The Presentation of Technical Information [antikvár]

PREFACE This is how this book came to be written. It had been decided at University College, London, to hold a course in the Faculty of Engineering on "Presentation of Technical Information". The course was to be at post-graduate standard, to cover a whole session, and to include both lectures and exercises. I had feared that there might be some difficulty in convincing the students that the course would be worth their while, but I had not anticipated any difficulty whatever in making the arrangements for a suitable lecturer. The event proved me wrong in both expectations. From the very beginning the students welcomed the opportunity provided for them to improve their powers as expositors. They were interested, appreciative, co-operative. But it took me a long time to find a suitable lecturer. The task would have been easy enough if the syllabus had covered the ground of any existing course in "English" or if it had been concerned with English Literature. There is no lack of English scholars who would be sympathetic to the effort made at University College to raise the standard of technical writing, but these were in no position to know what was required in order to achieve that purpose. Hence I encountered a good deal of misapprehension as to what was required. I was told, for instance, that the whole of the ground ought to be covered at school. I was also advised to abandon the idea of a special course in presentation and, instead, to use the laboratory reports as basis for training the students in the art of exposition, going over each student's report with him "sentence by sentence".