Category:Equations

From CheLabWiki

…from CheLabWiki, an online resource for chemical-engineering laboratories located at www.chelabwiki.org; Site Revision #474; 6 January 2009.

While the basic rules of grammar and the elements of style are common to most forms of writing, technical writing is unique in its use of equations. Nevertheless, books on technical writing often ignore the problems writers face in presenting equations and the problems readers face in decoding them.

Creating and decoding equations both require an ability to interpret physical objects in terms of the abstractions of language and mathematics, and achieving such interpretations is far from trivial. If equations are to be interpreted easily and correctly, then the abstract symbols in equations must be explicitly connected to mathematical and physical realities. We emphasize that connections should be explicit; difficulties in decoding equations usually occur because writers and readers tacitly attach incomplete or erroneous meanings to symbols or terms or even entire equations.