I have reviewed articles from
various premier institutes of India. When I review articles, I find some paragraphs
which I cannot understand at all. This is a problem for new writers. We tend to
believe that we are writing in simple language. On the other hand, it is something
else. No one can understand what we are writing. Some people use very long
complex sentences. Such sentences lose meaning at the end of it. Sometimes, people
use lots of conjugation like ‘and’. The sentence becomes redundant. The text becomes
very dull to read. In that case, this Hemingway application can be used. It
suggests and points out the complex sentences with different colour codes. You
can change them. It gives you a rating on readability. Often, I use this tool
for scientific writing. This makes your text very professional. I have given
the example below after applying the tool. You can go to http://www.hemingwayapp.com/.
“I have reviewed articles from various premier institutes of India. When
I review articles, I find some paragraphs which I cannot understand at all.
This is a problem for new writers. We tend to believe that we are writing in
simple language. But, it is something else. No one can understand what we are
writing. Some people use very long complex sentences. Such sentences lose
meaning at the end of it. Sometimes, people use lots of conjugation like ‘and’.
The sentence becomes redundant. The text becomes very dull to read. In that
case, this Hemingway application can be used. It suggests and points out the
complex sentences with different colour codes. You can change them. It gives
you a rating on readability. Often, I use this tool for scientific writing.
This makes your text very professional.”
There are two
types of organizations; research organizations (ISRO, CSIR, IITs, IIMs, TERI,
ISER etc) and PSU (OIL, ONGC, BCPL, Coal India, Gail, BHEL, BEML, etc) or
companies which are like PSUs ( TATA, Maruti, Mahindra, Mercedes, RIL, VEDANTA,
TCS, Infosys etc). This document is best suited for PSU and PSU like private
companies. When you are appearing for PSU and PSU like private companies, one
should keep in mind that the questions may be basic, applied based (depending
on their workshops, operations and activity-based). The questions may be
diverse but will be of the not deep level of knowledge. You have to understand
their mindset. They are out of colleges for a long time and may remember their
questions relating to their activity in the practical field. Sometimes you may
find a few interviewers who search online the questions to be asked in the
interview (My experience as a coordinator for training placement activities for
5 years). You have to identify the products they produce, an activity they do,
workshop they have and machines they have and then prepare accordingly the
questions to be asked. You have to read their minds before appearing in the
interview. But this will not help you while appearing research institutes. You
have to go deep into the skin of the subject which you opt-in your interview.
There will be questions and follow up questions on a particular topic to check
your knowledge level. You have to work on all the follow-up questions that
might arise. Therefore, the previous scheme will not help. If you prepare these
questions, you have a hundred per cent chance of cracking any kind of interview
for Mechanical Engineering based company.
How to dress?
When appearing
for the interview, you need to wear a formal or corporate dress. Proper
grooming is required to look smart. Be comfortable with what you wear. One
should abstain from fleshy clothes at any time. This affects negatively
bringing unnecessary preconception beforehand.
General Knowledge
It is wise to
know few things about your district, state and country. Moreover, a few
questions on recent news on cricket, games where India excelling, trending
political news or renowned persons of Indian administration are required to be
prepared beforehand. For that matter, read the daily newspaper and Competition
Success Refresher.
Scientific paper
writing is very important these days. Many people can write easily but for some,
it becomes a bad experience after many rejections. Without preaching much, let’s
go discuss one by one each part of the research paper. Generally, there are
some significant parts of a paper such as abstract, introduction, material
& method, results& discussions, conclusions, and finally, references.
Abstract:
Generally, try to write abstract after completion of the work and writing other
parts mentioned above. Then, you gather a proper idea about the whole affair.
The abstract should be brief precise having 300-500 words. You need to avoid unnecessary
introductory vague sentences. A very effective way is to write in one or two
lines your topic and the requirement of it. Then write what you are intending
to do in the work. Then, include key findings. If you include these points, you
are almost done. After doing so, you need to try to revise the language many
times. Complex sentences are difficult to understand. Hence, the use of simple
sentences should be focused on. Moreover, one such refrain from the use of too much
conjugation such as ‘and’. The keywords are to be selected based on the main
theme of the work so that it becomes easy to search online.
Introduction:
Some
journals ask for brief introduction while others don’t. So, one should keep that
in mind. While writing this section, at first you write a few sentences on the
topic of the problem gradually narrowing down to the research problem. During
this process, also mention the findings of the various previous authors in this
regard with proper citation. Always one should take the latest citations. Very old
citations are not regarded very much. This shows your lack of engagement with
the latest work. For that matter, you can take help of ScienceDirect, Tailor &
Francis, IEEE, Emerald, Nature, Springer, and Wiley journals. For Indian
writers, UGC care list is very helpful. At last, try to establish your research
problem through the gaps of the previous authors’ works. Finally, you write the
aim of the work in this section clearly.
Material
and Method: This section includes the materials and
methods adopted during the work. The materials used during the work should be
mentioned in details with specifications in table form. The methods adopted for
the process is to be discussed in details with flow diagrams if necessary. For
that matter, there are lots of software packages available. Moreover, if
someone is using standard methods, he should mention standards in tabular form.
Results
and discussions: This section shows the findings of the
research. You need to analyze the findings. One should take help of the graphs
to communicate the readers. Also, one should know the art of linking the effect
of parameters with your study so that it becomes meaningful.
Conclusions:
This section includes the key findings of the research. You need to write the key
findings briefly.
References: The
references could be any form. There are specific styles. According to journals, the reference styles change. These
are APA, MLA, Chicago, Turabian, and IEEE. I am showing three predominant
types.
1. APA:Alibali, M. W. (1999). How children change
their minds: Strategy change can be gradual or abrupt. Developmental
Psychology, 35, 127-145.
2. Chicago: Gueorgi
Kossinets and Duncan J. Watts, “Origins of Homophily in an Evolving Social
Network,” American Journal of Sociology 115 (2009): 411, accessed
February 28, 2010, doi:10.1086/599247.
3. IEEE: J. U. Duncombe, "Infrared
navigation - Part I: An assessment of feasibility," IEEE Trans.
Electron. Devices, vol. ED-11, pp. 34-39, Jan. 1959.
When we write an
abstract, we need to take into account the following few things one by one.
(1) At first, we
should give a very brief introduction in one or two lines.
(2) State the
research problem very briefly linking the first step.
(3) State what
you are going to determine during the project or paper.
(4) State the
salient results or findings.
If you integrate
all these items you can definitely write abstract like professional. Now, what
should be the keywords in the case of a paper? The main words of your project
are your keywords. Suppose you are working in diesel engine modification, the
keywords would be diesel, engine, CI engine, etc.
How
to write the introduction part of a report?
The introduction
part generally contains the general introduction of the topic. You can write
briefly its origin, development, advantages, and disadvantages briefly. Then
you should define our research problem. After setting the research problem, we
can write the objectives. The objectives should always start like this “To
identify”, “To determine” etc.Always
keep the language simple. Don’t use complex sentences too much. The
introduction should be planned in such a way that you are telling a story and you
are steering the readers to your objectives of the project. The paragraphs
should have continuity. Then, you can use various software packages.
(1) Grammarly to
check punctuation, spelling, and grammar.
(2) Any
paraphrasing software if certain sentences in paragraphs are redundant.
(3) Text compactor
if you want to reduce the size of the paragraph without losing its meaning
(4) Hemingway
editing software if you want to check whether your texts are easily
intelligible or not.
I have shown how
to format the introduction part. This should be the last phase.
How
to write a literature review?
The literature
review of a report is very important. Generally, people make mistake thinking about
their extension of the introduction of the report. It is not like that. It is a
deep analysis of the previous related same type of topics to reach a logical
decision avoiding redundant mistakes by thousands of new researchers. Let us
consider a machine product you are trying to make by a method or trying to
develop a method. In that case, you have to study the various methods which are
in the use already. You have to study the various aspects of the methods and
their advantages & disadvantages as well. Apart from that, you have to
study recent development in a particular method so that you can find the gap
for new research. Random acts of research neither good nor add anything.
Moreover, while writing while addressing the works of others, you are to write
like “Borah et. al. reported that the efficiency of the machine was found to be
good compared to that system”. This should proceed like this. Also, you have to
give reference to that statement as per requirement such as
“Borah et. al.
reported that the efficiency of the machine was found to be good compared to
that system [1].”
This reference
should be arranged either in chronological order or alphabetical order as per the
requirement of standards of a university. You need to make as many paragraphs
as required by your topic. Do not try to compress the matter. The video below
shows how to write a literature review. I am taking a Ph.D. thesis of PRABHAHAR
M which available in Shodganga.
How
to write material and method?
The material and method section of your report
is very important. People generally make mistakes by putting general and vague
things here. But it should be properly structured starting from materials used,
the methodology of experiments to be done in the project with details plan of
execution through flow diagrams. Moreover, you are to include instruments used
during the experiments. There some examples
1. Suppose, you
are fabricating a machine: First, you need to give, machine drawing with proper
labeling. Then, you should go part by part of the materials to be used with
proper dimensions. Also, you need to state the methodology of fabrication with
flow diagrams. You can say that the plan of working. If you want to do
experimentation, then according to parameters which you would like to change
and instruments which will be required to measure the variations are to be
included with the proper specification. You can show the procedure also.
2. Suppose, you
are doing a research project with some material: In this scenario, please mention
the material and method of synthesis of the material. After the synthesis, you
will do some experimentation on the material. Then, with a flow diagram mention
the methodology. State the experiment procedure one by one.
3. Suppose you
are doing an analysis project: These projects are done with software. In that
case, you describe your idea of the analysis and the parameters which you want
to change. Then the software package which you have taken along with its
specification. Then, you include the flow diagram of your project according to the
aim.
For, this
section you should include good flow diagrams, schematic diagrams,
configuration diagram or line diagrams whichever suits you. There are some software
packages that can be used for drawing diagrams.
1. Autocad for
machine drawing
2. Draw.io for
line diagram, flow diagram or any kind of configuration diagram
3. Concept draw
for schematic diagrams for elaborating chemical process, chemical engineering
flow processes, various manufacturing process, flow diagrams etc
4. Microsoft
Visio for flow diagrams
5. There are
lots of software packages for analysis such as Ansys, Comsol, Pro E, Katia,
Scilab, Wintherm, Lisa, etc.
How
to write results and discussions?
For B.Tech
project, there could be various scenarios.
(1) Fabrication
type of project. Here, you are fabricating some machine, and then you should
show some simple experimentation by changing various parameters such as speed,
loading rate, load on the machine, etc. You are required to show the
effectiveness compared to the existing system both in terms of performance and
cost consideration.
(2) Research
type of project: Here, if you are synthesizing some material and doing some
experimentation on the material under different conditions by varying various
parameters, you need to link the effect of these parameters with the material
with proper graphs for ease of understanding and proper explanation as
well.
(3) Analysis
type of project: Here you consider something and then you analyze virtually by
changing various boundary conditions. You need to establish a link with the
parameters and resultant effects with proper software diagrams and proper
explanation as well.
How to write conclusions?
The conclusions
are the last part of the report. Here one should include key findings. You can
write in bullets or number them.
How to write reference?
The references
could be any form. There are specific styles. According to journals, the reference styles change. These
are APA, MLA, Chicago, Turabian, and IEEE. I am showing three predominant
types.
1. APA: Alibali, M. W. (1999). How children change
their minds: Strategy change can be gradual or abrupt. Developmental
Psychology, 35, 127-145.
2. Chicago: Gueorgi
Kossinets and Duncan J. Watts, “Origins of Homophily in an Evolving Social
Network,” American Journal of Sociology 115 (2009): 411, accessed
February 28, 2010, doi:10.1086/599247.
3. IEEE: J. U. Duncombe, "Infrared
navigation - Part I: An assessment of feasibility," IEEE Trans.
Electron. Devices, vol. ED-11, pp. 34-39, Jan. 1959.
