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Writing Like An Engineer

victortanws
 

One of the many things that I hear from students is a rather weird off-brand statement.

“I’m going to study science, I’m going to study engineering. English is so subjective! I can’t stand it!”, they go, as somehow they become the infinitely injured Sheldon Cooper science enthusiast language aphasia victim of the 21st century boo hoo hoo it’s time to retreat into the world of numbers and science experiments. 

Internally, I can empathise.

Not because I feel infinite pity for the students’ divinely ordained nature, but rather because I recognize what they are doing as clear as day:

It is one of the millions of possible permutations by which a person can justify that they are hopeless at the English language.

Let’s be clear, writing is not easy. And some people are better at it than others. But that doesn’t mean that you should give up or make excuses. It means that you should level up and make use of your strengths. 

With that in mind, here’s a case study for all of you out there who are a part of the premium memberships tier. 

Writing like an engineer.

When I say that you write like an engineer, I do not mean that you bring in fancy terms, difficult vocabulary, or attempts to impress people. All of that is useless. 

Rather than what I mean is that if your brain does not naturally take a prompt and then bring out line after line of beautiful prose, then maybe what you should do is learn how to systematize it like an engineer. 

Almost any engineer realizes that problems such as building bridges or entire support structures designed to bear the weight of tens of thousands are inherently huge. 

On an operational scale, there’s no way that they can be done by the labor of a single person. From a planning perspective, there’s no way that someone can just write a prompt into ChatGPT and poof, suddenly there is a bridge. Rather, it must be done step-by-step and methodically. 

The question is though, which step comes first? 

And there we see the problem that faces not only the engineer but pretty much any writer:

The problem of writing the first word, the problem of articulating the first full sentence, let alone the paragraph and even the essay. 

Well, we all have problems but we solve them in different ways. So with that in mind, here’s an example of an engineer-style breakdown of an IGCSE writing prompt. 

Describe a journey you took alone.

Engineer-style breakdown:

  • Problem Definition: Convey the internal and external environment during solitary travel.
  • Sub-Problems:
    • Location and context: Italy, to participate in a competition.
    • Atmosphere of solitude: loneliness vs. self-discovery.
    • Sensory impressions: sounds, sights, temperature, time of day.
    • Movement and transitions: what changes, how it feels.
  • Design Considerations: Emotional tone must match environmental detail.
  • Manifestation Strategy: Create a “motion-through-space” effect. Use the five senses as data sensors feeding into emotional state.

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What happened there?

What happened is that I took an IGCSE writing prompt, read it, maybe freaked out for a while, but then spent a few seconds thinking about what I really had to do while thinking about the specific guidance of the prompt.

The problem definition I came up with was that on the surface I needed to write about a journey that I took alone.

That’s absolutely true, but at the end of the day since the goal is to showcase my English language skills I had to use a method that would help me convey those skills in a way that proved me to be an advanced user of the English language. 

Clearly by thinking about what the definition of the problem was after processing the initial statement, I made it a little clearer what I had to do – But even then, it was still vague. What does it mean to convey an internal environment? And what does it mean to convey an external environment?

Confronted with that vagueness, I just broke things down even more into sub-problems that clearly articulate what it is that I need to accomplish in those 300-400 words, writing down things that I needed to think about while I am creating my work – which went something like…

I must convey the atmosphere of solitude. 

I must depict the sensory impressions that I experience in the course of my journey, choosing the correct words to convey a scenario that I imagine in my head but may not have personally experienced. 

I must use language to convey movements and transitions in order to articulate what I am experiencing on this journey to create a sense of vividity for the person who is reading the work to make them feel, simulate, to a high degree of accuracy what I was experiencing on this journey of which I speak to perfect fidelity. 

I also add in a little bit about design considerations and manifestation strategy. I consider what I must do while I am writing as I am looking at the prompt. As a guide to what I must produce, along the way. With that in mind, I have a structure in place. A good scaffolding and I can now begin – and the scaffolding I used to make the essay above. 

Here I think you can see the level of detail that goes into my thinking before I even write down a single word. 

Why do that? 

Because any engineering project requires a good scaffolding beforehand, and the foundation needs to be there – If I randomly start placing the blocks one after another, I will end up with a monstrosity of gargantuan proportions that serves no attainable function apart from being admired or vilified in a modern art museum.

At the end of the day, the whole point is to know what you’re going to say and when you are going to say it. 

The structure grants you the gift of a little bit of spontaneity which you might not have had if you were just casually watching and waiting and hoping to just blindly go in. 

Of course, a lot of people will do this, or they might just casually write out a few points here and there that they think that they’re going to expand upon and nothing else – But the fact is that writing out a few words alone isn’t going to really get you writing until you start actually having the sense of what is going to drive you forward and what you are trying to achieve. 

That’s what writing like an engineer helps you to do, even if you think that it’s artificial, even if you think that it’s silly.

At the end of the day, though, this was just one method of many to help you resolve the problems that you may have with writing and articulating yourself on the journey.

If you are still thinking about making excuses and saying that you cannot write or anything like that, please disabuse yourself of that because that’s not the way to actually succeed – rather it is the way to convince yourself that you cannot do anything, even if that is patently untrue.

Good luck with figuring out what you need to do – and seeking the answers that you’re looking for! 

Here are a few more prompts and breakdowns for you to think about as you go on your journey! Please give them a try and see how they work for you!

✍️ IGCSE Descriptive Writing Prompts

(Style: evoke atmosphere, vivid detail, sensory engagement)

1. Describe a journey you took alone.

Engineer-style breakdown:

  • Problem Definition: Convey the internal and external environment during solitary travel.
  • Sub-Problems:
    • Atmosphere of solitude: loneliness vs. self-discovery.
    • Sensory impressions: sounds, sights, temperature, time of day.
    • Movement and transitions: what changes, how it feels.
  • Design Considerations: Emotional tone must match environmental detail.
  • Manifestation Strategy: Create a “motion-through-space” effect. Use the five senses as data sensors feeding into emotional state.

2. Describe a place that has changed over time.

Engineer-style breakdown:

  • Problem Definition: Capture both the “before” and “after” vividly.
  • Sub-Problems:
    • Static vs. dynamic aspects (what stayed vs. changed).
    • Emotional resonance with both versions.
    • Time markers (weathering, human impact).
  • Design Considerations: Keep continuity clear while emphasizing transformation.
  • Manifestation Strategy: Two-layer model: past overlayed against present.

3. Describe a person you admire without stating who they are.

Engineer-style breakdown:

  • Problem Definition: Show character without naming roles explicitly.
  • Sub-Problems:
    • Facial expressions, gestures, habits.
    • Symbolic environment (clothes, tools, setting).
    • Interactions with others.
  • Design Considerations: Avoid clichés. Every description should infer values.
  • Manifestation Strategy: Think of person as a ‘system’ with observable outputs (actions) revealing inner design (values).

4. Describe a moment of silence in a usually noisy environment.

Engineer-style breakdown:

  • Problem Definition: Build contrast between noise and silence.
  • Sub-Problems:
    • Establish norm: noise, chaos, background activity.
    • Introduce shift: sudden quiet.
    • Explore impact: reflection, awareness, change.
  • Design Considerations: Use sound as a measurable variable.
  • Manifestation Strategy: Emphasize sensory reduction. Signal-to-noise ratio becomes almost zero—focus on minute details.

5. Describe an object that means a lot to you.

Engineer-style breakdown:

  • Problem Definition: Represent emotion through physical detail.
  • Sub-Problems:
    • Physical features: material, shape, wear and tear.
    • Historical context: when and how acquired.
    • Emotional tie: memory, routine, symbolism.
  • Design Considerations: Balance concrete description with layered meaning.
  • Manifestation Strategy: Think of it like reverse-engineering—unpacking form to find significance.

🧠 IGCSE Narrative Writing Prompts

(Style: tell a story, with plot, characters, and conflict)

1. Write a story that begins with: “The lights went out, and everything changed.”

Engineer-style breakdown:

  • Problem Definition: Sudden shift—instability introduced into a stable system.
  • Sub-Problems:
    • Setting pre-blackout: establish normality.
    • Trigger: why the lights went out.
    • Consequences: internal and external reactions.
  • Design Considerations: Pacing and suspense must escalate.
  • Manifestation Strategy: Treat it like a domino chain: one failure leads to a cascading sequence of problems.

2. Write a story about someone who makes a big mistake.

Engineer-style breakdown:

  • Problem Definition: Human error with ripple effects.
  • Sub-Problems:
    • Motivation: what they wanted.
    • The mistake: moment of failure.
    • Fallout: consequences and attempts to repair.
  • Design Considerations: Ensure logical causality. Every effect should trace back.
  • Manifestation Strategy: Think of the story like a bug in the code—trace the origin and debug through consequences.

3. Write a story in which a character has to make a difficult decision.

Engineer-style breakdown:

  • Problem Definition: A moral or strategic dilemma.
  • Sub-Problems:
    • Stakes: what’s at risk for both choices.
    • Pressures: time, social, emotional.
    • Resolution: choice made and aftermath.
  • Design Considerations: Avoid false dilemmas. Real tension means no clear good/bad option.
  • Manifestation Strategy: Treat as a branching path in logic flow—each branch has a cost.

4. Write a story about an unexpected discovery.

Engineer-style breakdown:

  • Problem Definition: Create a contrast between expectation and revelation.
  • Sub-Problems:
    • Initial goal or task.
    • Setting of discovery (mundane vs. mysterious).
    • Nature of discovery: object, truth, emotion.
  • Design Considerations: Must include reversal or shift in perspective.
  • Manifestation Strategy: Story arc mimics a data revelation curve—steep insight after gradual build.

5. Write a story that ends with: “I knew things would never be the same again.”

Engineer-style breakdown:

  • Problem Definition: Chart a fundamental change through experience.
  • Sub-Problems:
    • Status quo: character’s normal world.
    • Catalyst event: what disrupts it.
    • Final realization: new understanding.
  • Design Considerations: Character arc must show growth or loss.
  • Manifestation Strategy: Use a “feedback loop” metaphor—what input changed the internal system forever?

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The Importance of Meaning

victortanws
 

Hello friends, it’s been a minute. I hope you’re all doing well. Today I want to talk about a little often unnoticed aspect of writing: meaning. I think it’s not controversial for people to realize that words mean things. It seems a fact that’s as obvious as the reality that water is wet, humans breathe air, and that if you are bad at English, then you will probably not do well in the first language English exams. But I digress.

Words mean things.

And that’s especially important for people to realize, especially when they’re just learning how to write, to articulate their thoughts, and they just don’t know why they are getting things marked down.

The reason I decided to talk about this was that a student of mine recently had an essay come back whereby she was complaining about the grade that she had received, and the multiple comments on her essay that the teacher had given, asking her questions about grammar and otherwise. One of her sentences was: “Driving to the cave, he did some research on his destination,” to which the teacher responded with a snarky, “Doing research while driving?”

Now, the student might very well just read that feedback, nod their head, and then go on, assuming that this is just one of many mistakes that they need to be aware of. But I wonder if they have actually learned the lesson. So, I’m here to make it plain. The reason that they ended up getting points docked and that comment in the first place was that the sentence itself was not logical.

Now, you could argue that, well, the student didn’t know the grammar. Maybe they were weak. Maybe they just weren’t very aware of how to actually put the words in the right place. Why should the world be so cruel to them? Why should they be penalized?

Well, to that I say, at the end of the day, remember, there is a specific meaning to things.

If I told you that water was dry, would I not be telling you a lie? If I tell you that surely all boys are taller than girls, would that not also be a lie considering that you can understand the meaning of that sentence and then cross reference it against reality?

English is for the purpose of communicating. It’s not anything different from that. It’s about being able to articulate your ideas, a reality, what you see, think, and feel about the world.

Every single thing that you write in English has a specific meaning, regardless of whether you’re aware of that meaning or not. And that meaning comes along from the grammar of the sentence, the context of what you’re saying, and the content that you choose to share, all of which are part of the meaning.

When I look at that little example there, I can see a couple of ways that maybe the student could have actually avoided that problem. And the first immediate way is to literally just sit down and re-read what they wrote. Think about what they actually mean when they are writing. Consider for a brief while what came out of their pen.

It is too easy, in many cases, for people to just casually write down a bunch of words, thinking to themselves that they can use a structure, a pre-baked set of words, some phrases that they memorized and want to make use of to show off their vocabulary, erudition, the beauty of the language that they can bring to bear in constructing sentences, paragraphs, and entire essays.

Well, clap clap clap, my dear students. Unfortunately, that’s not going to work. At the end of the day, you have to think about meaning. What does each individual sentence actually mean? How does it relate to the other sentences? How do they come together to construct the overall point that you are going to make?

These are things that you definitely do need to think about, even if somehow or another you’ve been thinking about things like the PEEL method or otherwise as a way of organizing things. For that matter, let’s talk about the PEEL method for a quick bit.

The reason that we teachers suggest in many cases that you use the P-E-E-L method is not necessarily that it is always the best way of writing. There are some people who take artistic liberties or otherwise, and of course there are many different types of writing beyond argumentative or informational writing. But I use this example just to prove a simple point.

When you start with a point, you proceed with an example, explain the example, and link it to the overall essay prompt that you’re trying to respond to, you are actually engaging the way that other people construct meaning, and trying to create things in the most efficient possible way. By telling someone a piece of information that they didn’t know before, giving them an example of where it applies, providing a valuable elaboration on how that relates to your point, and then linking it to the entire idea of what you’re trying to say.

Now that’s a very valuable meaning-making exercise, of course, but it’s only one of them, and it is a subset of all that there is.

At the end of the day, merely because you have a hammer, that doesn’t mean that everything is a nail. You cannot use the P-E-E-L method for everything. At the end of the day, you need to look at the individual prompt that you have to respond to, and then you have to understand what it entails—meaning what you have to do—and then from there begin to formulate a plan for responding. From there, then you decide which kinds of meanings it is that you want to construct.

Although of course, that’s going to be hard if you can’t understand the specific meanings of the sentences around you, that you hear, the ones that you write, the way that sentences relate to one another, and how all of those things come together to create a piece of communication, both the ones that you write and also the ones that you read.

Now, if that seems like an overload of information for you…Please don’t worry.

If you learn nothing else, then let it be this: every single thing that you read means something, and every single thing that you write means something.

Check to see if it is the correct meaning. Ask yourself, if this is the correct meaning, then what does that mean about the next piece of information? Are these things ordered in the right way? Should I express things another way? Is the original fine? Can I make it shorter?

All of these little tweaks and additions out there add different things into the overall picture of meaning which you construct through language.

Now, make that picture a beautiful one, even as you learn to appreciate that art yourself in all its dimensions.

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Some Thoughts On Articulation

victortanws
 

Today, I want to talk about articulation. It’s a word that’s used a lot in the English language in many different contexts, all of which are dear to me.

In music, it’s used to describe the way someone plays an instrument. On the cello, it is how the bow glides, pressure is applied, and weight is distributed in accordance with the needs of the music.

In a pure linguistic and sound sense, it is how air interacts with the tongue, mouth, and vocal cords to produce sound. In the parlance of the English language, it is how one communicates one’s ideas, structures them, and brings them out from the depths of thought into the seen world, where they will influence others.

I think articulation is a deeply incredible skill. Throughout history, the greatest articulators have never been able to articulate. The greatest articulators have been the most successful political leaders, the most influential statesmen, the finest executives of their era—merely by playing on the power of phrases that their minds constructed, in turn pulling out the feelings of entire generations, summoning them to the causes of the speakers in every instance.

And it is no wonder that speech and language are rich and wonderful, yet they are only minute and poor representations of our deep inner thoughts. Used in the wrong way and in an unfocused manner, words will only inspire vagueness, boredom, and the mere hints of attention before the listener falls asleep. Summoned rightly, though, and they, in turn, will inspire from the still depths the uproarious fountain of joy, sadness, hatred, and love in every which direction.

As the heart is activated and the mind primed for more, you say that these are forces that seem outside the scope of an English class. They are not things to be concerned with or trifled with. How can mere words, after all, activate people towards the purposes of the speaker, the writer, or the thinker? But I say to you that history is on my side rather than yours.

What you are learning from this site is nothing short of a tool that has been used to unite and divide generations. The mere language that is in your mouth and at the tip of your pen can stop wars or cause them.

I learned this from Mahathir, as some of you know (and you can watch my conversation with Mahathir here), but so as the knife has the ability to kill a person or to carve beautiful things, so too can the word bring literature and life into being, as it can tear down.

To articulate well is to express, inform, and portray oneself and others on the canvas of words, painting a picture.

To captivate and capture – to grip others by the heart, and to pull along the crowd, until you reach your desired destination.

There is great power in the word, and if nothing else, I hope that is what you will remember.

May it inform your studies this week and beyond. Have an incredible one ahead!

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