Each of these three examples points to the importance of well-written instructions in engineering. If the software manual is disorganized, users of the program may waste valuable time searching for a command. If the safety precautions for your company's snow blower are ambiguous, someone could be injured. Money, time, and health often depend of the quality of the writing in instructions. In engineering, the formats of instructions can vary from single-phrase cautions on clothing to thick handbooks on procedures in nuclear submarines.
Instructions have four unusual aspects of style.
First, instructions often include numbered steps. Using numbered steps with white space between each step allows readers to perform a step of the process and then quickly find their place in the instructions. In the language for instructions, you also use cautions to warn readers of difficult or dangerous steps. Finally, with instructions, you use more illustrations or examples than with other types of documents. The following example is a set of instructions for what to do in case of an earthquake.