What Makes Good Scientific and Technical Writing?

Good scientific and technical writing involves relaying specific information directly and literally. There should be no symbolic or associative interpretations. It is written for a direct and specified purpose that should remain unchanged and conveyed without information loss, regardless of its audience.

The purpose of a technical document is to describe the physical state of an object or set of objects and events that affect them in their real world context. It should be detailed and be realistic in its presentation of time and the chronological order of the events it describes. This is what differentiates it from most other forms. Technical writing should be specific and include all relevant details.

Good scientific writing presents an analysis of its argument/theory/hypothesis in a form utilizing empirical evidence and/or logical reasoning in an attempt to better understand some phenomena. To be really affective the writer should present part of his/her reasoning process and things that may have altered the result or results they interpreted. In Scientific writing the reasoning and logical deductions of the writer are as equally important as the theory and/or empirical evidence, which has been widely recognized in the science world since the onset of quantum mechanics. The scientist is no longer the "silent observer" meaning the experimenter (humans) directly affect that which they observe. Scientific writing should focus equally on both the empirical evidence and the rational or logic behind the meaning attached to the results.