A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO WRITING

Technical ideas may be solid or even groundbreaking, but if these ideas cannot be clearly communicated, reviewers of technical documents--e.g., proposals for research funding, articles submitted to scientific journals, and business plans to commercialize technology--are likely to reject the argument for advancing these ideas.

The problem is that many engineers and scientists, entirely comfortable with the logic and principles of mathematics and science, treat writing as if it possesses none of these attributes. The absence of a...