in urban areas. Just 5% are in rural areas – that is, places with fewer than 2,500 inhabitants, under  the Census Bureau’s definition .

Some of the most populous states also have the greatest number of Black majority-owned businesses. Florida had 18,502 such businesses in 2021, California had 15,014 and Georgia had 14,394.

Black majority-owned businesses made up the greatest  share  of all classifiable firms in the District of Columbia (15%), Georgia and Maryland (8% each).

Who are Black business owners?

  • They’re more likely to be men than women. Some 53% of Black-owned firms in 2021 had men as their majority owners, while 39% had women majority owners. Another 8% had equal male-female ownership. The gender gap is larger among classifiable U.S. firms overall: 63% were majority-owned by men in 2021, 22% were majority-owned by women and 14% had equal male-female ownership.
  • They tend to be middle-aged. Roughly half (49%) of Black or African American business owners who reported their age group were ages 35 t0 54 in 2021. Another 28% were 55 to 64, and just 7% were younger than 35.
  • A majority have a college degree. Among owners who reported their highest level of education completed, 27% had a bachelor’s degree and 34% had a graduate or professional degree in 2021.

What motivates Black entrepreneurs?

When asked to choose from a list of reasons why they opened their firm, about nine-in-ten Black or African American majority owners who responded said an important reason was the opportunity for greater income; a desire to be their own boss; or wanting the best avenue for their ideas, goods and services. Balancing work and family life (88%) and having flexible hours (85%) were also commonly cited.

For most Black or African American majority owners, their business is their primary source of income . Seven-in-ten of those who reported income information in 2021 said this was the case.

Note: This is an update of a post originally published on Feb. 21, 2023.

scientific and technical writing vs research

Sign up for our weekly newsletter

Fresh data delivered Saturday mornings

8 facts about Black Americans and the news

Key facts about the nation’s 47.9 million black americans, facts about the u.s. black population, african immigrants in u.s. more religious than other black americans, and more likely to be catholic, across religious groups, a majority of black americans say opposing racism is an essential part of their faith, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

IMAGES

  1. Science Writing

    scientific and technical writing vs research

  2. PPT

    scientific and technical writing vs research

  3. Technical Writing vs. Academic Writing

    scientific and technical writing vs research

  4. Thesis vs. Dissertation vs. Research Paper

    scientific and technical writing vs research

  5. (PDF) Classification in scientific and technical writing

    scientific and technical writing vs research

  6. Difference between academic writing and technical writing

    scientific and technical writing vs research

VIDEO

  1. What is research

  2. What is Research??

  3. Secrets To Finding High-Impact Research Topics (I NEVER Revealed These Before)

  4. Introduction to Research

  5. Choosing A Research Topic

  6. Finding HIGH-Impact Research Topics

COMMENTS

  1. Basics of scientific and technical writing

    Scientific/technical writing is an essential part of research. The outcome of a research activity should be shared with others in the form of scientific paper publications; some ideas require a patent to reserve the implementation rights; and almost any research activity requires a funding source, for which a grant proposal is necessary.

  2. What is scientific writing?

    Scientific writing is a technical form of writing that is designed to communicate scientific information to other scientists. Depending on the specific scientific genre—a journal article, a scientific poster, or a research proposal, for example—some aspects of the writing may change, such as its purpose, audience, or organization.Many aspects of scientific writing, however, vary little ...

  3. What are the differences between technical and scientific writing?

    We're often asked what the difference is between technical and scientific writing. The question is reasonable, and while the two types of writing share many attributes (conciseness, flow, and effectiveness), the real difference is, to put it simply, in the application. That is, as Gertrude Stein once said, "A rose is a rose is a rose ...

  4. Successful Scientific Writing and Publishing: A Step-by-Step Approach

    Scientific writing and publication are essential to advancing knowledge and practice in public health, but prospective authors face substantial challenges. Authors can overcome barriers, such as lack of understanding about scientific writing and the publishing process, with training and resources. ... Original research articles make up most of ...

  5. PDF A Quick Guide to Scientific & Technical Writing

    Enjoy Writing Your Science Thesis or Dissertation! A Step-by-Step Guide to Planning and Writing a Thesis or Dissertation for Undergraduate and Graduate Science Students. 2nd ed. London: Imperial College Press, 2014. Friedland, Andrew J., and Carol L. Folt. Writing Successful Science Proposals. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.

  6. Science Writing vs. Technical Writing: What's the Difference?

    Technical writing is all about documentation. Technical writers write manuals. They write white papers. They help write and edit journal papers. They often work within organizations that are producing or operating technologies of some sort: Airlines. Government agencies (like the CDC, FDA, or FAA, for instance)

  7. Writing a Research Report

    Here's a commonly used process for successful writers: Sample Writing Process. Prewriting. Make notes, scribble ideas: start generating text, drawing figures, sketching out presentation ideas. Ignore neatness, spelling, and sentence structure--get the ideas down. Analyze audience and purpose to focus your writing. Writing.

  8. Scientific Writing Made Easy: A Step‐by‐Step Guide to Undergraduate

    Scientific writing, while an indispensable step of the scientific process, is often overlooked in undergraduate courses in favor of maximizing class time devoted to scientific concepts. However, the ability to effectively communicate research findings is crucial for success in the biological sciences.

  9. Science Writing vs. Scientific Writing

    Scientific Writing vs. Science Writing Example. Scientific Writing: "The longer timeframe provided by this study also provides for increased constraint on the parameters used in semi-empirical models of sea level rise. That increased constraint points toward projected sea level rise lying at or near the upper range of current projections ...

  10. The Structure of Scientific Writing: An Empirical Analysis of Recent

    Awareness of these differences should encourage teachers of scientific and technical writing and scholars of writing studies to pay closer attention to the actual structural forms used in different STEM disciplines and with different methodological types of research studies. ... The schematic structure of computer science research articles ...

  11. Basics of scientific and technical writing: Grant proposals

    Grant proposals. A grant proposal is a formal document you submit to a funding agency or an investing organization to persuade them to provide the requested support by showing that (1) you have a plan to advance a certain valuable cause and (2) that the team is fully capable of reaching the proposed goals. The document may contain a description ...

  12. Technical Writing and Editing

    Scientific Writing: Lewis Chang. Scientific Editing: Catherine Goodman. Scientific Editing: Wendy Grus. Science Administration: Elizabeth Prescott. If you love telling stories, you might be ...

  13. 2.3: Technical Writing Research and Writing Process

    Phase 1: Coming to a Purpose. The first phase of a writing task is often coming to a purpose. Sometimes this phase, like all of the phases, can take a long time. Other times, you can get through the entire timeline in the space of a minute or two (such as when you're writing a work email).

  14. 7 Features of Scientific Writing (Plus Definition and Tips)

    Scientific writing is a technical form of writing that communicates scientific information to other scientists in a document, book or presentation in written form. It requires a lot of research and exact wording and can include grant requests, peer reviews and summarized findings.

  15. Difference between Research Papers and Technical ...

    Research Papers. Technical Articles. Research paper carries more weight on the basic issues. Technical article puts more accentuation on the technique angle, not necessary announcing on the discoveries. A research paper won't warrant as broad of a reference list. A technical article, a peruser can anticipate to discover an broad book index.

  16. Scientific writing

    Scientific writing is a specialized form of technical writing, and a prominent genre of it involves reporting about scientific studies such as in articles for a scientific journal. [2] Other scientific writing genres include writing literature-review articles (also typically for scientific journals), which summarize the existing state of a ...

  17. Technical Writing & Communication: A Primer

    Scientific writing and communication: Papers, proposals, and presentations. New York: Oxford University Press. Scientific Writing Made Easy: A Step-by-Step Guide to Undergraduate Writing in the Biological Sciences

  18. (PDF) Scientific and Technical Writing

    In some technical and scientific writing situations, professional writers need to work with subject-matter specialists to produce documents of various kinds (Lee & Mehlenbacher 2000; Lagnado 2003).

  19. Technical report

    A technical report (also scientific report) is a document that describes the process, progress, or results of technical or scientific research or the state of a technical or scientific research problem. [1] [2] It might also include recommendations and conclusions of the research. Unlike other scientific literature, such as scientific journals ...

  20. Basics of scientific and technical writing: Patents

    The basics on patents. A patent is a form of intellectual property (IP) that gives the right to the inventors to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a certain period of time (usually 20 years). The inventors should publish a public disclosure of the invention in return. For the inventors, however, a patent does not ...

  21. Scientific/Technical Reports Handout

    Howe Center for Writing Excellence. Handouts. A scientific, engineering, or technical report informs readers about research you've conducted. (In your science classes, they may be called Lab Reports). These reports often follow the pattern explained here and as shown in the figure to the right, though the section titles and organization can ...

  22. Research and Technical Writing for Science and Engineering

    Product information. Title: Research and Technical Writing for Science and Engineering. Author (s): Meikang Qiu, Han Qiu, Yi Zeng. Release date: February 2022. Publisher (s): CRC Press. ISBN: 9781000541298. Engineering and science research can be difficult for beginners because scientific research is fraught with constraints and disciplines ...

  23. Scientific and Technical Writing,

    The Scientific and Technical Writing major consists of 10 courses (30 credit hours): three core courses, one professional or technical writing course, a capstone internship and two approved courses related to a specific topical area. The topic areas below serve as examples. Science and Health.

  24. The Scientific Dilemma: Preservation vs Research

    Finding the right balance would require teamwork from scientists, conservationists, policymakers, and the public alike. By working together, we can create ethical research methods that value both understanding and protecting the environment. Balancing environmental research and preservation is complicated, but it is also crucial.

  25. A look at Black-owned businesses in the U.S.

    Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to examine the characteristics of Black-owned businesses in the United States. The analysis relies primarily on data from the 2022 Annual Business Survey (ABS), conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Science Foundation's National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics.. The survey - conducted annually since 2017 - includes ...