It was originally developed during the 1980's by the European Association of Aerospace Industries (AECMA), at the request of the European Airline industry, who wanted a standardized form of English for technical documentation that could be easily understood by non-English speakers.
It has since been adopted in many other fields outside the aerospace, defense, and maintenance domains for its clear, consistent, and comprehensive nature.
The current edition of the STE Specification, published in April 2021, consists of 53 writing rules and a dictionary of approximately 900 approved words.
[5] [6] Due to the ever-evolving nature of technology and technical language, the STEMG also relies on user feedback for suggested changes and updates.
Simplified Technical English can: These claims come mostly from those who have invested in developing, implementing, or supporting STE.
To date, there are no published scientific studies to provide evidence about the benefits of STE, suggesting the need for more research.
For approved words, this column is empty unless there is a help symbol (lightbulb) related to other meanings or restrictions.
The adjective "close" appears in the dictionary as an unapproved word with the suggested approved alternative "NEAR."
For example, words, noun clusters, or verbs such as grease, discoloration, propeller, aural warning system, overhead panel, to ream, and to drill are not listed in the dictionary, but they qualify as approved terms according to Part 1, Section 1 (specifically, writing rules 1.5 and 1.12).
Although it was not initially intended for use as a general writing standard, it has been successfully adopted by other industries and for a wide range of document types.
The European Defence Standards Reference (EDSTAR) recommends STE as one of the best practice standards for writing technical documentation to be applied for defense contracting by all EDA (European Defence Agency) participating member states.
[11] HyperSTE is a plugin tool offered by Etteplan to check content for adherence to the rules and grammar of the specification.
Congree offers a Simplified Technical English Checker based on linguistic algorithms.
[12] The TechScribe term checker for ASD-STE100 helps writers to find text that does not conform to ASD-STE100.