Technical Writing for Success

1. Technical Writing for Success Chapter 3 Ms. Amany AlKhayat

2. Conducting Technical Research • Information is everywhere. The problem that technical researchers face is not a scarecity of information but in understanding what info they need, where it is, how it is stored, how to retrieve it, and what to do with it. • Process of technical researcher can be outlined in steps

3. Researching at work • Research is usally involved in all of the following situations: • Developing a new product • Handling a production • Purchasing equipment • Establishing safety procedures • Selecting employee benefits • Planning an advertisement campaign

4. Strategies for collecting information • Find and evaluate the right material • Conduct the research and reading efficiently • Record the information you find and later paraphrase it to avoid plagiarism • Documentation • Two basic sources of information: Secondary and primary

5. Finding Secondary Data • Here are some possible ideas for you: • Check your organization’s correspondence and archives where the problem exists. • Company’s Library catalog • Periodicals: Magazines, journals, newsleters and newspapers published for a scholarly or academic audience

6. Finding Secondary Data Cont. • General Reference Materials: encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, almanacs and fact books can be relied of for background information. • Electronic resources: periodical databases, indexes, and online general reference materials such as encyclopedias and dictionaries.

7. Finding Electronic Information • Search engines (p. 50-51) • Searching with Keywords (strategy: TO LIMIT A SEARCH OR TO EXPAND A SEARCH) P.51

8. Documenting Secondary Sources • Documentation is a system of giving credit to another person for his or her work to avoid plagiarism. • Check p. 53 for tips on avoiding plagiarism • And what information should and should not be documented.

9. Documenting and Secondary sources II • Bibliography and works cited: A list of sources used in researching a topic that has 3 purposes: • It establishes credibility by showing readers what sources you consulted • It allows others to find your information path so they can continue or evaluate the study • It gives credit to other people’s thoughts, words, and sentences that you used. • Internal citations Figure 3.1 P 56

10. Evaluating sources • Publication data • Author’s credentials • Depth and coverage: covered in a way that is appropriate for you (You are looking for Islamic Architecture in Modern times and you found a book on Islamic architecture in Ottoman empire) • Special guidelines for Electronic Resources P.59

11. Taking notes from sources • You can used borrowed info in your notes in three ways: • Summary • Paraphrase • Direct quotation See Fig 3.2 p 61-63

12. Collecting Primary Data • Surveys: Respondents, population, sample p.65-67 • Interviews • Observation • Experimentation • Validity and reliability: • Valid data are data that provide an accurate measurement of what an individual intend to measure (you can’t measure English fluency in a math test) • Reliable data are data that provide results that can be duplicated under similar circumstances: if you explain that mixng two chemical liquids will create a solid, then other people can try the same test.

13. Thank you