[SystemSafety] Transcending the bounds of sub-literacy

[Steve Tockey]

An college English professor of mine once said,

“Unclear writing is obvious evidence of unclear thinking”

That saying stuck with me ever since. I used to work for a guy who had a Ph.D. in physics but he couldn’t write a coherent description of the product we were selling. Neither could he write coherent code.

It’s been a repeating pattern, people who write crappy code also write crappy emails, technical briefs, etc.

So whether or not an engineer can understand the subtleties of Keats seems to me to be irrelevant. ANY engineer, software or otherwise, better be able to structure coherent, logical technical content. And if they have a software background and can also write good technical content, then they can probably write pretty good code.

So I would support a “Technical English for Engineers” class rather than always depending on the tech writers. Tech writers should be used for a final review, not to “translate technologese into English”.

I would also support having a candidate software engineer write a page or two paper on any topic of their choice because I would be able to see how clearly they think and can express their thoughts.


— steve


发自我的 iPad

On Oct 24, 2018, at 5:22 AM, C. Michael Holloway <c.m.holloway at nasa.gov<mailto:c.m.holloway at nasa.gov>> wrote:


On 2018-10-24 (04.08.04), olwen at phaedsys.com<mailto:olwen at phaedsys.com> wrote:
On the other hand, I suspect that most people who do technical subjects at school do so, at least in part, because they are uncomfortable in the more touchy-feely area of language. ...
I suspect that many people who do technical subjects at school do so, at least in part, because they are incapable of understanding the touchy-feely area of language. The old joke about law being the profession for really smart people who are bad at math is mostly true. Equally true is the equivalent but less well-known joke: "Engineering is the profession for really smart people who are bad at language."
IMO courses in writing clear technical English (or whatever language you use) should be mandatory and have to be passed in all engineering degrees and equivalent professional training. ...
Writing well is as much of a skill as doing advanced mathematics well.  As the famous philosopher Eeyore once said, "We can't all, and some of us don't.  That's all there is to it." [Milne, A. A. 1928. Winnie the Pooh. London: Methuen & Co, Ltd.]

In my opinion, the solution is not in trying to teach excellent engineers to be good (or even competent) writers, but in resurrecting the positions of technical writer  and technical editors in all engineering departments and staffing the positions with language majors.  Also, no standard or guidance document should ever be published without a superb technical editor having the final say on the text.

I could, but won't, share many anecdotes about my experiences on RTCA committees. A collection of originally well-written sentences mangled into incomprehensible gibberish would fill several hundred pages. Had I won last night's Mega-Millions lottery, I might have compiled such a collection and sought a publisher for it.

--

All the best,
C. Michael Holloway (cMh)
Senior Research Computer Engineer
NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton VA USA
bit.ly/cmhpapers<http://bit.ly/cmhpapers>

Verba volant, scripta manent
spoken words fly away, written words remain

(The words in this message are mine alone;
neither blame nor credit NASA for them.)

_______________________________________________
The System Safety Mailing List
systemsafety at TechFak.Uni-Bielefeld.DE<mailto:systemsafety at TechFak.Uni-Bielefeld.DE>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/mailman/private/systemsafety/attachments/20181025/5905442d/attachment-0001.html>