Scientific and technical reports: how to write and illustrate

Scientific and technical reports: How to Write and Illustrate provides step-by-step advice on tackling various tasks associated with report writing like gathering information, analyzing information, preparing an outline, writing a rough draft and revising. Many examples illustrate the processes involved at various steps. A stepwise approach to computer-assisted preparation of tables and various types of figures like line drawings, bar charts, histograms, flowcharts, etc., is provided. Also presented are suggestions about how to use commonly available computer programs to give visual shape to ideas, concepts, processes and cause and effect relations described in the text. Use of readability tests is explained as a screening system for checking comprehensibility of language used. Readers are alerted to some of the common pitfalls in science writing like redundancy, overuse of nouns, noun chains, excessive use of passive voice, use of overlong sentences and ambiguity. Checklist at the end of each chapter sums up the most important points. Though the primary aim of the book is to provide help in writing reports and dissertations, it can be used as a help in tackling other forms of scientific and technical writing also.