Chapter Attribution

David Murray

Michelle Miller

Sherena Huntsman

Writing Research Process

The writing process takes you from the very beginning of a writing project—finding topics and analyzing audience and purpose—all the way to the end—writing and revising the rough draft. The following chapters focus on some of the key phases of that process:

• Strategies for team-writing
• Audience Analysis
• Brainstorming and invention
• Narrowing
• Outlining
• Note-taking
• Libraries, Documentation, Cross-Referencing
• Strategies for Peer-Reviewing
• Power-Revision Techniques

Find Report Topics

As a writer in a technical writing course, you may need some strategies for finding topics for writing projects, which are provided in this section.

By definition, technical writing courses are opportunities to focus on practical uses of your writing skills. In the ideal technical writing course, you would have a work-related writing project every two to three weeks: for example, instructions for that pesky printer down the hall or a white paper on a newly adapted software program. However, technical writing courses are also great opportunities for exploring science and technology: latest advances in nanotechnology, theories about the origin of the universe, methods for hydroponic gardening. If your instructor encourages you to find your own topics, take a look at the following suggestions. These are just a few ways you can generate ideas.

Topic ideas from interesting courses or projects related to your major or areas of interest

See if the following list of audiences brings to mind technical writing projects

Specific to general sequence. Some outlines move from a specific, close-up focus to a more general, panoramic focus. They seem to start with a microscope, examining the minute details of a subject, and end with a telescope, considering the subject from a distance in relation to other things. (This pattern can also be reversed.)

In this next outline, the focus broadens after part III, changing to aspects related to computerized voice recognition technology:

Rhetorical sequence. Elements in outlines can also be arranged rhetorically, in other words, according to what is most effective for the reader. Here are some examples of rhetorical patterns:

• Simple to complex
• Least important to most important (or vice versa)
• Least controversial to most controversial
• Most convincing to least convincing (or vice versa)
• Most interesting to least interesting

This list is by no means complete, but you can see that elements in it are arranged according to impact on the reader—that is, the impact the writer would like to have. Here are some excerpts of outlines where these patterns are used.

If you have ever studied computer programming, you know that commands like PRINT are simple; variable assignment commands (like LET A = 30), less simple; and FOR-NEXT loop statements, rather complex. If you were outlining a report on fundamental BASIC commands for the beginner, you’d probably start with the simple ones and work your way to the complex:

In the problem version, the municipal solid waste discussion is interrupted by the MSW-processing discussion. A better arrangement would be to discuss MSW fully before going on to the discussion of how it is processed. Use these common arrangement principles to get your topic list into an initial rough order. The rearranged version of the topic list shown previously might look this way:

Electronic Note-Taking Methods

As of 2015, the writing-teaching world—at least at the college level and in terms of textbooks—is seriously behind in terms of what it knows and what it teaches about note-taking for major writing projects. Strangely, the very best writing resource on the Internet, the Purdue OWL, has nothing on note-taking. Read the following section Traditional Note-Taking Methods for a review of just what good any note-taking system is.

Until we get our act together, consider how the traditional note-taking system is implemented in software applications.

A number of software applications are available that support note-taking and related tasks: Evernote, EasyBib, NoodleTools, and more. Their basic functions are similar so let’s use NoodleTools. It has a nice set of YouTube videos that walk you through the main phases of its use.

Traditional Note-Taking Process: An Overview

In the traditional system of taking notes for a long report, you:

1. Develop a rough outline.
2. Do any preliminary reading necessary to construct a rough outline.
3. Locate your information sources, and make bibliography cards for each source.
4. Take the actual notes on index cards.
5. Label each notecard according to its place in the outline.
6. Provide bibliographic information on each notecard.
7. Change or add extra detail to the outline as the note-taking process continues.
8. Check off the areas of the outline for which sufficient notes have been taken.

When you have taken sufficient notes to cover all parts of an outline, you transcribe the information from the notecards into a rough draft, filling in details, adding transitions, and providing your own acquired understanding of the subject as you write. Naturally, you may discover gaps in your notes and have to go back and take more notes.

Developing the Rough Draft

As the section on outlining emphasizes, you must have a working outline before you begin gathering information. The rough outline shows you which specific topics to gather information on and which ones to ignore. Think of the outline as a series of questions.

If you don’t have a good, specific outline, the sky is the limit on how many notes you can take. Think of the outline as a set of boxes that you fill up with the information you collect as you do your research for the report:

Direct Quotes

In most technical reports, direct quotation is needed only for the following situations:

• Statements by important or well-known authorities or leaders
• Controversial statements you do not want attributed to you
• Statements expressed in unusual, vivid, or memorable language

There are essentially two types of direct quotation: “block” quotations and “running” quotations.

Here is an example of a block quotation (any quotation over 3 lines long):

“Running” quotations are direct quotations that are trimmed down and worked into the regular sentences of a report. Notice how much smoother and more efficient the running quotation is in the revised version below:

Guide for Using Direct Quotes

When you use direct quotations in your report, keep these guidelines in mind.

Using ellipsis in direct quotations. The three dots “…” show that words are omitted from the sentence. The brackets “[ ]” indicate changes made by the writer using the quotation so that it would read as good English and make sense.

• Never use “free-floating” quotations in reports. Always “attribute” direct quotations; that is, explain who made the quoted statement. Notice how this is done in Figure 6.
• Always provide adequate introduction for direct quotations and explain their meaning and importance to your readers. Notice how the block quotation above on NRC penalties (a) prepares the reader for the quotation, and, afterwards, (b) provides interpretive comment, on the meaning of the word “stigma” in particular.
• Use indented or “block” quotations whenever a direct quotation goes over three lines long. With any lengthy quotation, make sure that it is important enough to merit direct quotation.
• Whenever possible, “trim” the quotation so that it will fit into your own writing.
• Punctuate direct quotations correctly. You can see the rules for punctuating direct quotations.
• Use ellipses to shorten direct quotations. When you do, however, make sure that the resulting quotation reads as good English.
• Use direct quotations only when necessary: if the passage doesn’t fit one of the reasons for direct quotation cited at the beginning of this section, paraphrase or summarize it instead.

Paraphrasing

In technical-report writing, usually the better approach is to paraphrase. When you paraphrase, you convey the information fact-by-fact, idea-by-idea, and point-by-point in your own words. The writer of the original passage ought to be able to read your paraphrase and say that it is precisely what she or he had meant.

Paraphrases are necessary and preferable for a number of reasons:

• You paraphrase because the content of the passage is so important to your report that you need every bit of it.
• When you paraphrase, you adjust the wording of the original to meet the needs of your audience, the purpose of your report, and your own writing style. In other words, you “translate” other writers’ material into your own.
• A report of mostly direct quotations would be hard to read.
• Readers tend to skip over direct quotations, particularly long ones.
• One final reason for paraphrasing: you are actually writing bits of the rough draft of your report as you paraphrase.

Here is an example of an original passage and its paraphrases, with the unique wording of the original (which must be changed in the paraphrase) underlined.

Guide for Writing and Using Paraphrases

Here are some guidelines to remember when paraphrasing:

• In most cases, paraphrase rather than use direct quotation.
• Avoid the distinctive wording of the original passage.
• Do not interpret, criticize, or select from the original passage.
• Include bibliographic information on the author, source, and page numbers.
• In the rough draft, cite the author’s name and other important details about her or him just as you would if were quoting directly.
• Refer to the paraphrased author in such a way to make it clear where the paraphrase begins and ends.
• Document a paraphrase just as you would a direct quotation. Mark the area of the paraphrase by citing the paraphrased author’s name at the beginning of the paraphrase and by inserting a footnote or parenthetical reference at the end.
• See what the Purdue OWL has to say about paraphrasing.

Summary

Summaries are usually much shorter than their originals. A summary concentrates on only those points or ideas in a passage that are important. Unlike in a paraphrase, the information in a summary can be rearranged. Here is a passage from which summaries below will be taken:

Numerous systems are available for controlling abnormalities [in boiling water reactors]. In the event that control rods cannot be inserted, liquid neutron absorber (containing a boron compound) may be injected into the reactor to shut down the chain reaction. Heat removal systems are available for cooling the core in the event the drywell is isolated from the main cooling systems. Closely related to the heat removal systems are injection systems for coping with decreases in coolant inventory.

Both abnormalities associated with the turbine system and actual loss of coolant accidents can lead closing of the steam and feedwater lines, effectively isolating the reactor vessel within the drywell. Whenever the vessel is isolated, and indeed whenever feedwater is lost, a reactor core isolation cooling system is available to maintain coolant inventory by pumping water into the reactor via connections in the pressure vessel head. This system operates at normal pressures and initially draws water from tanks that store condensate from the turbine, from condensate from the residual heat removal system, or if necessary, from the suppression pool.

A network of systems performs specific ECC [emergency core cooling] functions to cope with LOCAs [loss-of-cool- ant accidents]. (See Figure 6.) These all depend on signals indicating low water level in the pressure vessel or high pressure in the drywell, or both.

The systems include low-pressure injection, utilization of the RHR system, and high- and low-pressure core spray systems. The high-pressure core spray in intended to lower the pressure within the pressure vessel and provide makeup water in the event of a LOCA. In the event the core is uncovered, the spray can directly cool the fuel assemblies. Water is taken from the condensate tanks and from the suppression pool. On the other hand, should it become necessary to use low-pressure systems, the vessel must be depressurized. This depressurization can be accomplished by opening relief valves to blow down the vessel contents into the drywell (and hence the suppression pool). Once this action is completed, the low-pressure core spray may be used to cool the fuel assemblies (drawing water from the suppression pool) or RHR low-pressure injection (again from the suppression pool) may be initiated, or both. The RHR system may also be used simply to cool the suppression pool. (Two other functions of the RHR are to provide decay heat removal under ordinary shutdown conditions and, when necessary, to supplement the cooling system for the spent fuel pool and the upper containment pool.)

Anthony V. Nero, A Guidebook to Nuclear Reactors, Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1979, pp. 104-107.

Sentence-length summaries. Often summaries are only a sentence long. To create sentence-length summaries, use one or a combination of the following methods:

• Locate a sentence or two in the original passage that summarizes the information that you want, and simply rewrite it in your own words.
• If no individual sentence will work, locate several sentences that contain the right information, and combine them.
• Sometimes, the summary sentence is like a new sentence, scarcely resembling any in the original.

Extended summaries. A summary can be longer than a single sentence because of the important information contained in the original passage. (Remember, however, that a paraphrase is a point-by-point recap of the original, while the summary is a selection, reordering and condensation of the original.)

Guide for Using Summaries

Whenever you summarize, you must handle the resulting summary the same way you would a direct quotation or paraphrase.

• Cite the name of the author and other important information about that author.
• Document that summary using whichever system is appropriate for your report.
• If it is an extended summary, make it clear where that summary begins and ends, for example, by referring to the author’s name at the beginning and placing a footnote or parenthetical reference at the end.

Plagiarism

If you follow the guidelines presented in the preceding, plagiarism should not be a problem at all, but make sure you understand what it is.

Reports with plagiarized information are often easy to spot for several reasons:

• Plagiarism is the practice—whether deliberate or not—in which a writer borrows other people’s facts, ideas, or concepts and presents them as if they were her or his own.
• Plagiarism is also the practice—again whether deliberate or not—in which a writer uses other writers’ exact words without quotation marks.
• In all cases, plagiarism is the lack of proper documentation: documentation refers to any system of footnoting or reference that indicates the author and source of the borrowed information.
• A reader may recognize the ideas or facts in the report as those of someone else. An expert in a field of knowledge can spot this theft of information right away.
• A reader may realize that the report writer could not possibly have developed certain information in the report. If a writer who is at the beginning of his studies sounds like an advanced physicist, something is fishy.
• Most readers can also spot a sudden change in the style or tone of the language of a report. Most people’s writing style is as readily identifiable as their voices over the telephone.

Plagiarism is bad business: the plagiarizer can fail an academic course or lose his or her reputation among business and professional associates. It only takes simple documentation to transform a report with plagiarized material in it into one with legally borrowed material. The section on documentation explains these procedures in detail.