Book excerpt: Effective Technical Communication is designed to serve as a practical guide and useful resource for scientists, engineers, and researchers. It addresses the need of practitioners engaged in the exchange of techincal information to effectively share their ideas with, and make impact on, their peers. The book provides guidelines, technical conventions, and graphical and visual aids for communicating effectively. It discusses the use of scientific vocabulary and various forms of writing, starting from simple forms such as paragraph and precis writing to more advanced forms such as scientific and engineering reports and papers. Written in an wasy-to-understand style, the text is supported with numerous illustrative examples. The correct use of language, the dos and don'ts of communication and the effective use of speech communication have also been discussed in detail.