ABSTRACT
The ineffectiveness of their own writing perplexes many engineers and scientists. Their peers and supervisors tell them that their memos and reports are “fuzzy” and “hard to follow.” In response to these vague complaints, ineffective troubled writers often resort to laboring over every word, phrase, and paragraph as they draft their reports and memos. The chapter provides a few comments about writing the rough draft, but it dwells mainly on the critical stage of revising that first draft. It explains how to revise to avoid the charges of fuzzy and hard to follow. Write as quickly as possible; if engineers are familiar with the material, they should be able to write 500–700 words per hour. Antagonism implies hostility; eradicate means “to get rid of completely”; and foreign is the only sort of imports one can mean. The extra words add not emphasis but only the impression that engineers are not thinking carefully about what they are saying.
