Work it out before you write it

The writer of a technical paper looks at his subject from all angles before he starts to write. He asks himself a lot of questions; samples are suggested here. The answers to these help to keep him on course while he does the preliminary and final writing. As he does this work he is careful not to change direction and not to swamp his reader with unneeded data. The creator of Sherlock Holmes has at least two comments on these faults.