English Advice; Correct Title for document descriping the development of electronics HW

[Klaus Kragelund]

Hi

In our company we have lots of procedures (who hasn't). Our native
language is danish, so sometimes this language barrier results in
non-optimal translation to english.

I was just wondering if any of you guys from USA/UK could answer this:

We have this document that describes the design procedures/calculations
of some electronic circuitry. For example how a Switch Mode Power
Supply is built, component choice, derating, functional description,
test results etc.

We call this specification either "SMPS Design Journal" or "SMPS
Construction Journal"

But what is the best title in your oppinion or is there a better one?

Thanks

Klaus

 

[J.A. Legris]

Hi

In our company we have lots of procedures (who hasn't). Our native
language is danish, so sometimes this language barrier results in
non-optimal translation to english.

I was just wondering if any of you guys from USA/UK could answer this:

We have this document that describes the design procedures/calculations
of some electronic circuitry. For example how a Switch Mode Power
Supply is built, component choice, derating, functional description,
test results etc.

We call this specification either "SMPS Design Journal" or "SMPS
Construction Journal"

But what is the best title in your oppinion or is there a better one?

I think "SMPS Design Journal" is good, although a journal is usually
something that grows (or has grown) serially.

A few possibilities:
SMPS Design Guide
SMPS Development Journal
SMPS Design Specification

 

[Tim Wescott]

Hi

In our company we have lots of procedures (who hasn't). Our native
language is danish, so sometimes this language barrier results in
non-optimal translation to english.

I was just wondering if any of you guys from USA/UK could answer this:

We have this document that describes the design procedures/calculations
of some electronic circuitry. For example how a Switch Mode Power
Supply is built, component choice, derating, functional description,
test results etc.

We call this specification either "SMPS Design Journal" or "SMPS
Construction Journal"

But what is the best title in your oppinion or is there a better one?

Thanks

Klaus

Most of the places that do this at all, that I am aware of, describe the
document as a "Circuit Description". If you're trying for traceability
you'll want to have a requirements document, and you'll want to make
sure that you mention each requirement in your circuit description, and
show how you're going to meet it.

If the circuit is large, or if the audiences are going to be different,
you may split out the testing portion into a Design Validation Report,
where you put your descriptions of the tests and their results, and a
matrix showing all the requirements, how you tested for them, and what
their results were.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Posting from Google? See http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/

"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" came out in April.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html

 

[Ancient_Hacker]

Hi Klaus, I hope you'll take this advice in the spirit in which it's
given:

A lot of english writing by non-native english folks, especially
technical writing, is just plain unusable. The intent is there, there
are nouns and verbs, but quite often really critical words get omitted.
For example, see most any tech writing from Asia.

Now I know that many Asian languages have no concept of the "article"
and other semi-redundant joining words. And the word order is
different. So when they write in English, there's a natural tendency
to omit and/or shuffle those words. But it makes writing out of
technical procedures anywhere from somewhat ambiguous to totally
unintelligible. For example, the sentence:

"The machine operator places the PC board face-up in the jig using the
NEMA rated gloves with anti-static wires connected to a 1.2 megohm
resistor"

might end up as:

"resistor 1.2 megohm connecting glove wire jig PC plank locale glorious
man"

Which might be *totally* intelligible to someone used to the original
language, but is of no use in an English ISO 9000 context !!!!

Here's a paragraph from a MP3 player manual:

"ABNORMITY DISPOSAL:
4.6.1 if there is some abnormity while playing, then pause playing and
cue "Disk error" (the indication for abnormity adopt the text format).
4.6.2 if space for following is not enough or root catalogue file is
full, then it cue "Overflow!" and back to recycle repeat, display usage
pls refer to above item.



So IMHO please have a native English reader and writer look over a lot
more than the title of the document. Better yet, have them walk thru
the steps and see how many things they do wrong.

On the other hand, if this is just a documeent to satisfy some "we mush
have eighteen centimeters thick of document per employee workstation",
forget what I just said.

 

[Tim Wescott]

Hi Klaus, I hope you'll take this advice in the spirit in which it's
given:

A lot of english writing by non-native english folks, especially
technical writing, is just plain unusable. The intent is there, there
are nouns and verbs, but quite often really critical words get omitted.
For example, see most any tech writing from Asia.

Actually, there's a lot of English technical writing by native speakers
that's totally unintelligible, too (admit it -- you could replace
"English" with "Danish" and say the same thing, couldn't you?)

So IMHO please have a native English reader and writer look over a lot
more than the title of the document. Better yet, have them walk thru
the steps and see how many things they do wrong.

Yes, or a _really good_ English speaker, of which you guys have a lot.

On the other hand, if this is just a documeent to satisfy some "we mush
have eighteen centimeters thick of document per employee workstation",
forget what I just said.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Posting from Google? See http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/

"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" came out in April.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html

 

[Fred Abse]

We have this document that describes the design procedures/calculations
of some electronic circuitry. For example how a Switch Mode Power
Supply is built, component choice, derating, functional description,
test results etc.

We call this specification either "SMPS Design Journal" or "SMPS
Construction Journal"

But what is the best title in your oppinion or is there a better one?

"Journal" implies periodical publication, in customary English usage -
derived from the French for "daily", or "newspaper"

"Construction" applies more to assembly than to design.

Hence I would suggest " SMPS Design Manual", or "SMPS Design Handbook"

It's a good idea when translating any technical document to have it
proof-read by a native speaker who has some technical expertise. This
helps to expunge such phrases as "this apparatus is designed with a pure
technic", which is meaningless in English. I have seen that in an English
technical manual for some German equipment.

 

[John Perry]

"Journal" implies periodical publication, in customary English usage -
derived from the French for "daily", or "newspaper"

"Construction" applies more to assembly than to design.

Hence I would suggest " SMPS Design Manual", or "SMPS Design Handbook"

With further clarification that "Manual" implies descriptions of a
particular SMPS or line of SMPS's, for which then you should presumably
have a model number or range of model numbers;

"Handbook" implies explanation of principles of design for SMPS's in
general or SMPS's of a particular type, which then would not be limited
to a particular SMPS or line of SMPS's.

John Perry

 

[Genome]

Hi

In our company we have lots of procedures (who hasn't). Our native
language is danish, so sometimes this language barrier results in
non-optimal translation to english.

I was just wondering if any of you guys from USA/UK could answer this:

We have this document that describes the design procedures/calculations
of some electronic circuitry. For example how a Switch Mode Power
Supply is built, component choice, derating, functional description,
test results etc.

We call this specification either "SMPS Design Journal" or "SMPS
Construction Journal"

But what is the best title in your oppinion or is there a better one?

Thanks

Klaus

I'd give it a project number. Then you end up with

E301X24 System Requirements
E301X24 System Specification
E301X24 Electronic Design
E301X24 Electrical Design
E301X24 Mechanical Design
E301X24 Electronic Assembly
E301X24 Electrical Assembly
E301X24 Mechanical Assembly
E301X24 Electronic Test
E301X24 Electrical Test

and so on

It's sort of obvious that they are documents so you don't really need to say
they are, just say what they are.....

Make it up so it makes sense in terms of the way you really think a project
should progress from the beginning to the end. I'm sure you do that already.

DNA

 

[Genome]

I'd give it a project number. Then you end up with

E301X24 System Requirements
E301X24 System Specification
E301X24 Electronic Design
E301X24 Electrical Design
E301X24 Mechanical Design
E301X24 Electronic Assembly
E301X24 Electrical Assembly
E301X24 Mechanical Assembly
E301X24 Electronic Test
E301X24 Electrical Test

and so on

It's sort of obvious that they are documents so you don't really need to
say they are, just say what they are.....

Make it up so it makes sense in terms of the way you really think a
project should progress from the beginning to the end. I'm sure you do
that already.

DNA

Oh, collectively its called the 'E301X24 Manual'.

DNA

 

[[email protected]]

Oh, collectively its called the 'E301X24 Manual'.

No, collectively it is called the E301X24 design documentation.

Anything called the "Manual" can end up in the customer's hands, and if
you have done your documentation properly the documents will include
stuff that you don't want the ciustomer to see - like "marketing
insisted that we built the scanning circuits into the rack to keep the
camera head as small as possible, and the scan waveforms have been 6dB
noisier ever since".

 

[Joerg]

Hello Klaus,

In our company we have lots of procedures (who hasn't). Our native
language is danish, so sometimes this language barrier results in
non-optimal translation to english.

I was just wondering if any of you guys from USA/UK could answer this:

We have this document that describes the design procedures/calculations
of some electronic circuitry. For example how a Switch Mode Power
Supply is built, component choice, derating, functional description,
test results etc.

We call this specification either "SMPS Design Journal" or "SMPS
Construction Journal"

But what is the best title in your oppinion or is there a better one?

In most medical electronics companies where I worked this would have
been called "SMPS Design Procedure".

It would most likely be filed and assigned a document number under the
category "Standard Operating Procedures" or "SOP" in short. It would
also receive a Revision level that is bumped up whenever someone
modifies this document.

 

[Klaus Kragelund]

Fred Abse skrev:

"Journal" implies periodical publication, in customary English usage -
derived from the French for "daily", or "newspaper"

"Construction" applies more to assembly than to design.

Hence I would suggest " SMPS Design Manual", or "SMPS Design Handbook"

It's a good idea when translating any technical document to have it
proof-read by a native speaker who has some technical expertise. This
helps to expunge such phrases as "this apparatus is designed with a pure
technic", which is meaningless in English. I have seen that in an English
technical manual for some German equipment.

Good suggestions from all you guys, thanks

"SMPS Design Manual" sounds like the best option to me.

The idea of letting a native speaker proof the document is good and
since we are a worldwide company I'll let one of my forign collegues
look it over.

I can only agree that non-native users of the english (or any other)
language sometimes use strange constructions both with respect to the
grammar, but also spelling. I consider myself in the better half
regarding mastering the english language, but at work the discussion
came up what we should call this document. I would rarther get it
right, so thats the reason for posting here at this NG.

As always commenting any misspelling/grammar-faults on my behalf are
highly welcome

Thanks

Klaus

 

[Homer J Simpson]

"SMPS Design Manual" sounds like the best option to me.

That would make me interested in reading it.

The idea of letting a native speaker proof the document is good and
since we are a worldwide company I'll let one of my forign collegues
look it over.

Yes. Otherwise you may be the butt of jokes on late night TV.