Michael Alley, Penn State and Virginia Tech
Writing as an Engineer or Scientist
  • Home
    • Scientific Presentations
    • Scientific Posters
    • Scientific Film
  • Online Lessons
    • Tutorial: Reports
    • Tutorial: Emails
    • Tutorial: Research Writing
    • Other Lessons >
      • 2: Being Precise and Clear
      • 3: Avoiding Ambiguity
      • 4: Sustaining Energy
      • 5: Connecting Your Ideas
      • 6: Being Familiar
      • 7: Organizing Papers
      • 8: Organizing Reports
      • 9: Emphasizing details
      • 10: Incorporating Illustrations
  • Exercises
    • Essence of Grammar
    • Essence of Punctuation
    • Avoiding Errors of Usage
  • Emails
    • Writing Professional Emails
    • Writing Professional Letters
  • Reports
    • Sample Report Format
    • Report Templates
    • Laboratory Reports
    • Design Reports
  • Teaching
    • Online Class Periods >
      • Writing Reports
      • Writing Emails
      • Making Connections
    • Craft of Scientific Writing >
      • Online-Lessons
      • Errata
    • Why Students Struggle With Scientific Writing
    • Technical Writing Course >
      • Email Assignment
      • Proposal Assignment
      • Report Assignment
      • Exercises on Style
    • Large STEM Course
    • Teaching Slides
    • Visual Model

Lesson 10: 
​Incorporating Illustrations

Illustrations can be a powerful way to inform and persuade audiences. This lesson discusses strategies for designing effective figures and tables. In addition, this lesson discusses the expectations that technical readers have when you incorporate an illustration. More detailed information for this lesson can be found in lessons 2, 5, and 6 in The Craft of Scientific Writing.

Lessons Home

Lesson

     Illustrations, which encompass tables and figures, provide a different perspective for communicating to audiences. When well designed and integrated with the text, illustrations can be not only memorable but also persuasive. In fact, many engineers and scientists build their most persuasive sections of documents around the illustrations. This lesson discusses the importance and integration of illustrations. ​(16 minutes)

Illustrations: Informing and Persuading Audiences.


Incorporating Illustrations into a Technical Document. This film discusses how to meet audience expectations when incorporating illustrations into a technical document.


Questions for Reflection

     Forthcoming. 

Instructor's Lesson Plan

     Forthcoming will be a plan for instructors to incorporate this summary lesson into a class period of their course. Included with this plan will be discussion questions, student activities, and a comprehension quiz. ​​​

References

  1. Alley, Michael, The Craft of Scientific Writing, 4th ed. (New York: Springer Verlag, 2018).
  2. Bernstein, Theodore, The Careful Writer (New York: Free Press, 1995).​​
  3. William A. Sabin, The Gregg Reference Manual: A Manual of Style, Grammar, Usage, and Formatting, 11th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010).

Sponsors and Editors


​Sponsors

     Leonhard Center, College of Engineering, Penn State
​     National Science Foundation, NSF EAGER Award  1752096

​Faculty Editor
     
Michael Alley, Teaching Professor, College of Engineering, Penn State


Film Editors
     
Richelle Weiger, College of Engineering, Penn State
     Casey Fenton, College of Engineering, Penn State

Lessons Home

​For the academic year 2019-2020, we are collecting comments, questions, criticisms, and suggestions for the films, text, and quizzes of each lesson on scientific writing. To help us understand your input, would please let us know what your discipline is and whether you are a student, professional, or faculty member?
Leonhard Center, Penn State 
University Park, PA 16802

Content Editor:

Michael Alley

Webmaster:

Marissa Beighley
Picture
NSF Grant 1752096