Creative Aspects of Engineering Writing

Writing an engineering paper is shown to be an intrinsic part of the engineering work, rather than a mere recording of results. The process of writing a paper for publication in an engineering journal has some rather interesting aspects of creativity. This paper shows how any careful attempt to record and analyze the results of an engineering project will actually contribute to the engineer's understanding of his own work. Writing a paper not only affords a fresh insight to the author, but may even inspire a more thorough study and a new approach to laboratory work before the manuscript is finished. In addition, this paper exposes three popular fallacies about the creative aspects of writing.