SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION

Good scientific communication ABC:

1. Accurate and Audience-adapted
2. Brief
3. Clear

The best English is that which gives the sense in the fewest short words.

You should put yourself in the place of the reader:

How would you like to read the material?
What does the reader know already?
Do you like to read more than necessary?
Do you like long words?
Do you like to guess what the meaning is?

AU
AARHUS
UNIVERSITET AUTUMN 2017
MIKKEL PEDERSEN
DEPARTMENT OF ENGINEERING
DOS & DONTS 1
Always have someone other than yourself review your report thoroughly and
give feedback.
Notation must be absolutely 100% consistent, e.g. vector/matrices always in the
same boldface letters. K is not the same as K or [K].
Use the proper terminology for whatever you are discussing, e.g. not the stresses,
but the normal stress in the x-direction.
Use the spell-checker and/or ask someone for help with the spelling and
grammar.
Search your document for all instances of is/are, a/an, was/where/were, etc.
and make sure they are correct.
Reference figures and tables by numbers, e.g. not the figure below.
The meaning of every symbol must be explained somewhere, e.g. in a
nomenclature or below formulas.

AU
AARHUS
UNIVERSITET AUTUMN 2017
MIKKEL PEDERSEN
DEPARTMENT OF ENGINEERING
DOS & DONTS 2
Use readable font sizes in figures and plots, i.e. not too small.
Dont call elements of your work by different names if they refer to the same
thing, e.g. joint/specimen/section/member. Stick to one!
Dont waste too much space on details of the programs you have used, e.g. finite
element program settings, mesh details, and so forth. Put it in an appendix.
Dont whine about all your failed attempts and software problems you may have
faced. Negative conclusions are of course also valid. Avoid expressions like
"Ansys did something...", when obviously the user is to blame.
Dont copy large portions of theoretical derivations from textbooks just to have
more formulas. Give reference to the book instead, and only include what you
need for discussion/development.
Dont oversell your work. Be specific regarding your contribution; did you
derive/develop something or just implement it?
Dont write we/you in the report. There is a difference (or should be) between
the spoken and written language.

AU
AARHUS
UNIVERSITET AUTUMN 2017
MIKKEL PEDERSEN
DEPARTMENT OF ENGINEERING
DRAWINGS
Inkscape
TpX
Microsoft Visio
CorelDraw
SolidWorks

Save in vector format, e.g.; pdf, eps, svg, wmf

AU
AARHUS
UNIVERSITET AUTUMN 2017
MIKKEL PEDERSEN
DEPARTMENT OF ENGINEERING
LANGUAGE

AU
AARHUS
UNIVERSITET AUTUMN 2017
MIKKEL PEDERSEN
DEPARTMENT OF ENGINEERING
GRAPHS

AU
AARHUS
UNIVERSITET AUTUMN 2017
MIKKEL PEDERSEN
DEPARTMENT OF ENGINEERING
NICE GRAPH

AU
AARHUS
UNIVERSITET AUTUMN 2017
MIKKEL PEDERSEN
DEPARTMENT OF ENGINEERING