William Safire's On Language is the most entertaining study of how Americans use the English language — inventing words, changing pronunciations, and fumbling with half-understood phrases-since Jacque Barzun edited Wilson Follett's Modern American Usage in 1974. (Safire admires Barzun's opinions on English usage.)

There is no more appealing task for a writer of documents than to examine guidelines that are based on research-maybe they will be able to stop guessing whether their own documents will be understood by their intended users.

In writing for your reader, adopt the habit of considering his needs and you will succeed in communicating technical information effectively. Write to meet the reader's personal needs-his use for the information and his background regarding it. Write the report to educate the busy reader quickly-emphasize through repetition and placement what you especially want the reader to know. Write for your reader's understanding-choose familiar words in familiar patterns, be consistent, and be grammatical. To catch accidental misspellings and cumbersome connections, read your report aloud. In the format allow plenty of blank space to rest the reader's eyes.

edge of the subject and your convenience totally govern how you prepare the report.Prepare a 'user-oriented' report, much as the engineer-designer gives prime" consideration to the users of a highway or an electric drill."Whether the letters ask for information (inquiry, request, and order) or give information (response and employment), the format is the same, and courtesy always prevails.Cus tomer relations letters (congratulatory, appreciation, com plaint, adjustment, and collection) are best begun and ended with goodwill, no matter whether the news is good or bad.In persuasive letters, the readers will stay interested when they are placed in the picture and shown how the product or the service relates to them.Pearsall and Cunningham elaborate on report writing by fo cusing on ( 1 ) how much information the readers need, (2) how best to create a picture of the mechanism in their minds, and (3) how to arrange the details.Instruction manuals, periodic reports, accident reports, trip reports, minutes of meetings, analytical reports, and proposals are explained with readeroriented reasons for the steps in their preparation.So are guidelines for how to compile a bibliography, how to review technical literature as part of the report, how to pre pare typical illustrations, how to tabulate data, how to fill out forms, and how to convert English and metric units.The ap pendix on usage summarizes points of grammar, style, punctu ation, capitalization, and spelling.Besides covering the important writing situations, the au thors explain how to act at an employment interview arid, in a long chapter, how to report technical information orally, es sentially what you would learn in two years as a member of a Toast masters Club.Every chapter has lots of examples, all on technical subjects from industry and government.The readability level varies from that of working adults to that of students fresh out of high school with little technical background.

edge of the subject and your convenience totally govern how you prepare the report.Prepare a 'user-oriented' report, much as the engineer-designer gives prime" consideration to the users of a highway or an electric drill."Whether the letters ask for information (inquiry, request, and order) or give information (response and employment), the format is the same, and courtesy always prevails.Cus tomer relations letters (congratulatory, appreciation, com plaint, adjustment, and collection) are best begun and ended with goodwill, no matter whether the news is good or bad.In persuasive letters, the readers will stay interested when they are placed in the picture and shown how the product or the service relates to them.Pearsall and Cunningham elaborate on report writing by fo cusing on ( 1 ) how much information the readers need, (2) how best to create a picture of the mechanism in their minds, and (3) how to arrange the details.Instruction manuals, periodic reports, accident reports, trip reports, minutes of meetings, analytical reports, and proposals are explained with readeroriented reasons for the steps in their preparation.So are guidelines for how to compile a bibliography, how to review technical literature as part of the report, how to pre pare typical illustrations, how to tabulate data, how to fill out forms, and how to convert English and metric units.The ap pendix on usage summarizes points of grammar, style, punctu ation, capitalization, and spelling.Besides covering the important writing situations, the au thors explain how to act at an employment interview arid, in a long chapter, how to report technical information orally, es sentially what you would learn in two years as a member of a Toast masters Club.Every chapter has lots of examples, all on technical subjects from industry and government.The readability level varies from that of working adults to that of students fresh out of high school with little technical background.

Technical writers modify their main ideas with prepositional phrases. But their use of an abundance of phrases can result in overmodification and misplacement of modifiers, which can lead to obscuration of meanings and confusion to readers. The writers should reduce such phrasing, strengthen their verbs, and thus clarify their main ideas.

American scientists and engineers are lucky. If their reports are unreadable, they can study technical writing at the nearest university, community college, hotel seminar, or in-house course. Their British counterparts are less fortunate. According to a British friend of mine who just earned his Ph.D. degree in engineering, the British are not taught to write past primary school. Those who study engineering at a polytechnic, an advanced college of technology, or at a university must write the best they can. Too often their best writing does not read well.

The professional engineer who is a novice at photographing his equipment can benefit by reading Photo Technology. He can learn step by step what camera he will need for what purpose, what lenses and films he should buy for the results that he wants, and how he can print the negatives to get interesting effects.

Students in the Stanford School of Engineering's Design Division are lucky to study with Professor James L. Adams and to learn the methods of smashing mental blocks to solve engineering design problems. The rest of us are lucky to be able to read Conceptual Blockbusting, which Adams and his colleague, Professor Robert McKim, originated from their presentations. In the following paragraph, Adams explains his rationale, his purpose, and his scope, and shows his personable writing style:

Why would professional engineers want to read a writing guide for students? After all, as professionals, they already use methods of definition and classification; they already describe processes, mechanisms, layouts, and organizations. They most likely write proposals of sorts and, of course, long reports. So why would they want to review what they already do? To improve it. of course.

Once engineers learn drafting in college, have they learned all they need to know for engineering drawing on the job? Hardly. Sketch after sketch and photograph after photograph in Technical Illustrating show refinements and extend applications for the experienced engineer.

Because brochures attract clients and accounts, firms seeking contracts should prepare and print brochures with expert advice. Gerre Jones gives this advice in How to Prepare Professional Design Brochures. Having studied this handbook, the administrator, public relations officer, writer, and illustrator can more assuredly choose a format, gather data, sketch a layout, and plan the printing of a design brochure. Such reading and planning should reduce the cost for a consultant and speed the time to printing.

The busy technical writer can find whatever he needs stylistically in the Handbook of Technical Writing, and he can find it fast. Prepared as a college textbook, the Handbook can serve just as well as a desk reference for the employed writer.

From 1968 to 1975, the Committee on Editorial Policy of the Council of Biology Editors met several times a year to discuss editorial guidelines for scientific journals. The Scientific Journal: Editorial Policies and Practices summarizes the Committee's answers to editorial problems. In this reference book, author Lois DeBakey advises editors how to decide which policies and practices will suit their journals best and how reviewers and authors can judge a manuscript's readiness for publication in the journals.

Technical writers are speeding language change by dropping possessive forms of nouns before gerunds, subjunctive forms of verbs after “if,” full words to make acronyms, and subjects (and thereby dangle modifiers). Until a generation ago, English teachers and editors admonished students and writers to uphold the traditions of formal style. Remember these traditions: Use noun and verb forms for fullest immediate understanding. Spell out acronyms the first time that you use them, and modify stated subjects. What you lose in time, you gain in meaning.