Technical Writing in English is a non-credit required course for all Ph.D. students in the Faculty of Engineering. M.Sc. students are encouraged to participate on a space-available basis. The overall objective of the course is to improve the scientific communications skills of the students, and specifically, to give the students the necessary tools to effectively report on their scientific and engineering research. Students are requested to register for the course when they have research results which they would like to publish.
The first two sessions of the course review the advanced features of the Microsoft WORD word processor, with the objective of giving the students tools which will allow them to mechanize some of the more tedious tasks in preparing long documents (e.g. organizing references, tracking revisions, especially with multiple authors, maintaining and modifying formatting), so that they have more time to spend on the content.
The heart of the course (~ 6 lectures) is devoted to the research report, e.g. theses, journal articles, and internal reports. The overall structure of the research report is analyzed, and each of its component parts is analyzed in depth. The structure of each part (e.g. in experimental research, typically: Abstract, Introduction, Experimental Apparatus and Procedure, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions) is emphasized, and thus most of the content of the course is language independent. However specific conventions and grammatical constructions common in English technical writing are presented and explained. The optimal use of tables and figures is explained. The review process is also discussed, and the proper interaction of the author with the review process is explained. The remainder of the course analyzes the structure and conventions for additional types of technical presentations important in the career of an academic researcher or industrial engineer, including: research proposals, oral and poster presentations, business letters, conducting a homework recitation class, and patent applications.
Throughout the course students are expected to participate in the classes by analyzing writing samples which they find in the literature, or by presenting short writing samples. To fulfill the requirements of the course, each student is required to submit a paper based on their research suitable for publication in an archival journal and meeting criteria presented in the course.
A zip file contains a complete set of Power-Point
lecture notes from the course, and check-lists for preparing
and checking a journal paper, may be downloaded by clicking on the adjacent link.
Technical Writing in English is a non-credit required course for Ph.D. students. To ‘pass’ the course, the students must:
(1) first submit the "writing exercise" and have it approved by Prof. Boxman, and then
(2) submit a paper which is suitable for publication in an archival journal in their field as a regular paper, and which meets all of the criteria set by the lecturer. Students must write out their “research question”, and note on the m/s or file Stages I-VI of the Introduction. Each paper must be reviewed by a fellow student from Technical Writing in English (or a former student), before being submitted to the lecturer. These instructions, and the criteria, are summarized on the “checklist.doc” file.
The paper, checklist, and review from a fellow student may be submitted via hard copy, disk, or CD to Prof. Boxman’s mail box (right column of the bank of mail slots behind the South elevator on the 1st floor of the Wolfson Mechanical Engineering Building), or by e-mail to boxman@eng.tau.ac.il (preferred). WORD *.doc files are preferred, and a hard copy of the illustrations is also requested. For users of Latex and other processors, submit both a complete *.pdf file, and also your source file. Include your name as part of the file name. Write "TechWritePaper" in the "subject" field of your e-mail message.
It is highly recommended that students submit their papers within two months of the end of the semester in which they attended lectures. However submissions will be accepted later. Please note, that depending on load and travel, checking you submission can take up to several months. DON'T LEAVE THIS ASSIGNMENT TO THE LAST MOMENT AS IT CAN DELAY YOUR GRADUATION.