Really, I actually wrote this.

I have known for a while, since my first work term report I believe that I have a problem with my technical writing. I have a hard time being confident about my facts and results. I tend to use the words “really”, “actually” and “basically” far too much. I’m sure there are other words as well, but these ones stick out in my mind at the moment. Part of the problem is that I am usually trying to write using as many words as possible to meet some predefined word count. And since these are words, they slide into the sentence without too much effort.

The other cause of the problem is that I just plain don’t have enough confidence in my facts. Even writing for my weblog I find myself punctuating sentences with uncertainty. It is like I’m permanently stuck writing in the subjunctive mood. And of course, the only reason that I am mention any of this is as a means to procrastinate writing more uncertainty. Certainly.