My Technical Writing HW1 - Revised

I post my first homework of Technical Writing here, just for record. This is an artical analysis assignment.

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ARTICLE ANALYSIS OF “LIMITATIONS IN THE BACK-ANALYSIS OF STRENGTH FROM FAILURES”
Yi-Min Huang

Introduction
The paper “Limitations in the Back-Analysis of Strength from Failures” is written by Rick Deshamps and Greg Yankey, and published in the April 2006 issue of Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering. This paper is classified as a professional article whose readers are usually experienced engineers or researchers. Background knowledge about the geotechnical engineering and back-analysis is needed for readers who want to review this paper.

From this paper, I found the authors approached their main ideas by the writing type I called: problem define-and-solve approach. The writing type of problem define-and-solve approach is an addressing procedure by which the authors define what the problem is, usually the main issue in the paper, then support their ideas by solving the problem or providing evidences. Usually in engineering articles or professional journals, like Deshamps and Greg’s paper, the problem define-and-solve approach is applied to readers who have similar background of the authors. Professional engineers and research exports are familiar with the problem define-and-solve writing type. Usually readers have professional knowledge about terminologies and topics in papers written with the style of problem define-and-solve approach. General audience, however, is not the readers expected to touch this type of papers.

This article analysis will evaluate Deschmamps and Yankey’s paper according to the issues of technical writing: content, organization, style, tone, layout and illustration of the paper. I will also evaluate the characteristics of problem define-and-solve approach with an overview of this paper, and addressed my discussion in content and organization section. Examples and quotations from the paper are used when necessary in other sections.

Content and Organization
The audience of “Limitations in the Back-Analysis of Strength from Failures” was expected to have enough knowledge in geotechnical engineering field. The authors included content without too many definitions about the terminology. Few definitions of professional terms are an evidence of expert-only paper. An example is, “A fact that must be recognized is that a conservative design assumption is unconservative when used in back-analysis because other values of shear strength may be conservative in design causing the back calculated strength to be over estimated.“ (Introduction, pp. 532) If the reader doesn’t study geotechnical engineering, he wouldn't understand the meaning of “conservative” and “unconservative” in the article, not mention the terms of “shear strength” and “back-analysis”. The authors explained briefly only the main term, back-analysis, at the beginning paragraph of Introduction section. Other terminology I mentioned above was addressed without any definition. Readers with similar background as the authors have could handle these terms correctly. Others without same background would face difficulties when study this paper. I can cite other instances about no-definition terms in this paper. You can easily find these undefined terms, like “heterogeneous profile”, “slip surface”, “stress path” and “tension crack”, in the section of “Factors that Influence Interpreted Shear Strength during Back-Analysis.” (pp. 532)

In addition to lots of undefined terms, we can identify this paper as professional article by the writhing type I issued before. The goal of Deschamps and Yankey’s paper, as well as the problem authors wanted to discuss, was well addressed in the paper’s Abstract and Introduction. The authors began to point out the concerns about back-analysis method in the first paragraph of Introduction. The authors said, “There are also several publication that describe limitations of back-analyses (Leroueil and Tavenas … and Eid 1998).” and also mentioned, “Accordingly, the models can also lead to unconservative results when used in back-analyses, and therefore, must be factored into interpretations.” What the authors addressed in the Introduction paragraph is the problem definition: what kind of problems and what specific aspects of the problem would be discussed in the paper. Again, the authors outlined the problems with expert words, which are common to journal papers.

After defining the problem, the authors provided more details of influence factors, and emphasized the possible errors of the back-analysis method. The following content of the paper was organized as problem solution, the second characteristic of problem define-and-solve writing type. In the section of “Factors that Influence Interpreted Shear Strength during Back-Analysis”, for example, the authors used a list of factors to issue the possible errors, which are consistent to the concerns in the paper’s Introduction section. Then the authors provide three case studies in the section of “Quantitative Examples of Potential Errors in Back-Analysis” to prove the errors could happen in the real world. These examples are clues to engineers who want to solve the back-analysis problems. The last section of the paper is the Summary section in which the authors finished their problem define-and-solve approach.

The whole paper can be easily classified as professional journal by the content characteristics I discussed above. Readers can also identify this paper by just evaluating the organization without reading the paper’s content. I will discuss two components commonly used in organizing journal paper: abstract and references. An important clue of professional journal is the key word in the abstract. Readers can review the key words in advance. For example, we can find the key words “shear strength” and “stability” in the abstract. It will easily cause misunderstanding to these words if the reader don’t have geotechnical engineering background. Reference is another checking point for journal papers. The authors usually list other professional papers at the end of the article to give readers the information for their interests. An example about reference form Deschamps and Yankey’s paper is “Duncun, J. M., and Stark, T. (1992). “Soil strength from back analysis of slope failures.” … ASCE, New Your, 890-904.” (pp. 536) General audience is hard to figure out the topic of this Duncun and Strak’s paper just from its title.
I here also address my comments about the headings, and length of paragraphs and sentences. The heading in each section is suitable. White space of this paper is reduced to a limit state. But the space is well arranged to make a clear overview. The length of each paragraph is longer than that in the general magazine articles. Sentences used in this paper are longer when comparing with non-professional paper, like the newspapers. All of these comments about the organization are significant signs of professional journal papers.

Style and Tone
As a professional journal, this paper contains many jargons and technical terms, like “back-analysis”, “rupture surface” and “pore pressure”. The sentence length of the paper is longer than that in general articles, and the sentence structure is precise. An example of longer sentence is quoted here: “The examples provided herein are intended to illustrate that successful back-calculation requires accurate information regarding geometry, material properties, and pore pressure distribution.” (Summary, pp. 526) There are 23 words in this sentence. Readers can also easily find the high ratio of phrase-to-clause in this paper.

In addition to the sentence length, this paper contains few definitions of professional terms, since the paper’s target is the researcher with enough geotechnical engineering knowledge. Besides, the author used formal and passive tone a lot in the whole paper. An example of definition and passive tone is first sentence at Introduction section (pp. 532): “Back-analysis is an approach commonly used in geotechnical engineering to estimate operable material parameters in situ.”

Another feature of journal paper is about the word choice. To effectively sketch the ideas in this paper, the authors made an effort on word choice to present their goals. An example of word choice is in the paper’s Summary: “Finally, it is important to remember that all assumptions that are conservative in design are unconservative in back-analysis.” (pp. 536) In this sentence authors used ‘conservative’ and ‘unconservative’ to describe the concerns and conflicts of the back-analysis method without further explanation of these two words. Professional readers can understand these two words’ meanings well, but not for general audiences.

Layout and Illustration
In addition to the style and tone, the paper’s layout is well suited for the specific audience: the researchers. The percentage of plain text is higher when comparing to the column articles in the magazines. Many graphics and tables were used in this paper too. An example of data summary is Table 1, which is placed after the discussion of ‘Material Strength” (pp. 533). Readers would not expect to see the table summary, like Table 1, in general articles.

As discussing the graphics, this paper used complicated graphics to present the case studies. For example, Fig. 1 illustrates the profile of a dam. A curve of estimated rupture surface is drawn in the figure. Experts can easily understand the meaning of this curve, but not to general readers. Also, line-type figures are common in journal papers. Fig. 2 is a good example of line charts. To catch up the ideas from the line chart, like Fig. 2, readers need to have not only professional background, but also higher level of education.

Conclusion
Overall, the authors had successfully organized their article to its specific target. The audiences of this paper are experienced engineers and researchers. This paper contains the key characteristics of journal articles, like few definitions of terms, lack of background information, typical problem define-and-solve writing approach, and obvious professional features in paper’s style, tone and layout. Experts and researchers can go through this paper without confusions. There are enough graphics and tables to support author’s ideas. Reference list is especially helpful for experienced engineers who want to know more information. To summary, I would like to address that Deschamps and Yankey’s paper is a good example of journal article, which is suitable for experts and professionals, but, again, not for general readers.