My view on writing - First of all it is important to note that one of the great parts of majoring in engineering was I didn't think I would have to write. The education bore out that illusion - I tested out of freshman comp and only took tech writing. Not much later though, reality slammed into me like a runaway freight train. To be a good professional I was going to need to be a good writer and I most certainly was not!

20 years later, through the school of hard knocks I have learned two important lessons about writing. Here they are:

1. To write effectively, you must be passionate about your topic. You have to care about the thing you are trying to communicate. If you don't, your attempt to get the point across will likely fail. After all if you can't show you care, why should your reader care. This isn't always easy to do, but quite necessary.

2. The second lesson came as the result of having written several grants. With a grant you are given an outline of all the things you should cover in the proposal. I always just get started and write everything I think needs to be said to fulfill the requirements. The problem (good thing in disguise) is that the proposals have page limits. For example for NSF, the limit is 15 pages. I typically write 20+ pages. Now the good part is having to go through and eliminate the things that I thought were important originally, but are probably not essential to get the point across. This having to "filter" the message usually improves it greatly!

TBL - To write effectively, write with emotion and after your first draft go back and see what can be taken out to improve the quality of the message by eliminating the deadwood.

Mike took lots of great pictures today, but it is late and I am at a pay by the minute terminal. I also have to get up in 3 1/2 hours for a flight to Italy. Pics will have to wait till tomorrow.