Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
(OP)
I used to have a job where clear, concise and accurate technical writing was valued, but my world has changed. I am now routinely asked to water down my reports past meaningless and trite into the realm of disinformation and outright fiction. I used to collect various phrases I had read in the reports of others of examples of both good and bad writing. I now find it necessary to write statements, conclusions and recommendations that are bland and obtuse enough to make it through the committee of non-technical editors and Clients with less than beneficent motivations.
So I offer this as my contribution to the category of meaningless conclusion. Plagerize at will. I no longer care. Any other contributions welcome.
A complex set of circumstances and the construction history of the project have resulted in defined problematic areas, culminating in leaks. Although there are a variety of moisture sources, satisfactory results to mitigate the water infiltration can be achieved through an integrated approach to remedial design and strategic selection of repair techniques. This may require additional probing and experimentation with repair methodology to determine the best course of action and one that brings the highest value to the table. Moving forward, future maintenance costs will be largely dependent on appropriate routine upkeep and repair methods selected to mitigate the challenging issues.
So I offer this as my contribution to the category of meaningless conclusion. Plagerize at will. I no longer care. Any other contributions welcome.
A complex set of circumstances and the construction history of the project have resulted in defined problematic areas, culminating in leaks. Although there are a variety of moisture sources, satisfactory results to mitigate the water infiltration can be achieved through an integrated approach to remedial design and strategic selection of repair techniques. This may require additional probing and experimentation with repair methodology to determine the best course of action and one that brings the highest value to the table. Moving forward, future maintenance costs will be largely dependent on appropriate routine upkeep and repair methods selected to mitigate the challenging issues.
"Gorgeous hair is the best revenge." Ivana Trump





RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
Motto: KISS
Motivation: Don't ask
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
Now, since I actually thought it up all by myself, without any direct help from other people here at my humble place of gainful employment and besides, this may ultimately turn out to be a really great note scamming, no make that spamming, scheme for me, but more likely in the end only light or frivolous entertainment will pour forth.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
http://www.plmworld.org/museum/
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
now why i always smile quietly to myself whenever anyone says this is because i remember some joke about tarzan and red-painted elephant balls ...
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
"You must understand the design process..."
That would get me to 500 words before the subject of the writing was even mentioned.
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
http://www.plmworld.org/museum/
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
http://www.plmworld.org/museum/
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
The late Richard Mitchell, the Underground Grammarian had an interesting theory about bad writing. The bad writers mean exactly what they say.
Read Less Than Words Can Say.
Here is the best example in the book...
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
Great clip. I will look for a way to work magneto reluctance and sinusoidal repleneration into my next report.
"Gorgeous hair is the best revenge." Ivana Trump
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
:(
At least you can change your reports. When I write up a technical report, it goes through committee, and any changes that need to be made are done by our technical publicist, who by the way barely knows what a bolt is...
I'm going to look for some of the garbage that has been sent out, and post a portion as well as my original submission...
Cabbages, knickers, It hasn't got A BEAK!
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
http://www
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
http://www.plmworld.org/museum/
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
Consider yourself lucky that they make the edits. I have to make their inane changes to my report myself. This is explained by the HR people, with whom I have taken up this issue, as a 'learning' opportunity for me.
I had a simple cover letter come back to me for editing because I had not put "Mr." in front of the client's name. I complained that it was grossly inefficient to have a technical production person taking time away from billable work to make these kinds of edits, to turn the Mr. into a black Mr.
"Gorgeous hair is the best revenge." Ivana Trump
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
Yes, I too see lots of examples of bad writing. Sadly, the richest mine of all is the one I create myself. (See my FAQs or examples).
Still, I don't use "serendipidous" "organic" "facilitate" etc., but I still do all right.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
The paragraph at the top is at the end of the report, under the laughable heading "Conclusions." The comment I got back was "good ending." I don't think it was meant sarcastically.
"Gorgeous hair is the best revenge." Ivana Trump
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
I'm sure you are right about lack of sarcasm. They wouldn't understand that concept.
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
He is a Phd engineer in Germany. I'm expected to start every e-mail with: Dear Dr. XXXXX
I hate using "Dear" when writing an e-mail, so I usually just type "Dr. XXXX" I have been told that it is insulting to him sending this way.
Here is a snipit from the last scold:
"Dear Doctor XXX (name was spelled wrong... lol) please except our deapest appologizes for our engineers enupt email. He has only been with the company just under a year and is not used to the proper analytical writing skill's that are required for his job, rest ashured it will not happen again as he has been warned several times and have pledged to stop making this mundane mistake."
Then they added the "Dear" to my e-mail and sent out....
I was mortified... I tried to point out all their errors, and ended up getting a verbal warning for "questioning a superiror's entillect" (that is how it was written...)
My boss and I laughed till we were blue in the face.
Cabbages, knickers, It hasn't got A BEAK!
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
I refuse to give this one up. Even though I'm a born and raised US citizen, I picked up many European habits growing up.
tyres
colour
various others, but these 2 pop to mind first.
I love to use these spellings because they come walking down with a smug face like they are the know it all. I have shown them the dictionary several times indicating that I am just as correct as they are. They actually think the dictionary is incorrect!
Cabbages, knickers, It hasn't got A BEAK!
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
http://www.plmworld.org/museum/
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
"Gorgeous hair is the best revenge." Ivana Trump
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
When used to refer to a babies butt covering it's almost always abbreviated as 'nappy'.
Of course, send that to the wrong person in the US and all hell could break loose.
Kind of like when a Brit tells a Yank they're going out side to smoke a fag.
As to Fanny, yes, a fanny-pack for instance is something quite different in the UK.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
Not sure that is something I really wanted to win. ha-ha
I must have had a primary school instructor from the UK. I cannot for the life of me remember when or how I picked the alternative spellings up, but I have used them as long as I can remember.
I had an instructor in college who got me to call shock absorbers "dash pots," it took me forever to shake that one...
Cabbages, knickers, It hasn't got A BEAK!
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
But management don't feel the users are getting value for money and it doesn't look [i]official[/o] so instead of a one page memo on headed notepaper, we have copyrights, signoff sheets, purpose of document, contents page, list of abbreviations, pages intentionally left blank etc.
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
The first is fine if it was a textbook or preface to a long report- hopefully hardly anyone would need to read that part.
The second is a bit verbose and mundane but it wasn't verbose then it would be a reasonable short statement for non-technical people. This part of the pipe was very obviously uphill so it trapped water when under shutdown. The temperatures were below freezing so it froze and burst the pipe.
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing
'We here at Dingleball Environmental Engineering have a multi-talented staff with amazing skills, only a fraction of which we use during our normal course of work. In fact, we routinely brag about our amazing skills in our marketing collateral that we send to Clients such as yourself. As much as we would like to believe all of our glorious claims, we are not so delusional as to think that we can offer legal advice right along side that of the engineering advice for which we have been contracted. We suggest that you call one of those overpriced legal firms located in the fancy high rise buildings in the Loop to review paragraphs (insert you applicable reverence here). We'll stick to what we know.'
"Gorgeous hair is the best revenge." Ivana Trump
RE: Samples of Your Pointless and Trite Technical Writing