Michael Alley, Penn State and Virginia Tech
Writing as an Engineer or Scientist
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      • 2: Being Precise and Clear
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Errata

Page 1, Line 1
The year 1996 should be 1986. What an embarrassing mistake and one for which I take full responsibility. I know that the Space Challenger disaster happened in 1986. In other editions of my books, I have written about this disaster with the correct date. This sentence I must have read a hundred times, but I somehow read "1986" in my mind when the letters on the page said "1996." This mistake points to the importance of having someone else proofread your most important work. My publisher and I decided that I could do the proofreading alone, since writing was my specialty. However, proofreading is a skill that requires the reader to read each line as if for the first time. I did not meet that criterion and for that reason this mistake slipped through.
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