 Assalamu alaikum. Welcome to the virtual university's course on business and technical communication. In continuation with our language review that we have been doing over the past lessons, today we are going to look at the mechanics of your final report or whatever text it is that you produced within your business and technical communication. In this lecture we will look at capitalization, the use of italics, abbreviations, acronyms, numbers, enumerations, symbols, equations and spellings. Let us have a look first of all at capitalization. Although there are many specialized rules for capitalizing letters, there are four rules which are the most common. First that you should capitalize the first words of sentences including sentences cited within quotations as you can see in the example on the screen in front of you. Secondly, you will capitalize proper names including any particular person, object, place, project, institution, river, vessel, genus, culture, ethnic group or formal job title. Thirdly, unless you are following a documentation style that specifies otherwise, you will capitalize titles of books, periodicals, published and unpublished reports, articles and document sections. Have a look at an example which will clarify this. Also you will capitalize reference to specific figures, tables, chapters, sections, equations within your text. If you are referring to any of these within your paragraphs or within your text, capitalize the names of these chapters, figures, appendices, equations, etc. Now there are some rules for capitalizing multi-word titles and proper names. We all know that if we have a title then we capitalize that, but if the title consists of more than one word then what are the rules for those? Unless you are following a documentation style that specifies otherwise, you will observe the following rules for capitalizing multiple word titles and proper nouns. One rule is that you will capitalize all nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and subordinating conjunctions in a title. You will capitalize any word regardless of the part of speech it is, if it is the first word or last word of the title or subtitle, or if it is a proper name or if it follows a punctuation mark indicating a break in the title. Sometimes we have titles which have punctuation marks which show a break. For example, some titles may have a colon, so when you have any word that comes after a colon you will capitalize that even if it is not a noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb or subordinating conjunction. Even if it is a preposition it will be capitalized. Also you will make sure that you should not capitalize articles, coordinating conjunctions, prepositions and the word to TO in infinitives unless they appear as the first or last word of a title or subtitle. If these words are articles, coordinating conjunctions, prepositions or TO in infinitive form, if these are the last words of the title then you will capitalize them otherwise you will not capitalize them as you are seeing in this example. Also you need to remember that each discipline has its own specific guidelines for determining which terms should be capitalized and which not. If you are looking at capitalization in scientific terms then you will have to think of specific rules, specific guidelines for that particular scientific discipline. In general, scientific writing tends to minimize capitalized nouns. In scientific writings generally the capitalized nouns are used less and less but as I said you will follow the discipline you are writing. I am going to show you a list which summarizes some widely observed practices. You will capitalize and put in italics the phylum, class, order, family and genus of plants and animals. Do not however capitalize the species. And you can see that for Homo sapiens as esox luscious, Homo, the H of Homo and the E of esox is capitalized. Also you will capitalize the names of geological eras, periods, epochs and series but do not capitalize the word indicating the amount of time. So here you will capitalize the J of Jurassic but not the P of Period and the C of Genozoic but not the E of Era. You will capitalize astronomical terms such as the names of galaxies, constellations, stars, planets and the satellites and asteroids. However the terms earth, sun and moon are often not capitalized unless they appear in a sentence that refers to other astronomical bodies. If you are referring to the earth, sun and or moon as a list of series along with other astronomical bodies then you will capitalize their first letters otherwise you will use these as common nouns and you will not capitalize them when you are writing for science. For example you will say the sun is an ordinary star with a small s and Venus and earth differs significantly in the composition of the atmosphere. In this you will have capital letters for both Venus and earth because you are talking here about the earth with the same weightage as Venus. It is part of a list along with Venus. You will not capitalize medical terms except for any part of a term which consists of a proper noun. As you can see in this example Parkinson's disease has the P of Parkinson's capitalized because Parkinson's is a name otherwise the terms are not capitalized. Similarly you will not capitalize physical laws, theorems, principles or constants except for attached proper nouns. If you are talking about the special theory of relativity there will be no capitalization but if you are talking of Boyle's law then the B of Boyle's will be capitalized. Now coming to the use of italics which is another mechanic that we have within writing. We tend to use italics depending on where we want to emphasize information or for other uses. Let's have a look at what the italics does. Unless you are following a style guide that specifies otherwise you will use the guidelines and the conventions that we are going to show you today. You will italicize titles of journals, books, newsletters and manuals, letters, words, terms and equation symbols that are being highlighted for discussion. Foreign words, words of phrases that are being emphasized and names of specific vessels will also be italicized. I am going to show you some examples where the titles of journals, books, newsletters and manuals are written in an italicized manner. The following is a list of examples where letters, words, terms and equation symbols are italicized in order to highlight them for discussion. These examples show how letters, words, terms and equation symbols can be highlighted by italicizing them and they can be highlighted for discussion. If you say if either 1 or 2 is negative, equation 8 describes a convex reflecting surface here. Equation 8 is italicized so that it can be highlighted. Similarly, in the next example you will see you see some italicized words and these have been done to emphasize them as has the term dialectic been emphasized because it is being defined. You will also italicized foreign words. For example, if you have a sentence which says against the criminally stubborn conviction of the professional officer's officer course that courage, alien and naked steel must carry the day the machine gun was the ultimate argument. In this the word alien has to be italicized because it is not an English word. Similarly, in the other two examples that you see, you see some italicized words which are foreign words. Italics I also use for emphasis as in this example, the Chernobyl reactor search from its standby level to 50% of its capacity in just 10 seconds. This last phrase in just 10 seconds has been italicized to highlight the short span of time. Names of specific vessels will be in italics but you will not put in italics the models class, manufacturer or model number. Another mechanic that is generally used in technical writing is abbreviations. Unless you are following a style guide that differs from the guidelines that we will show you today, you will try to use these conventions. Abbreviations or shortened form of words are commonly employed in scientific and technical writing but you need to avoid unnecessary abbreviations which can confuse a reader. Some abbreviations are always followed by a period or a full stop. With other abbreviations however, the use of the period of full stop varies from discipline to discipline. So, when abbreviations are always full stop, it will not take a lot of time and you will have to see that because those rules vary from discipline to discipline. Similarly, some abbreviations are capitalized and others are not. You will need to consult a style guide in your professional field for appropriate rules regarding capitalization and periods. But here we will talk generally about the use of abbreviations. We are going to have an allocated list which outlines common and appropriate uses of abbreviations. You will abbreviate terms and words in graphics and bibliographies to save space. You will always abbreviate certain words and phrases in your text and these include Mr, Ms, B, A, Ph, D, B, C, B, C, E, C, F which is from the Latin word compare et al which is from Latin and means and others. Also, you will abbreviate standard units of measure. You can find lists of common units of measures in most text books and dictionaries. However, in general, avoid inventing abbreviations. If there are such words whose abbreviations are not present, then try not to make new abbreviations because it is possible for the readers to understand. But if you do need to coin an abbreviation, if you really need to make up an abbreviation in order to make a word fit into a limited space such as a drawing or a table, then the most common approach is to cut the word off, generally use the first five letters or closest to a syllable and cut it off there. You can either cut it off after the first five letters or so or after the consonant falling the first, second or last syllable. Similarly, if you want to make an abbreviation of magnetic, then you will make it mag and put a full stop there. If you want to make an abbreviation of environmental, then you can put a full stop after two syllables of ENVIR. When the abbreviations are made by shortening the words, by breaking a word or removing some part of it, then the abbreviations are acronyms. They are when we join them with different words first or with another word. You will use acronyms to shorten phrases in order to save space or to avoid awkward repetition of phrases. If you feel that there are repeatedly repeated phrases and it feels weird, then you will make acronyms with the first letters. So, basically acronyms are abbreviations of the things they represent, but they are formed by combining the first and sometimes other letters of the principal words. So, they are very similar to abbreviations, but they are generally formed from within a phrase rather than just one word. Let us have a look at some examples of acronyms, where AIDS is the acronym for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, RAM is an acronym for Random Access Memory, ROM is the acronym for Read Only Memory, DOS is the acronym for Disk Operating System, FTP for File Transfer Protocol, HTML for Hypertext Makeup Language, HIV for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. There are some guidelines for using acronyms. In general, you will capitalize acronyms and you will not use a full stop after acronyms. In an abbreviation, you tend to use a full stop where you have cut the word off, but in acronyms you will not use periods. When an acronym becomes integrated into the language as a common noun, for example, laser, radar, scuba, then it is no longer capitalized. If an acronym is so commonly used that it becomes a part of the language, then it is not capitalized. Then it becomes a word. When you are using an acronym for the first time in your text, spell the phrase out and follow it with the acronym in parentheses. For example, as you see in the example, hypertext markup language, HTML was never intended to be a common programming language. And then when you are referring to that acronym later in the text, then you may use it by itself. In this example, the first time when an acronym was used, the entire phrase was written and in the brackets, the acronym was written in parentheses. And then the example says, the original assumption was that word processing applications would automatically generate HTML code. If your prose is laden with acronyms, if it has a lot of acronyms, then you will provide a list of terms in the front matter of your document to guide the reader. To form plurals of acronyms, you will add a lower case S without an apostrophe. For example, in the last lecture, in the discussion of apostrophes, if you want to form a plural with an acronym, then you will add an S in it, and then there is no need for apostrophe. Also, in your document, you will be using numbers in a variety of situations. Unless you are following a style guide that specifies, otherwise, you will observe the guidelines that we will see today. In general, you will use Arabic numerals instead of words in scientific and technical writing for both cardinal and ordinal numbers. For example, if you write 6 subroutines, 3 subroutines, 6 braces, 61 amino acids, for example, then you will write these cardinal numbers in Arabic numerals. Similarly, if you are using ordinal numbers, you are saying the third subroutine, the sixth brace, the 61st amino acid, then you will use Arabic numerals. In some scientific and technical styles, however, you will write out numbers between 1 and 10, and one-word fractions that do not follow an integer. If the words that are between 1 and 10, you will write them in words, or if there are any words or fractions that are not after an integer, but are written without an integer, then you will write them in words in such a way that you will say 3 subroutines as in T-H-R-W, or if you are saying half R, then you will not write half as a fraction, but you will write one half hour in words. If you need to begin a sentence with a number, then you will spell it out, or you will reword the sentence if possible. It is better to reword so that the number does not come at the beginning of a sentence. For example, if you have to say 32 workstations were provided by the university, either you will spell out 32, or you will say the university provided 32 workstations, and then you can have 32 in Arabic numerals. If one number immediately follows another in a sentence, then spell out the one that can be expressed in fewer words. Whatever number can be expressed in fewer words, you can spell it out and leave the other number in Arabic numerals. Try, however, to express units of measure in Arabic numerals. Try to use less spelling and use Arabic numerals for units of measure, where you are measuring something that you can write in numbers. Or you can reword the sentence. If you are using one in your text, but you are using it as a pronoun, then you will spell it out. You will never write one pronoun in Arabic numerals. For example, if you have a sentence which says, in protecting the privacy of individuals, one must always consider all the possible ways data can be accessed and used. Now in this example, one is used as a pronoun, so it will be written in, it will be spelled out and not written in Arabic numerals. Also for numerals for date, times of day, pages, figures and notes, you will use numbers in Arabic form. For example, you will write for 5 August 1994 1 p.m. or August or p.m. to letters, but rest of them will be numbers. You will use Arabic numerals followed by the percent sign to express percentages, except when the number begins a sentence. If in the beginning of the sentence, you want to show a percentage or a number, then you will spell out. Otherwise, if you are somewhere in the middle, then you can use the number. For example, if you say, only 3% of the system is crashed during the test period, then your sentence is starting only. But if you say, 3% of the system is crashed during the test period, then you will spell out. There is some difference between British and American formation numbers and European formation numbers. Let us see what that is. British and American are the same and European standards are different. In the British and American formation of numbers, you will form integers of 2 to 4 digits without any punctuation or spacing. As you can see, you will also use the period to indicate the decimal point and use an initial zero for numbers less than 1 or 1.0. You will also form numbers of 5 digits or more by using a comma to mark off groups of 3 digits starting at the decimal points. However, in European and international standards for formation of numbers, the first element will be the same where you will form integers of 2 to 4 digits without any punctuation or spacing, but the other two will be different. In European and international standards, you will use the comma to indicate the decimal point and use an initial zero for numbers less than 1. You will form numbers of 5 digits or more by using a period to mark off groups of 3 digits starting at the decimal point. So here, the comma and the period will change in European or international standards whereas, in British and American standards, it is different. We are going to have a look at some general guidelines for using numbers in non-technical prose. When you are using numbers in non-scientific text, spell out numbers less than 100 or numbers of any size that beginner centres. In addition, spell out round numbers of any size and use Arabic numerals followed by the terms million and billion to express numbers larger than 1 billion. If you have round numbers, you will spell out them and if you are talking about very large figures, more than million or billion, then you will write Arabic numerals and then you will write million or billion. For example, if you say it is less than 100, for example 73, then you will spell it out but if you are talking about big figures, then you will write it in numerals. Let's talk about numbers on enumeration which are numbers but when you number something as a list, you will enumerate your chapters and see what are their guidelines. Unless you are following a style guide that specifies otherwise, you will use the guidelines you will use enumeration in reports and other documents to identify sequences of chapters, sections, page numbers, figures and tables, equations, footnotes and appendices. Lengthy reports may contain and enumerate all these items. If there is a small report, then few things are enumerated but if there is a long report, then all these things will be enumerated. Any technical or scientific document of more than one page will at least enumerate its pages as well as any of the other elements that are present. There can be chapter section enumeration which is one of the most widely used enumeration systems used and the numerical system in this, for this is clearer than the alpha numerical system. Where you have used numbers, that system, chapter or section to show division and to enumerate it is more clear than the alpha numerical system where you combine letters and numbers. In the numerical system the reader can always locate his or her place in the document from this single decimal number which is 5.1, 5.2, 5.2, 0.2 and immediately the reader will know where the text is. I just said if you have a document which is more than one page long then you will have page numbers. You will enumerate the pages. Now how do you do this pagination? You will number the front matter in lower italic roman numerals whereas the rest of the text and the rest of the pages can be used in regular Arabic numerals. But the front matter in which the table of contents, list of tables etc. is abstract, you will do that in italic lower case roman numerals. All other pages will be in Arabic numerals and they will start with the number 1. You will number sequentially through till the last page including all back matter. The appendices and bibliography will also be included in the numerals. Now you have to number the tables and figures. You will number tables and figures sequentially such as table 1, table 2, table 3 and so on. If you have a long document however, you will the table and figure numbers are often prefixed with a chapter number. If there is a long document then you will number the table and figure and it will be easier for the reader to read which is exactly where and which reference table and figure they are looking at. For example, you will say table 5 dash 1 or table 5.1 This refers to the first table in chapter 5. Many times you use symbols in your documents. You will use symbols consistently and in keeping with the common practice in your discipline. Biology, chemistry, engineering mathematics, physics among many other fields have extensive and precise systems to present quantities objects and actions. You will check with a relevant style guide textbook or handbook as to what are the accepted symbols in your field. If you are not certain that your readers will recognize a symbol give a full spelling or in parentheses for the first time that you use the symbol as we gave the full description of the acronyms and then gave the acronym in parentheses Similarly, if you are using a symbol and you are not sure that your readers will understand then in parentheses write the full spelling of the symbol and then use the symbol again without spelling If your document contains a large number of symbols that may be unfamiliar to your readers then include a list of symbols in the front matter following the list of tables If you have used many such symbols which may be confusing for the reader then after a list of tables include a list of symbols in your text, in front matter Similarly, you can use equations in your documents and unless you are following a style guide that is giving you some specific guidelines different from the ones that I will be showing you today you can follow the ones that I talk about. You will integrate equations into the body of your document by including in the text one or more explicit references to each one and if appropriate a short explanation of each term In your text give it a reference so that it is clear and if possible give it some explanation However, you will include only the main equations in the body of the document Any detailed derivations and calculations should be put in appendices If they need it then try to include only the main equations in your main body If you include them then it may not be that interesting and it may be difficult to connect so keep the key elements in the main text and if you need other derivations then keep them in appendices Set of equations from the text by displaying them centered on the longest line and with equation numbers as shown on the screen on the equal sign as you can see here and break an equation longer than one line according to the following order of preference If you are breaking immediately before the equal sign align the equal sign in the second line with the first operator in the first line If it is immediately before an addition or subtraction sign that is not enclosed in parentheses brackets or braces the second line with the equal sign in the first line where the first line is equal then align your addition and subtraction sign in the second line immediately before the multiplication sign you will align the multiplication sign starting the second line with the equal sign in the first line as you did with subtraction and addition also you will If you are making a break between two sets of enclosures, for example parentheses, brackets or braces, then you will begin the second line with an explicit multiplication sign aligned with the equal sign followed by the second enclosed set. Now let's come to spelling. Until now we have talked about numbers, equations. Now one of our common problems in documents is that many times our spelling mistakes are left and this editing and proofreading phase is very important that we should also look at it carefully. The rules and conventions for the spelling of standard American English words are very complex and they are beyond the scope of one lecture or just a couple of lectures. But correct spelling however is extremely important in technical and scientific writing because it establishes a writer's credibility by displaying his or her care and precision in dealing with information. So it is important that you give a lot of emphasis to your spelling because that is what will convey to your readers how careful you have been, how precise you have been in dealing with your information as well. If you have spelling mistakes or careless mistakes in your text, your readers will get the impression that the data you have collected or the information you are giving you have dealt with it as carelessly as you have dealt with your spellings. So that is something that really gives the gist of your care and your precision towards the document. A reader may hesitate to trust your data or design recommendations of a technical document that contains careless misspellings. I am going to give you a few suggestions today to help ensure that your document is free of spelling errors and these suggestions you will be seeing on your screen. Always proofread your document for misspellings. If you are writing on a word processor, always use the spell check but do not rely on it alone. The spell check cannot catch one word substituted for another. For example, if you are trying to write it in a discreet way, D-I-S-C-R-E-E-T and you have written it in a discreet way, D-I-S-C-R-E-T-E, the spell checker will not recognize it because both of them are complete words in themselves. And also it may not recognize a typographical error that is a word in itself. For example, if you are trying to write a code and you have written it in a wrong way, or if you are trying to write a code and you have written it in a wrong way, D-I-S-C-R-E-T-E, then the spell checker will not correct it because both of them are correct English words. Also be consistent in the spelling of your words in your documents. Make sure that if you are using British English then you stick to that. If you are using American English then you stick to that. Be consistent in whatever type of spellings you are using. Generally the use of standard American English is much more common for scientific and technical writing. Also for consistency use the same dictionary when writing your first draft as when revising or editing your document. If you have consulted a dictionary while writing your document for spellings or meanings, then consult revising or editing on a proof reading stage. If you first learnt British or Commonwealth English, be careful that you don't substitute American English with it and you don't mix your forms for technical and scientific writing. As I just said, use American English, the spellings for American English. I am going to show you a list that summarizes some of the most common differences between American English and British English spelling. As you can see, the main difference is that the words E-R end in American English and they end in British English with R-E. And the second difference is that the place where American English is used and the place where Z is used and the place where British English is used. And the third difference is that the silent words are generally less in American English while the silent words are used in British English. I am now going to show you a list of some dictionaries that will be useful for you. Some of the desk dictionaries that are useful to help you with your spelling and your language are the Random House College Dictionary, the American Heritage Dictionary and the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary. I am also going to show you some names of unabridged dictionaries which give much more detailed information, more historical information as well about the language that they have. And two of these very, very good ones are the Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles and Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language. ESL dictionaries are those which are meant specifically for users of English as a second language. Then there are also technical dictionaries. Depending on whatever discipline you want to find a dictionary in, on the screen in front of you you are seeing now a list of some of such dictionaries. In this lecture we learnt about Capitalization. We talked about where capital letters are used, how they are used, we used capital letters to begin proper nouns, names of places, people, objects, things, rivers, cities, countries, etc. We also talked about capital letters are used in the beginning of sentences. If there is a quoted material in a sentence, then it will also start with capital letters. We talked about italex, that italex is used to emphasize something, it is used to express ratios, italex is used to give explanation of something. If we want to show a list, then after the introductory element we can use italex to follow a list. Then we talked about abbreviations, abbreviations are those which we can use to express a long word, because we may have a lack of space or a lot of repetition. So how can we express that word? Generally we break the word in syllables or after the first five syllables, or after the second or third syllables, we break the word. We talked about acronyms, which we take the first letter of a phrase or any other letter and join it. We took some examples, such as Ram, random access memory. I have also shown you the list of acronyms. We talked about if we want to pluralize the acronyms, then we put S in front of it, without apostrophe. We talked about numbers, how we can incorporate them into the text. Generally we use Arabic numerals. When we talk about numbers, we will try not to spell out the first letter in the beginning of a sentence. We will spell out the first letter in Arabic numerals. When we will call the page, we will call the front matter, lowercase italic roman numerals, and we will call the rest of the letters in Arabic numerals. Similarly we talked about how we will call continuity chapters and we will use numerical systems or we will use alphanumerical systems in terms of enumeration. We talked about symbols. The symbols are different in every field. They have their own rules. They have their own equations. How can we incorporate them into the text? Finally we talked about spellings. We emphasized that spellings are very important for the overall image of your document and for the reliability of you as a writer and for how the reader sees you as a writer. If your spellings are careless or incorrect, then your whole document seems to be carelessly compiled. You have to be careful with your spelling. Try to use a spell check. You are typing on a computer or a word processor, but do not rely on the spell check because the spell checker can also miss out certain things. We also talked about the fact that there is a difference between standard American spelling and British spelling and you need to use the standard American English spelling for scientific and technical documents. With this we come to the end of our lesson on reviewing language with reference to mechanics until next time, Allah Hafiz.