IEEE PCS Newsletters by Topic

If you’re looking for past newsletter articles about a certain writing topic, look through the list below to see if the topic you’re looking for has been catalogued. The topics catalogued are:

Basic Skills

• “Engineers and Writing,” page 17
• “Write It Right: The Very Basics”

Best Practices

• “Read It Aloud,” page 10

Book Lists

• Sponsored Book List, page 20

Book Reviews

• Review of “The Business Writer’s Handbook,” page 18
• Review of “How To Write Information Mapping,” page 5
• Reviews of “English Grammar and Structure”, “Encyclopedia of English,” page 21
• Review of “Plain Talk: Clear Communication for International Development,” page 15
• Review of “Designing Technical Reports,” page 15
• Review of “Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace,” page 15

Clarity

• “How Verbal Variety Kills Comprehension”
• “Clarity: Let the Message Shine Through,” page 11

Communication Planning

• “Success,” page 24
• “Checklist for a Document,” page 14

Concision

• “Z-Z-ZAAP POW! for linguistic butchers”; “The Shadow Knows,” page 9
• “Oops!,” page 9
• “Disinvolvement,” page 5
• “Be Brief,” page 21
• “Taking Care of the Fluff Words,” page 16
• “The Patent-Pending, Deadwood-Pruning, Chocolate-Tasting M&M’s® Method,” page 13
• “Reduce Your Calories, Not Your Clauses”
• “Don’t Write Short Texts; Write Concise Ones”
• “Bonding Agents for Unit Modifiers”

Conveying someone else’s words in your own writing

• “Neither Read nor Rote”

Document Design

• “I See It…But I Can’t Read It,” page 8
• “Space: The Final Luxury,” page 10; “I’m Not Just A Visual Person,” page 21″

Editing

• “Shorter is Better,” page 15
• “Be An Editor, Parts 1-3,” page 11
• “See Editors First, Not Last,” page 5
• “Getting the Words Right,” page 10
• “Proverbs for Good Proofreading,” page 10
• “What A Good Editor Is (And Is Not),” page 1
• “Writing Effective Editorial Comments”
• “Writing and Editing: the two halves of language – Part I,” page 10
• “Writing and Editing: the two halves of language – Part II,” page 15

Formatting

• “Thoughts on Format,” page 19

Portfolios

• “How To Create A Portfolio,” page 7
• “Perfect Your Portfolio,” page 16

Resources

• “Technical Communication Resources”
• “Writing Resources”

General Interest

• “Write It Right: Relevant Forms of Technical Writing”
• “The Engineer as Communicator,” page 19

Grammar

• “Adjective Substitution Noun String Findings Analysis,” page 9
• “Articles of Confusion,” page 6
• “Write It Right!” page 8
• “Remedial Help for Bad Grammarians,” page 18
• “Where Have All the -Ly’s Gone?” page 10
• “That vs. Which,” page 15
• “Execute those Executables: Use Verbs, Nouns, and Adjectives Correctly,” page 18
• “End of Summer Mini-Lessons,” page 18
• “The Case of the Misplaced Modifier”
• “The Not-so-able -able“
• “There Should Be No There’s There”
• “Atrophy of the Apostrophe”
• “Don’t Let Good Grammar Spoil Good Writing”
• “General Rules for Lists,” page 14
• “Passive Voice”
• “Gobbledygook,” page 6
• “I vs. We,” page 2
• “Writing as It Should Be Writ OR The Rules of the Games,” page 14
• “Brief, Balanced, Effective,” page 6
• “Ugh, Shudder,” page 18
• “And, Or, or Both, but Never And/Or,” page 13
• “Pseudointerrogatives as Inhibitors of Usability,” page 4
• “None,” page 14
• “I’d Like To Say This About That”
• “Agreeable Verbs,” page 12
• “Pick A Verb,” page 13

Idioms

• “What’s In A Phrase?” page 5
• “Beware of Idioms,” page 20

Writing in a Journalistic Style

• “How To Improve Your Writing By Standing On Your Head”

Know Your Audience

• “Anticipation,” page 14
• “Plan and Practice,” page 22
• “Eliminate Gender Bias in Writing,” page 12
• Assumptions, Audiences, and “Who’s on First?”
• “Writing for the Lowest Common Denominator”

Letter Writing

• “He Practices What He Preaches,” page 2
• “Writing an Effective Letter to your Congressman,” page 6
• “Business Letters,” page 21
• “Tools of the Trade: Letter Writing,” page 8

Plagiarism

• “Avoiding Plagiarism”

Plain Language

• “How To Talk Mathematics,” page 4
• “Anti-gobbledegook,” page 23
• “Plain Talk”, page 7; “Guidelines”, page 8
• “Nuke Talk,” page 13
• “Plain English,” page 10
• “Plain Language Laws,” page 7
• “Writing for Audiences in County and City Government,” page 9
• “The Windy Night When Plain English Died,” page 11
• “Developer Speak,” page 21
• “Writing In English for Global Audiences,” page 12
• “Tax the Deserving: Language Abusers,” page 8
• “What’s In A Word?” page 14
• “Tax the Deserving: Language Abusers,” page 18

Punctuation

• “Pointers on Pointing,” page 15
• “Busybody Hyphens,” page 8
• “Dash It All,” page 1

Quizzes

• “Sentences to Revise,” page 24
• “Affect or Effect?” page 16
• “Test Yourself on Figures of Speech,” page 7

Spelling

• “Spelling Lessons: 1 and 2,” pp. 19-20
• “Spelling Lesson: Part 3,” page 23
• “A Standard for International English Spelling?” page 21
• “Guidelines for English-Language International Technical Documentation?” page 23

Style

• “Seven Beacons of Excellent Writing,” page 14
• “The Power of Analogy in Engineering Writing,” page 10
• “Seven Beacons of Excellent Writing,” page 11
• “Tools of the Trade: Rethink Persuasive Writing,” page 12
• “Tools of the Trade: How to Write what people Like to read,” page 7
• “Curmudgeon’s Corner: Of Widows and Orphans,” page 4
• “The Qualities of a Master of Style: Part I,” page 14
• “The Qualities of a Master of Style: Part II,” page 9
• “The Qualities of a Master of Style: Part III,” page 9
• “Everything’s In Order,” page 5
• “Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in Style,” page 15
• “Quote Me On This,” page 10
• “Be In the Business of Good Writing,” page 1
• “Fixing The Flaws in the 10 Principles of Clear Writing”
• “Cracking the Code: Similes and Analogies in Technical Information,” page 16
• “The Naked This,” page 17
• “A Double Lesson: Noun Strings and There/It,” page 19
• “Welcome to the Translation Machine: Is Your Writing Ready?”
• “Hopefully,” page 15
• “We…We…We…” page 15
• “How To Brighten Your Style: Part 1,” page 8
• “How To Brighten Your Style: Part 2,” page 8
• “How To Brighten Your Style: Part 3,” page 17
• “How To Brighten Your Style: Part 4,” page 10
• “Woe is the Dangling Phrase,” page 12

Teaching Writing

• “Innovations” – a look at the book “The Business Writer’s Handbook,” page 9

White Papers

• “Five Tips for Mastering White Papers”
• “White Papers in Technical Communication”

Word Choice

• “Use English Not Gibberish, page 8; “Felonious Assault,” “Too Alive or Dying,” page 9
• “Be Careful,” page 11
• “A Number Is,” page 9; “Think,” page 12
• “Humongous,” page 13
• “Be Careful,” page 11
• “Mutter? Stutter?” page 23
• “Good Usage,” page 14
• “Noun Strings,” page 11
• “K.I.S.S,” page 4
• “Shun Words,” page 12
• “Acronym Pollution,” page 9; “How To Put Power into Your Language,” page 15
• “How To Put Power into Your Language,” page 8
• “Le Mots Injustes, or Words that are not Words,” page 3; “Words I’ve Grown to Hate,” page 10
• “Eschew Obfuscation,” page 11
• “Curmudgeon’s Corner: Dinner Table Topics,” page 7
• “Curmudgeon’s Corner: PC – Silly or Not?” page 5
• “Adore Your Thesaurus,” page 1
• “Crafty Word Order Can Improve Your Writing”
• “Words That Cause Translation Problems”

Write Effective Reports

• “Get Help with Report Construction,” page 11; “Teaching the Boss to Write,” page 10
• “Writing Effective Business Reports,” page 9
• “A Mnemonic for Writing Introductions,” page 10
• “User-friendly Correspondence,” page 13
• “Oh, No! Not Another Report!” page 7
• “How To Write Readable Reports and Winning Proposals: Part 1,” page 10
• “How To Write Readable Reports and Winning Proposals: Part 2,” page 15
• “How To Write Readable Reports and Winning Proposals: Part 3,” page 1; “How To Write Readable Reports and Winning Proposals: Part 4,” page 14
• “How To Write Readable Reports and Winning Proposals: Part 5,” page 8
• “Executive Summaries”
• “Framing Reports to Support User-centered Design”
• “Making Your Cause in a Grant Proposal”; “Tips for Effective Grant Writing”

Write Effective Document Titles

• “Telling Titles,” page 15

Write Effective Proposals

• “How to Prepare a Winning Book Proposal”