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ENGL410: Technical Writing

Resources for Technical Writing

Technical writing involves researching expert diagnoses of complex problems and their solutions and then translating your findings into accessible explanations and actionable recommendations.

A common form of technical writing, a white paper, typically advocates for a particular policy stance or a particular solution to address a problem.

The resources on this page will help you locate authoritative, expert information sources on which to base your assertions.

For more help...

The library has research guides for every academic discipline at UD. Be sure to take a look at the one(s) related to your field, and feel free to contact your subject librarian for in-depth research help.

Searching DELCAT Discovery

Search University of Delaware Library and libraries worldwide, for books, articles, and more, including some technical reports and white papers. You may seearch by title, author, or keywords. UD items appear at or near the top of the results display. Materials not held by UD (labeled WorldCat Libraries) can be requested using the "Get This For Me!" button.

Searching Subject Databases

Databases allow you to search the contents of scholarly journals, as well as other materials. Some databases, such as Academic OneFile and Web of Science, cover a wide variety of topics. Others focus on the literature of a specific subject field (e.g., PubMed for medicine and Business Source Premier for business).

Visit the Databases page to search for a particular database by name or to choose a subject category. Librarians can help you with recommended databases for specific topics.

Identify important search terms and concepts for your topic. Enter the search terms into the search box of the database. Connect the search terms with connector words (i.e., AND, OR). Truncation (use of * with the root of the word) obtains singular, plural and other variations.

antioxidants AND food - will return only results that contain both keywords

recycling OR conservation - will return results that contain either keyword

pollut* - will return results containing pollute, pollutants, pollution, etc.

General

Biology & Medicine

Business

Environment

Statistics

Technical Reports

Useful Websites

Technical Writing as a Career