Boeing has word police? One is never surprised at anything anymore. What happens when somebody does not conform? Or are they recommend but not required?
I started out my career working on a project to create a kind of grammar checker that would help engineers writing aircraft maintenance documents to adhere to the international aerospace standard now called
ASD Simplified Technical English (formerly AECMA Simplified English). You can get a copy of the standard on the web site, if you are interested. All aerospace manufacturers are supposed to comply with it in writing maintenance documentation, but it has become something of a more general standard across other kinds of documentation. Airbus, but not Boeing, actually uses it for aircraft operations manuals as well and uses that fact as a marketing tool when trying to sell to airlines (especially Asian) that are not in English-based countries. I've taught classes on the subject in a very wide range of industries with technical writing needs.
Is there a list of approved terms? I would think use of terms in a Boeing document cod have legal ramifications in a court case. There is a legal difference between shall do and will do in a document for example.
It's something known as a "controlled language". There is a core of basic vocabulary, but different companies are free to develop their own technical nomenclature and terminology as long as it conforms to certain guidelines in the ASD-STE100 specification.
What was the material results of your work?
There are standards for engineering terms.
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The standard tries not to step on the toes of other existing standards, especially ASD standards. ASD Simplified Technical English has been widely regarded as the gold standard for industrial controlled English. As the chair of the US national committee, I was the US representative to the ASD STE100 committee in Europe for quite a few years.
But all this does not address the OP on convoluted science documents. To me that is for peer review to acess.
It does in the sense that controlled writing standards are designed to prevent convoluted language, but this is something of a diversion from the topic of the thread. For example, the STE standard does not allow sentences for procedures and instructions to be longer than 20 words, which forces writers to break them down into simpler steps. Sentences in descriptive text cannot exceed 25 words. Technical names, to the extent that the writer can control them, cannot be longer than 4 words--a big problem for engineers who like to create mile-long names for things. (But existing nomenclature can override the restriction.)
A Boeing process document is written for general usage. An engineering and in the case of the OP a science paper is written for peers, not general reading or undemandi outside of the community.
A Boeing manufacturing document has to be readable by customers, lawyers, and company personell. A paper on new materials does not.
Well, that all depends on what kind of section you are authoring in the document. Unfortunately, lawyers are not overly concerned with readability, and STE is designed to improve readability. So there is a little war going on between lawyers and those who promote plain English writing standards. One thing I can say with confidence is that lawyers should be bound by restraining orders that keep them away for the language in warnings and cautions. Those are exactly the kinds of text that you want engineers to read and understand, but lawyers do their best to make sure that the language is convoluted as hell. From a legal perspective, they are only interested in making sure that the company is not liable for damage, injuries, and deaths when the company is being sued. Procedural language should be written to minimize or prevent people from actually causing damage, injuries, and deaths.