Selzer's Research

Selzer wished to study the writing process of engineers because very little studies had existed on "how" engineers and similar writers in the workplace actually plan, arrange, write, and revise. By learning how their thought processes worked when writing a technical document; teachers can help their students with their technical writing and teach them how to do this type of writing.

He found that the biggest portion of time Nelson spent in his technical writing was on the outline. I found it very interesting that after Nelson created his general outline; his revisions ususally involved editing and grammar corrections and not the inclusion of new material. He didn't go back and make huge changes and produced his documents in a more linear method than recursively as do most technical writers. Another interesting point was that Nelson made effective use of past documents he had written when he was creating a new one.

He found this was true by examining Nelson's methods of writing and planning each document first hand. He asked Nelson questions before and after he wrote a document concerning his methods. He used follow up interviews that allowed Nelson to talk about his writing choices, and he gathered every document Nelson wrote so as to know what changes he made along the way.
He used the process of triangulation to discover and convince the reader that his results were valid.