Writing Guidelines for ME 4015



Michael Alley
E-mail: alley@vt.edu
Office: Durham 331

Key Writing Links
 Proposal Template
Request for Proposal
Sample Proposal
Presentation on Proposals
Sample Design Presentation
General Writing Guidelines

Common Errors
 List of Ahmadian
List of Ellis
List of Karsada
List of Leo
List of Reinholtz
List of Robertshaw
List of Scott
List of Thole
List of von Spakovsky



The writing component of ME 4015 is designed to have you practice the kinds of writing performed by design engineers. For the writing component of the course, you have two resources. One resource is a set of writing links that includes a class presentation on writing proposals and a template for the proposal that you have to write for the course. Another resource is a list of the common errors of previous reports in ME 4015. This list has been compiled by various instructors from the course.

Common Errors Noted by Professor Ahmadian
  1. Improper figure and table captions (CSW,* pp. 163-164)
  2. Improper referencing of tables, figures, and appendices in the text (CSW, pp. 49, 166-167)
  3. Improper abbreviations of units

Common Errors Noted by Professor Ellis
  1. Convoluted sentence structures (CSW, pp. 86-90)
  2. Run-on sentences (CSW, pp. 258-259)
  3. Not presenting ideas in a logical order (CSW, pp. 33-40)
  4. Submitting a report as soon as it has been drafted; in other words, neglecting to outline the draft beforehand or to revise and proofread that draft before submission (CSW, Chapter 17)
  5. Ending a clause with a preposition (for example: we logged the data in and we had to do the experiment over)
  6. Informal language, such as a lot of the data or into 3 parts

Common Errors Noted by Professor Karsada
  1. Missing or unclear transitions at the paragraph level (CSW, pp. 137-138)
  2. Not presenting ideas in a logical order (CSW, pp. 33-40)
  3. Submitting a report as soon as it has been drafted; in other words, neglecting to outline the draft beforehand or to revise and proofread that draft before submission (CSW, Chapter 17)
  4. Failure to introduce a table or figure in the text (CSW, pp. 166-167)
  5. Imprecision (for instance, choose "we had three options" rather than "we had several options")
  6. Informal language, such as using the word you or got (for example, "...got results" rather than "...obtained results")
  7. Needless words (CSW, Chapter 8)

Common Errors Noted by Professor Leo
  1. Run-on sentences (also called comma splices) (CSW, pp. 258-259)
  2. Paragraphs that are too long (CSW, pp. 136-137)
  3. Failure to introduce a table or figure in the text (CSW, pp. 166-167)
  4. Having several pages of figures in a row without any explanatory text (CSW, p. 162)

Common Errors Noted by Professor Reinholtz
  1. Sentences that are too long (CSW, pp. 86-90)
  2. Improper placement of illustrations such as before introduction in the text (CSW, pp. 166-167)
  3. Landscape pages that are upside down (for reading of a landscape page, the report should rotate 90° clockwise on the reader's desk)
  4. Inconsistent use of capitalization in tables and captions
  5. Excessive use of possessive nouns, which usually seem awkward in technical writing (for example: Mount St. Helens' eruption would be better expressed as eruption of Mount St. Helens)
  6. Needless words (CSW, Chapter 8)
  7. Misuse of hopefully, which means in a manner full of hope and which does not mean it is hoped that (mistake: "Hopefully, the antibodies will destroy the cancer cells")
  8. Imprecision ("we had several option" versus "we had three options")

Common Errors Noted by Professor Robertshaw
  1. Undemonstrated assertions
  2. Missing or unclear transitions at the paragraph level (CSW, pp. 137-138)
  3. Excessive use of passive voice (CSW, pp. 104-109)
  4. Equations written without an equation editor
  5. Missing page numbers

Common Errors Noted by Professor Scott
  1. Improper listing and citation of references
  2. Improper placement of illustrations (CSW, pp. 166-167)
  3. Improper captions for figures and headings for tables (CSW, pp. 163-164)
  4. Improper numbering and formatting of equations (also failure to use equation editors) (CSW, pp. 141-145)
  5. Failure to order sections in a logical fashion, often arising from failure to outline the report as a table of contents before writing the sections (CSW, pp. 33-40)
  6. Writing conclusions that are based on guesses or invented theories rather than factual information (Writing and Speaking Lecture 1 in ME 4006)
  7. Informal language, such as using the word you or got (for example, "...got results" rather than "...obtained results")

Common Errors Noted by Professor Thole
  1. Not properly referencing the work of others
  2. Not maintaining a uniform scale on plots that compare various data
  3. Using a sans serif font for the text of documents and using a serif font for the slides of presentations (CSW, pp. 222-223)
  4. Presenting figures that are too small even for people with better than 20/20 vision(CSW, p. 216)

Common Errors Noted by Professor von Spakovsky
  1. Not placing proper information into appendices (CSW, pp. 45-46)
  2. Improper listing and citation of references
  3. Improper placement of illustrations (CSW, pp. 166-167)
  4. Improper captions for figure and headings for tables (CSW, pp. 163-164)
  5. Improper numbering and formatting of equations (also failure to use equation editors)
  6. Improper transitions from section to section and from paragraph to paragraph (CSW, pp. 53-59)
  7. Failure to order sections in a logical fashion, often arising from failure to outline the report as a table of contents before writing the sections (CSW, pp. 33-40)
  8. Failure to include expected sections such as Abstract, Nomenclature, Introduction, Conclusions, Acknowledgments, and Bibliography

Common Errors Noted by Professor Comparin
  1. Writing conclusions that are based on guesses or invented theories rather than factual information (Writing Lecture 3 in ME 4006)
  2. Beginning an infinitive phrase with in order to, which can be simply written as to (CSW, Chapter 8)
  3. Informal language, such as using the word you in a formal report that documents the completion of a project or using double quotation marks (") rather than the word inches in the text of a document


*CSW refers to The Craft of Scientific Writing, which is a required text for ME 4006.


Last updated 9/02
http://www.me.vt.edu/writing/me4015/