Beginnings and endings: keys to better engineering technical writing

Engineers face many technical writing tasks that have many features in common: title, abstract, introduction, problem formulation, methods, results, and conclusions. But it is often very difficult to actually write these segments in the same order they appear in the finished product. Instead of this linear approach, we recommend a modular approach starting with the core sections, the methods and results that researchers know best, and working backward and forward to pick up the beginnings and endings. We show how the beginning and ending sections build on the core sections and offer strategies to improve them.