ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the content of engineers' writing, and urges them to always keep the reader in mind. After each edit, return to the start of the paragraph and read the change in context. Read for comprehension, assuming engineer know only what the target reader should be expected to know. A typical sentence should say something that could be judged as true or false. Instructions should be written as imperative sentences. Formal documents are often divided into chapters, sections, and subsections. A book certainly needs an index; other long documents may benefit from one as well. An index in which references are arranged in order of appearance in the book is really just a fancy table of contents. Gender-neutral language entails the use of constructions such as he/she, s/he, and him/her to avoid he, she, him, and her. Pluralization is sometimes recommended as a way to avoid gender oriented language.
