Write Technical Reports in Clear English

Too often technical reports use a flat style that makes them uninteresting and tedious to read.  There is no reason why technical writing should not be lively and interesting. Making your readers struggle to understand your meaning will not make them accept your information or ideas readily.

As in all good writing, you should try to put across your message in clear English and avoid complex words, acronyms and jargon.  Try to avoid passive verbs, and keep your average sentence length low.

When you select Technical Report as your writing task StyleWriter Software adjusts its statistical measures as follows:

	Style Index	Average Sentance	Passive Index	Long Sentance Limit
Excellent Range	0-30	11-20	0-30	35

The real challenge in technical writing is to express complex ideas simply.  Follow these guidelines to help improve your technical reports.

1.    Avoid abstract terms – be as specific as you can.
2.    Use simple words instead of complex words.
3.    Define technical terms or unusual words the first time you use them.
4.    Avoid jargon and vague writing.
5.    Don’t try to adopt a learned tone – your message, not the writing style you use, should show your knowledge and expertise.
6.    Avoid passive verbs as much as you can.
7.    Use examples and illustrations to explain difficult information.
8.    Don’t assume your readers will understand your ideas without explaining them.

Plain English Writing Task Styles in Stylewriter

This entry was posted on June 13th, 2010 and is filed under Writing Task Styles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.