Issue trees: a tool to aid the engineering writer

The paper surveys studies of the process model for understanding writing, focusing in particular on problem-solving strategies in the writing process. It then presents a case study of the use of issue trees-a hierarchal network of goals not unlike the decision trees used in management science and artificial intelligence-to guide the writing process of the second author as he wrote a technical report. A good issue tree shows the relationships between various pieces of information: which information is central and which is supportive or incidental. Issue trees offer engineers a visual view of their writing plan. By building a hierarchal issue tree to illustrate the logical links of the proposed writing task, the engineer can put an overlay of “technology” on the task of writing-an overlay that may “trick” the unwilling writer into writing, and writing well