MECHANICS IN TECHNICAL WRITING

By
Dr. Estefania W. Kollin
Any form of writing uses tools (mechanics) to enhance the communication
process and facilitate the understanding of the message. These tools particular to
technical writing refers to the use of punctuation marks, abbreviation, numbers,
capitalization and symbols.
The guidelines in the use of these tools in technical writing are discussed and
illustrated here. These are generally followed by technical writers because these are
accepted by widely recognized authorities and may be used with confidence.

Period
1. A period is placed after a complete declarative or imperative sentence but not
after a phrase or an incomplete sentence.
Correct: The study was conducted to analyze the relationship of socio-cultural
and politico-economic factors with rubber technology adoption in
Pattani, Thailand.
Wrong: Rubber technology components.
1. Formulas of fertilizers.
2. Rate of fertilizers.
3. Treatment of brown blast.
2. Titles of papers, center headings, and subheadings, legends of tables unless
stated in sentence forms do not require terminal punctuations.

Comma
Uses of comma:
1. To separate words, phrases, or clauses in series.
e.g. The criteria used were cropped area, crop yields, and water adequacy.

2. To separate long clauses joined by and, but, or, for, yet, so although it is omitted
if the clauses are short.
e.g. Conversion of each day within the year into its equivalent Julian date was
made, and from this, week number was determined for each irrigation.
3. To separate introductory phrase or clause from the main clause.
e.g. 1. From the identified strengths and weaknesses of the current practices,
alternative strategies were formulated.
2. When the target changes course, radar detects the change.
4. To set off non-restrictive appositives, phrases and clauses in place of dashes and
parentheses.
e.g. 1. The local NIA-PIO, through a loan assistance amounting to P384,000.00,
carried out the general rehabilitation work for the system.
2. The system, CUSARICA CIS, was turned over to 185 farmer-members for
them to manage and maintain.
5. To separate coordinate but not cumulative adjectives.
e.g. 1. The political, technical, economic and cultural reasons were clustered for
quantification.
2. The standard cultural pond management practices were observed.
6. To set off conjunctive adverb and transitional phrases.
e.g. 1. The respondents admitted, however, that their organization is not
financially capable to implement changes.
2. Moreover, results are expected to be disseminated to those in the fields
of agriculture, resource and food systems in general, and water
management in particular.

Colon
Uses of colon:
1. Separate the sentence stem from supporting statements or examples.
e.g. The irrigators association elected the following officers: president,
secretary, treasurer, auditor and business manager.
2. Separate two independent clauses when the second closely relates to the first.
e.g. Feed mixing is a simple farm operation: it may be done mechanically or
manually. (The first word of the second clause may not be capitalized unless
it needs great emphasis otherwise, it might as well start a new sentence or
subordinated to the first clause).

Semi-colon
1. The semi-colon may replace coordinate conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for, yet,
so) joining two independent clauses.
e.g. The mixture was taken; a portion was warmed to 29 C just before feeding.
Bottle-feeding is another alternative of feeding the milk replacer to piglets;
this method is laborious and time consuming.
2. It is used before a coordinating conjunction joining two long independent clauses
or before conjunctive adverbs like therefore, however, also, besides,
nevertheless, consequently, furthermore.
e.g. The average growth rate of pigs from 40 lbs to 150 lbs increased with the
increase in weaning weight; but the heavier pigs at weaning did not
indicate significantly better efficiency and average growth rate than the
lighter pigs.
e.g.

The most abnormalities in swine, which may be transmitted to the

offspring, are hernia, atresia ani and cryptorchidism; therefore,
identification and culling of the source is the only effective measure of
eradication.

3. If items in a series have internal punctuations, a semi-colon is used to separate

them.
e.g. Do not vaccinate pigs which look unhealthy, are sick or weakened by
parasites, malnutrition and other factors; pigs recently exposed to
infection; and those less than six weeks.
Abbreviation
1. Abbreviation should be singular in form except Nos., Figs., Vols. that stands for
numbers, figures, and volumes, respectively.
Examples:

2 kilograms 2 kg
9 miles 9 mi
7 meters 7 m

5 yards 5 yd
8 kilometers 8 km
12 inches 12 in

2. Small letters (lower case) are used in abbreviations except in proper nouns and
adjectives or capitalized words.
Examples:

4 sq m

8 ft

20 km

but:

British thermal unit Btu

Philippine National Bank PNB
Centigrade C
3. Common units of weight and measure are usually abbreviated when they follow
a numeral. Preferably, however, they are spelled out in the text.
Examples:

6h
4t

10 ft/s
20 mg

50 cal
12 g

4. The word number is abbreviated and capitalized only when it is followed by a

numeral.
Examples:

No. 5 won. but The winning number was 354.

5. Abbreviations do not end with a period unless it forms a word with a different
meaning.
Examples:

lb pound
km kilometer

but

Fig. 8
No. 13

6. Preferably, four letter words and less are not be abbreviated.

Examples:

1 day

0.5 mile

2 tons

7. Acronyms do not need spaces or periods in between letters.

Examples:

CLSU

CVSM

CAg

DepEd

8. When a word is used repeatedly, the accepted abbreviation should be used only
after it is spelled out.
Examples:

The Human Resources Management Office (HRMO)

requested the president for the use of the Research,
Extension and Training (RET) amphitheater for a seminar
on Filipino values. The seminar was organized by the
HRMO for the benefit of the faculty and staff of the
University. The RET amphitheater is air-conditioned and
can accommodate 350 participants.

9. A title or designation may be abbreviated only when it is followed by a proper

name and initials.
Examples:

Prof. I. V. Beltran
Pres. R. C. Undan

but

Professor Beltran
President Undan

Numbers
1. Write out all numbers ten and below. Exceptions are numbers used with
technical units; as indicators of percentage, money, time, date, page, table,
figure, proportion, and number in series.
Examples:

one needle

two cans

three treatments

2. Compound number adjectives have the first or the shorter number spelled out.
Examples:

6 three lined sheets

2 four colored ball pens

two 8 stripe tigers

5 12 legged centipede

but:

six 5 month old pigs

three 10-meter rows

3. A zero is placed before a decimal point when writing numbers without integers.
Examples:

0.75

0.05

4. Fractions are spelled out when used without technical units.

Examples:

The evaluated three-fourths of the experimental plants.

Two-thirds of the class passed the examination.

but:

The planting distance between seedlings must be m.

The test lasted for 2 days.

5. Preferably, no comma is used in four digit numbers.

Examples:

1243

5634

2800

but:

12,500

67,890

90,000

6. Numbers that begin sentences and round number estimates are always spelled
out.
Examples:

Twenty-five students were qualified for the scholarship.

One hundred chicks were distributed equally in the four
treatments.

7. Preferably, avoid starting a sentence with a numeral.

Examples:

The scholarship was given to 25 qualified students.

Each of the four treatments used in the study had 25
chicks.

8. Round number estimates are spelled out always.

Examples:

Almost one thousand applicants took the test for the

scholarship.
About twenty types of insects were collected in the area.

9. Writing two numerals in succession should be avoided otherwise spell out the
other.
Examples:

The study identified 19 out of the 30 specimens on July 15.

On July 15, nineteen out of the 30 specimens were
identified.

10. Figures and words of extremely large numbers may be combined.

Examples:

23 millions

500 thousand

1 million

Capitalization
1. Always capitalize the first word in a sentence.
2. Capitalize principal words in titles except when following a style guide that does
not require this like journal, magazine, and newspaper articles.
3. Capitalize nouns and adjectives, abbreviation of proper nouns and adjectives,
and words derived from proper nouns except when these have been already
considered common nouns because of their frequent use.
Examples:

Fahrenheit scale
Levis pants
Filipino citizen Philippine seas
Bulb of 50 watts
Pasteurized milk

4. The first word after a colon is not capitalized if it is merely supplementing the
preceding group of words. Capitalize the word if the material following it is in
sentence form.
5. The first word of fragmentary quotation is not capitalized.
6. Words used to indicate direction preceding a proper noun is not capitalized but
capitalize a descriptive term denoting definite region, locality or geographic
feature.

Symbols
1. Symbols are generally avoided in the text. However, they are justifiably used in
tables, diagrams and formula.
Examples:

for inch
for foot
x for by
% for percent

# for number
/ for per
& for and
o for degree