ENG 3300 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Academic Institution, Jargon
Week 1 tuesday assigned reading: “Avoid these technical writing mistakes”
1. Poor organization
a. Plan before you write
b. List of suggested organizational schemes
2. Misreading the reader
a. Tailor message toward reader
b.
3. Writing in “technicalese”
a. Defn: language more complex than the concepts it serves to communicate
b. Don’t use passive voice!! Use active voice
c. Avoid jargon.
i. Don’t use technical language unless it communicates your meaning
precisely
d. Write to express, not to impress
4. Lengthy sentences
a. Fog index test
5. Big words
6. Writer’s block
7. Poorly defined topic
8. Inadequate content
9. Stopping after the first draft
10. inconsistent usage
11. Dull, wordy prose
12. Poor page layout
Week 3 tuesday hw: ch. 3 Writing Ethically (p.38)
Obligations to:
● Yourself
● Your discipline and profession
● Academic institution
● Employer
● Colleagues
● The public
Legal doesn’t mean ethical.
● Boilerplate (p.44)
○ “Recycling within company” みたいなかんじ
Document Summary
Don"t use technical language unless it communicates your meaning precisely: write to express, not to impress, lengthy sentences, fog index test, big words, writer"s block, poorly defined topic. Inadequate content: stopping after the first draft, inconsistent usage, dull, wordy prose, poor page layout. Your intentions are immaterial it would be plagiarism if it were deliberate or if it were entirely inadvertent. When quoting a source (including email messages, blog posts, or video clips), put borrowed material inside quotation marks (or display in a separate indented paragraph) and specify the source. If you paraphrase, don"t need quotation marks but still must specify the source. Just changing words around here and there will be plagiarism even if the source is provided. If borrowing a substantial portion of copyright material, (like paragraphs or an image) must: acknowledge the source, request permission from the owner of the intellectual property.
