Technical Writing Technical Writing
(1) (1)
授課老師 授課老師 授課老師
授課老師: Li-Hua LI (李麗華 李麗華 李麗華 李麗華)
Information Management Dept.
Chaoyang University of Technology
Contents Contents
What is a research paper
Process of writing a research paper
Good writing style Good writing style
註: 本教材匯編並引用自唐元亮老師教材
“A Professional Plain English Handbook”
What is a research paper What is a research paper
A presentation of the results of investigations on a selected topic
A creation based on the author’s
A creation based on the author’s
own thoughts and the facts and
ideas gathered from a variety of
sources.
Process of writing a Process of writing a
research paper research paper
Steps of creating a paper
(http://www.csuohio.edu/writingcenter/writproc.html)
Discovering a topic
Gathering data and information Reviewing and categorizing
Reviewing and categorizing information
Discussing, criticizing, and
brainstorming to get ideas and develop theories
Writing a draft of the research results
Revising and proofreading
Good writing styles(1) Good writing styles(1)
Styles
How well you communicate with readers, not about grammatical correctness
Verbose, cryptic, flowery, plain, poetic, literal, … Science paper: accurate and clear
The volume of information has been rapidly increasing in the past few decades. Much information is in
textual format. This unstructured style of data, in
contrast to the old structured record format data, cannot be managed properly by the traditional database models.
What’s wrong with the following paragraph?
What are the problems of the following paragraph?
The volume of information has been rapidly increasing in the past few decades. Much information is in
textual format. This unstructured style of data, in
contrast to the old structured record format data, cannot be managed properly by the traditional database models.
Furthermore, since so much information is available, storage and indexing are not the only problems. We need to ensure
隨著時代的潮流的演進現在很多人都在上網，
這帶給人們許多的便利，透過網路的服務，人們 已經可以在網路從事許多的商業行為，因此，
電子商務已成為目前的潮流。
and indexing are not the only problems. We need to ensure
relevant information can be obtained upon querying the database.
問題 問題 問題 問題 出在出在 出在出在 哪裡哪裡 哪裡哪裡
?
Good writing styles (2) Good writing styles (2)
Tone: Objective and accurate
Link text together as a narrative
Balance: comparable topics should be discussed to a similar depth
Voice: avoid passive voice Voice: avoid passive voice
The following theorem can now be proved.
We can now prove the following theorem.
Tree structure can be utilized for dynamic storage of terms.
Terms can be stored in dynamic tree structure.
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Good writing styles (3) Good writing styles (3)
Corrections can be led to large savings.
Corrections led to savings of 12%~13% in our experiments.
The status of the system is such that a number of
√
Avoid obfuscation: ambiguous or convoluted terms
The status of the system is such that a number of components are not able to be operated.
Several f the system’s components are working.
√
Correct in-text reference
Robinson’s theory suggests using a small value, but he did not perform experiment to confirm his results [10].
Robinson’s theory suggests using a small value [10], but X
√
Good writing styles (4) Good writing styles (4)
Use of digital libraries is increasingly common.
Digital libraries provide fast access to large numbers of documents.
√
Good opening
Avoid ambiguity
The compiler did not accept the program because it contains errors.
The program did not compiler because it contains errors.
√
Good writing styles (5) Good writing styles (5)
“first” and “second”
“Firstly” and “secondly”
We are planning to consider possible options for extending our results.
√
Use short, direct words
extending our results.
We are considering how to extend our results.
√
Avoid double negation
Merten’s algorithm is not dissimilar to ours.
Good writing styles (6) Good writing styles (6)
There is very little advantage to the networked approach There is little advantage to the networked approach.
X
√
Avoid unnecessary qualifiers
Which that: “that” should be used more Which that: “that” should be used more often unless using “which” is necessary.
There is one method which is acceptable.
There is one method that is acceptable.
There are three methods, of which only one is tractable.
√
√
Good writing styles (7) Good writing styles (7)
Little, few
“little,” ”few”: almost no quantity
This research has little contribution.
There were few books on the shelves.
“A little,” ”a few”: some quantity
“A little,” ”a few”: some quantity
This research has a little contribution.
There were a few books on the shelves.
“Less,” ”more”: for continuous quantities It uses less space; it uses more space.
“Fewer,” ”more”: for discrete quantities
There were fewer errors; there were more errors.
Good writing styles (8) Good writing styles (8)
Will, shall: “shall” is archaic and is rarely preferable to “will”
We shall present a novel solution to the problem in this paper
We will present a novel solution to the problem in this paper
√ paper
Overuse of words
C was used for the project because the underlying operating system is implemented in C.
C was used for the project because it is the language used for implementation of the underlying operating systems
√
Good writing styles (9) Good writing styles (9)
Plurals
Packets that contain an error are automatically corrected.
Packets that contain errors are automatically corrected.
A packet that contains an error is automatically corrected.
√
Classes may not need a plural
These kinds of algorithms are irrelevant.
These kinds of algorithm are irrelevant.
Algorithms of this kind are irrelevant.
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Good writing styles (10) Good writing styles (10)
These two information are matched with each other.
These two pieces of information are matched with each other.
This data is used for verification.
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Data, information
This data is used for verification.
These data are used for verification.
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What, how:
I don’t know what to do.
I don’t know how to do it.
Trust me; you can make it.
√
√
Good writing styles (11) Good writing styles (11)
“et al.”: Latin abbreviation = “and others”
There is no period after the “et” and it is italicized.
“i.e.” means “that is”
“e.g.” means “for example”
Abbreviation
“e.g.” means “for example”
“etc.” (et cetera) means and usually reads “and so on (forth)”
EX: Operations such as smoothing, compressing, scaling, etc.
are very common in image processing.
•Do not write “etc., etc.” or “etc….”
