Paper 3: Interview Paper
I personally feel like this was my best piece this semester. Even better, I enjoyed working on this the most out of all the others. As you will read, I interviewed my Professor for my primary research; he was very happy to do it and I had a good time learning from him. Journalism has always been interesting to me and it was a delightful experience getting to conduct my own personal interview, being the one in control of the questions. I gained the most insight from this paper and I did my best to portray that newly acquired knowledge in the following.
Preparation - Interview Questions
· How long have you been a Civil Engineer? Can you describe some of the firms or construction companies you’ve worked with?
· If you do, what kind of research do you perform now that you’re a professor here at UCF?
· In the time frame of your profession, about how many research proposals have you needed to make?
· Do you find that you are required to develop more research questions for your teaching job or when you’re working with your firm?
· Can you give me some examples and details of proposals you have had to make in relation to your field and whether they were accepted?
· If any weren’t accepted, do you think that it was in relation to the writing format? Could your suggestion have been taken into consideration if you had taken a different approach to the structure of the proposal?
· *Show research proposal from engineering firm*
· What is your opinion of this proposal? Would you trust this company and consider their proposal to be beneficial?
· What’s the first thing you do when you decide to create a new proposal? How do you prepare in terms of organizing your ideas into a cohesive statement?
· Do you have a specific organization? Like an introduction, then an abstract and your summary etc. or does it depend on what the project is?
· The fictitious proposal that I am researching relates to constructing renewable energy sources on campus so UCF can be completely reliable on them. What kind of opportunities are Civil Engineers provided with in terms of proposing eco-friendly constructions and how would you propose the writing should be like?
The first few questions are there as starters and I plan to build on what he says from there. The other questions are just guidelines that I will ask if I’m stumped or just use as a general guide to shape my questions to whatever we happen to be talking about at the moment.
· If you do, what kind of research do you perform now that you’re a professor here at UCF?
· In the time frame of your profession, about how many research proposals have you needed to make?
· Do you find that you are required to develop more research questions for your teaching job or when you’re working with your firm?
· Can you give me some examples and details of proposals you have had to make in relation to your field and whether they were accepted?
· If any weren’t accepted, do you think that it was in relation to the writing format? Could your suggestion have been taken into consideration if you had taken a different approach to the structure of the proposal?
· *Show research proposal from engineering firm*
· What is your opinion of this proposal? Would you trust this company and consider their proposal to be beneficial?
· What’s the first thing you do when you decide to create a new proposal? How do you prepare in terms of organizing your ideas into a cohesive statement?
· Do you have a specific organization? Like an introduction, then an abstract and your summary etc. or does it depend on what the project is?
· The fictitious proposal that I am researching relates to constructing renewable energy sources on campus so UCF can be completely reliable on them. What kind of opportunities are Civil Engineers provided with in terms of proposing eco-friendly constructions and how would you propose the writing should be like?
The first few questions are there as starters and I plan to build on what he says from there. The other questions are just guidelines that I will ask if I’m stumped or just use as a general guide to shape my questions to whatever we happen to be talking about at the moment.
First Draft
When it comes to writing within the field of engineering, one may not think that it would be very extensive in terms of the writing techniques and languages used. It is surprising to learn how important writing techniques play a role in aspects of engineering papers, especially research proposals.
I interviewed Professor Chris O’Riordan-Adjah, my statics and physical geography professor who is also a Civil Engineer in the real world, in the hopes of trying to find a better understanding of exploring the field through primary research. He is a full time lecturer, meaning that he only teaches classes but doesn’t do research with UCF, unlike the full time professors here on campus. This factor took away a different look at how writing in the field of engineering would play a role in research that pertains to Civil Engineering. However, Professor Chris was able to give me a lot of insight into the world of Civil Engineers and their research proposals.
We started off with the basics. He has been working as a Civil Engineer for the past 11 years due to a strong passion of bridges. This isn’t too long a time, but a decade of working within such a field is more than enough time to have a strong understanding of the basic principles of the writing techniques. He has worked with four different companies in that time frame which gives him a lot of experience as well.
He explained the process of how a proposal’s journey goes. First, the companies write a bid that has to go to a bid meeting and the companies all compete for the project. The companies go through this bidding process and the top three will get short-listed. Writing techniques need to be aimed to showcase the aesthetics, safety, and design of you company’s project. The writing has to show that the cost will be efficient. Using certain words that show you are more interested in safety and cost may get you the project more than if you try to aim towards a high design plan.
Professor Chris talked about Letters of Interest which is the main form of an initial proposal that is given to the bidding process. This is something that I will have to research about when I begin my research relating to secondary research. These Letters of Interests are the most important because it initiates the whole process. He emphasized that grammar is in fact extremely important. Even though there is a lot of technical writing, the overseer of the whole process will not accept an letter of interest that has grammatical errors, because if you are careless enough to make mistakes in something so trivial, it reflects bad on your responsibility skills and why then should they trust that you won’t be careless like that in creating a new design and making mistakes in your calculations?
After the Letters of Interests have been chosen and the top three have been short-listed, they need to create the real proposal. This proposal is not in physical writing like most other fields are, but it is presented in powerpoints. The slides showcase the plans that you have for the project. Writing techniques are used here too because you need to use persuasive design plans that prove you are the company to pick for the new development.
Professor Chris explained that there is no set structure within this field pertaining to writing proposals. It pertains differently to each new plan. Unlike regular writing in English papers (introduction, body, conclusion), there are different components such as an abstract, summary, design plans, figures etc. Depending on the type of project, only certain sections may be used at one time. The writing is typically meant to be capped at 3 pages.
These writing techniques are what he talked to me about in our interview. There is a lot more to learn, especially when I get around to learning through secondary research. The techniques that I learnt from Professor Chris will let me pin point what I should research, things like Letters of Interest, Abstracts, Proposal PowerPoints. It will be very enlightening to be able to understand these writing pieces better.
I interviewed Professor Chris O’Riordan-Adjah, my statics and physical geography professor who is also a Civil Engineer in the real world, in the hopes of trying to find a better understanding of exploring the field through primary research. He is a full time lecturer, meaning that he only teaches classes but doesn’t do research with UCF, unlike the full time professors here on campus. This factor took away a different look at how writing in the field of engineering would play a role in research that pertains to Civil Engineering. However, Professor Chris was able to give me a lot of insight into the world of Civil Engineers and their research proposals.
We started off with the basics. He has been working as a Civil Engineer for the past 11 years due to a strong passion of bridges. This isn’t too long a time, but a decade of working within such a field is more than enough time to have a strong understanding of the basic principles of the writing techniques. He has worked with four different companies in that time frame which gives him a lot of experience as well.
He explained the process of how a proposal’s journey goes. First, the companies write a bid that has to go to a bid meeting and the companies all compete for the project. The companies go through this bidding process and the top three will get short-listed. Writing techniques need to be aimed to showcase the aesthetics, safety, and design of you company’s project. The writing has to show that the cost will be efficient. Using certain words that show you are more interested in safety and cost may get you the project more than if you try to aim towards a high design plan.
Professor Chris talked about Letters of Interest which is the main form of an initial proposal that is given to the bidding process. This is something that I will have to research about when I begin my research relating to secondary research. These Letters of Interests are the most important because it initiates the whole process. He emphasized that grammar is in fact extremely important. Even though there is a lot of technical writing, the overseer of the whole process will not accept an letter of interest that has grammatical errors, because if you are careless enough to make mistakes in something so trivial, it reflects bad on your responsibility skills and why then should they trust that you won’t be careless like that in creating a new design and making mistakes in your calculations?
After the Letters of Interests have been chosen and the top three have been short-listed, they need to create the real proposal. This proposal is not in physical writing like most other fields are, but it is presented in powerpoints. The slides showcase the plans that you have for the project. Writing techniques are used here too because you need to use persuasive design plans that prove you are the company to pick for the new development.
Professor Chris explained that there is no set structure within this field pertaining to writing proposals. It pertains differently to each new plan. Unlike regular writing in English papers (introduction, body, conclusion), there are different components such as an abstract, summary, design plans, figures etc. Depending on the type of project, only certain sections may be used at one time. The writing is typically meant to be capped at 3 pages.
These writing techniques are what he talked to me about in our interview. There is a lot more to learn, especially when I get around to learning through secondary research. The techniques that I learnt from Professor Chris will let me pin point what I should research, things like Letters of Interest, Abstracts, Proposal PowerPoints. It will be very enlightening to be able to understand these writing pieces better.
Final Paper
The Side of Engineering You Never Knew
When it comes to writing within the field of engineering, one may not think that it would be very extensive in terms of the writing techniques and language used. But how much of an important role do writing techniques actually play in aspects of engineering papers, especially research proposals?
I decided to conduct some primary research by having a face-to-face interview with Professor Chris O’Riordan-Adjah, a Civil Engineer and lecturer here at the University of Central Florida who also happens to be my Statics and Physical Geography professor this semester, in the hopes of trying to find a better understanding of technical writing and how they play a role within the field of engineering. The interview took place in his office so it was a very relaxed setting for me to get acquainted with his background and knowledge.
When Professor O’Riordan first started off at UCF back in 2002 he was an adjunct professor, teaching only 1 or 2 classes each semester. Now he is a full time lecturer, meaning that he only teaches classes but does not do research for UCF, unlike the full time professors here on campus. This factor held back the possibility of learning how writing in the field of engineering would play a role relating to research that pertains to Civil Engineering. However, Professor O’Riordan was able to give me a lot of insight into the world of Civil Engineers and their research proposals.
We started off with the basics. He has been working as a Civil Engineer for the past 11 years due to a strong passion of bridges. When he was in high school, instead of reading all the car magazines that his friends would peruse over, Professor O’Riordan would be caught reading magazines about bridges. It was a blessing for him, he says, for it was one straight path towards his dream taking place. Unlike most youth that have passionate dreams of the future that usually crumble due to impracticality, he knew exactly what he wanted and headed straight for it. Upon finding out that Civil Engineering was what he needed to go into, he followed through with that goal. “If Electrical Engineering was what I needed to do to be building bridges, that’s exactly what I would have pursued. Fortunately for me, I was always very strong in my math and physics so there were no setbacks,” says the passionate bridge-enthusiast. 11 years is not too long of a time, but a decade of working within such a field is more than enough time to have a strong understanding of the basic principles of the writing techniques demonstrated within his field. He has been involved with four different companies in that time frame – switching from wall designs to traffic designs, and then bridge designs. He is currently working for a company as an independent consultant and they work on miscellaneous structures, dealing with repair work on bridges or bridge widening (expansions). His diverse experience with these companies obviously resulted in a great deal of knowledge on the inner workings of Civil Engineering proposals. Therefore, he was able to explain the process of a typical engineering proposal.
First and foremost, a new idea is created. Whoever comes up with the idea has to run the basics through the county first. Bridges are not privatized; they are public and need to gain governmental approval. There are several districts in a state (Florida has 7, for example; Orlando is in district 5) and they all assemble to organize how to propose this. The writing for this will clearly have to be very formal. The goal is to use the correct language to demonstrate to the government how the project will be beneficial for the city. Also, the need for funding will have to be taken into account. Sometimes, the people will have to be consulted too as we are taxpayers, so writing techniques will have to be geared towards the aesthetics and cost (O’Riordan).
Next, different Civil Engineering companies write an initial bid that has to go to a bid meeting, competing against other companies for the project. The companies go through this bidding process and the top three will get short-listed. Writing techniques need to be aimed to showcase the aesthetics, safety, and design of your company’s take on the project. The writing has to display that the cost will be efficient. Using certain words that show you are more interested in safety and cost will most likely get you the project than if you try to aim towards a high design plan. This concept ties in with what our class has been learning this semester; how important it is to use the correct choice of words depending on who are speaking to. In engineering, safety is usually first, followed by the economics and then the visual appeal. For example, buildings in California and Florida have to use special frames that can withstand earthquakes and powerful hurricanes respectively. These factors have to be mentioned in the bid with specific emphasis on how they will be taken care of (O’Riordan).
Professor O’Riordan went on to talk about Letters of Interest which is the main form of an initial proposal that is given to the bidding process. This writing aims to show them how interested and passionate your company is about the project. This is something that I will have to research about when I begin my research relating to secondary research. These Letters of Interests are the most important because it initiates the whole process. He emphasized that grammar is in fact extremely essential. Even though there is a lot of technical writing, the overseer of the whole process will not accept a letter of interest that has grammatical errors, because if you are careless enough to make mistakes in something so trivial, it reflects bad on your responsibility skills and why then should they trust that you would not be careless like that in creating a new design and making mistakes in your calculations? So yes, good grammar skills are surprisingly very important for engineers to have.
After the Letters of Interests have been chosen the top three will be short-listed and they then need to create the actual proposal. This proposal is not presented in physical writing like most other fields do, but is instead exhibited through a PowerPoint presentation. The slides showcase the plans that you have for the project such as the materials that will be used and a set time frame among other necessary goals. Writing techniques are used here too because you need to use persuasive design plans that prove you are the company to pick for the new development. They need to be able to know they are dealing with innovative engineers. The aesthetics play a big part after the safety precautions (in some cases, even more than the economic factor) because people take pride in the bridges and buildings of their cities (O’Riordan). When you see the Tower Bridge, you think London; in the same way, they want people to immediately recognize a bridge from Orlando.
Professor O’Riordan explained that there is no set structure within this field pertaining to writing proposals; it differs among various projects, depending on its purpose. Unlike regular writing in English papers (introduction, body, conclusion), there are different components such as an abstract, summary, design plans, figures etc. The abstract describes what the components of the proposal will be and what sort of information is presented in each section; this allows the head of the board to be able to locate the areas of interest pertaining to his needs. For some, it is the safety and precautions; others, the design and unique materials etc. The summary describes the actual scope of the project itself. Within the summary is where the company presenting the proposal will place all the important details of the project that will assure the person in charge that they understand what is expected of them. Design plans are unique to fields like engineering and architecture, and especially important for Mechanical and Civil engineers. Civil engineers are the ones that will take the immediate blame if a building or bridge collapses so they need to be extremely minute in their dimensions and calculations of force resistance within the materials used. The figures are incredibly vital for the same reason. Depending on the type of project, only certain sections may be used at one time (O’Riordan). For instance, building solar panel windows for an energy conserving building like the Gherkin in London may not put so much emphasis on dimensions and force resistance but more on the design plans and figures relating to how much energy will be conserved and how much money will be saved in the long run. Another green project example would be truss bridges, or lack thereof rather; building less truss bridges, and designing suspension bridges instead cuts down on a lot of money and materials. Companies will look to see if you consider factors that make use of fewer materials. Both the Letter of Interest and the Research Proposal is standardly meant to be capped at 3 pages maximum (O’Riordan).
These are the writing techniques that he talked to me about in our interview. I originally went in there to find out about specific proposals pertaining to green projects at UCF but since the process as a whole for all Civil Engineers is generally the same, it seemed more logical to inquire about the research proposal process for any kind of Civil Engineering projects. There is a lot more to learn, especially when I get around to learning through secondary research. The techniques that I learnt from Professor O’Riordan will let me pin point what I should research, things like Letters of Interest and the proposal PowerPoint presentations. When asked whether he felt writing techniques were important in engineering, he simply responded, “I would say it does. It is very critical that they know how to write. There are engineers that just don’t like writing, but some engineers even get hired just to do that.” It will be very enlightening to be able to further explore Civil Engineering writing techniques.
Works Cited
O’Riordan-Adjah, Chris. Personal interview. 23 Mar. 2012.
When it comes to writing within the field of engineering, one may not think that it would be very extensive in terms of the writing techniques and language used. But how much of an important role do writing techniques actually play in aspects of engineering papers, especially research proposals?
I decided to conduct some primary research by having a face-to-face interview with Professor Chris O’Riordan-Adjah, a Civil Engineer and lecturer here at the University of Central Florida who also happens to be my Statics and Physical Geography professor this semester, in the hopes of trying to find a better understanding of technical writing and how they play a role within the field of engineering. The interview took place in his office so it was a very relaxed setting for me to get acquainted with his background and knowledge.
When Professor O’Riordan first started off at UCF back in 2002 he was an adjunct professor, teaching only 1 or 2 classes each semester. Now he is a full time lecturer, meaning that he only teaches classes but does not do research for UCF, unlike the full time professors here on campus. This factor held back the possibility of learning how writing in the field of engineering would play a role relating to research that pertains to Civil Engineering. However, Professor O’Riordan was able to give me a lot of insight into the world of Civil Engineers and their research proposals.
We started off with the basics. He has been working as a Civil Engineer for the past 11 years due to a strong passion of bridges. When he was in high school, instead of reading all the car magazines that his friends would peruse over, Professor O’Riordan would be caught reading magazines about bridges. It was a blessing for him, he says, for it was one straight path towards his dream taking place. Unlike most youth that have passionate dreams of the future that usually crumble due to impracticality, he knew exactly what he wanted and headed straight for it. Upon finding out that Civil Engineering was what he needed to go into, he followed through with that goal. “If Electrical Engineering was what I needed to do to be building bridges, that’s exactly what I would have pursued. Fortunately for me, I was always very strong in my math and physics so there were no setbacks,” says the passionate bridge-enthusiast. 11 years is not too long of a time, but a decade of working within such a field is more than enough time to have a strong understanding of the basic principles of the writing techniques demonstrated within his field. He has been involved with four different companies in that time frame – switching from wall designs to traffic designs, and then bridge designs. He is currently working for a company as an independent consultant and they work on miscellaneous structures, dealing with repair work on bridges or bridge widening (expansions). His diverse experience with these companies obviously resulted in a great deal of knowledge on the inner workings of Civil Engineering proposals. Therefore, he was able to explain the process of a typical engineering proposal.
First and foremost, a new idea is created. Whoever comes up with the idea has to run the basics through the county first. Bridges are not privatized; they are public and need to gain governmental approval. There are several districts in a state (Florida has 7, for example; Orlando is in district 5) and they all assemble to organize how to propose this. The writing for this will clearly have to be very formal. The goal is to use the correct language to demonstrate to the government how the project will be beneficial for the city. Also, the need for funding will have to be taken into account. Sometimes, the people will have to be consulted too as we are taxpayers, so writing techniques will have to be geared towards the aesthetics and cost (O’Riordan).
Next, different Civil Engineering companies write an initial bid that has to go to a bid meeting, competing against other companies for the project. The companies go through this bidding process and the top three will get short-listed. Writing techniques need to be aimed to showcase the aesthetics, safety, and design of your company’s take on the project. The writing has to display that the cost will be efficient. Using certain words that show you are more interested in safety and cost will most likely get you the project than if you try to aim towards a high design plan. This concept ties in with what our class has been learning this semester; how important it is to use the correct choice of words depending on who are speaking to. In engineering, safety is usually first, followed by the economics and then the visual appeal. For example, buildings in California and Florida have to use special frames that can withstand earthquakes and powerful hurricanes respectively. These factors have to be mentioned in the bid with specific emphasis on how they will be taken care of (O’Riordan).
Professor O’Riordan went on to talk about Letters of Interest which is the main form of an initial proposal that is given to the bidding process. This writing aims to show them how interested and passionate your company is about the project. This is something that I will have to research about when I begin my research relating to secondary research. These Letters of Interests are the most important because it initiates the whole process. He emphasized that grammar is in fact extremely essential. Even though there is a lot of technical writing, the overseer of the whole process will not accept a letter of interest that has grammatical errors, because if you are careless enough to make mistakes in something so trivial, it reflects bad on your responsibility skills and why then should they trust that you would not be careless like that in creating a new design and making mistakes in your calculations? So yes, good grammar skills are surprisingly very important for engineers to have.
After the Letters of Interests have been chosen the top three will be short-listed and they then need to create the actual proposal. This proposal is not presented in physical writing like most other fields do, but is instead exhibited through a PowerPoint presentation. The slides showcase the plans that you have for the project such as the materials that will be used and a set time frame among other necessary goals. Writing techniques are used here too because you need to use persuasive design plans that prove you are the company to pick for the new development. They need to be able to know they are dealing with innovative engineers. The aesthetics play a big part after the safety precautions (in some cases, even more than the economic factor) because people take pride in the bridges and buildings of their cities (O’Riordan). When you see the Tower Bridge, you think London; in the same way, they want people to immediately recognize a bridge from Orlando.
Professor O’Riordan explained that there is no set structure within this field pertaining to writing proposals; it differs among various projects, depending on its purpose. Unlike regular writing in English papers (introduction, body, conclusion), there are different components such as an abstract, summary, design plans, figures etc. The abstract describes what the components of the proposal will be and what sort of information is presented in each section; this allows the head of the board to be able to locate the areas of interest pertaining to his needs. For some, it is the safety and precautions; others, the design and unique materials etc. The summary describes the actual scope of the project itself. Within the summary is where the company presenting the proposal will place all the important details of the project that will assure the person in charge that they understand what is expected of them. Design plans are unique to fields like engineering and architecture, and especially important for Mechanical and Civil engineers. Civil engineers are the ones that will take the immediate blame if a building or bridge collapses so they need to be extremely minute in their dimensions and calculations of force resistance within the materials used. The figures are incredibly vital for the same reason. Depending on the type of project, only certain sections may be used at one time (O’Riordan). For instance, building solar panel windows for an energy conserving building like the Gherkin in London may not put so much emphasis on dimensions and force resistance but more on the design plans and figures relating to how much energy will be conserved and how much money will be saved in the long run. Another green project example would be truss bridges, or lack thereof rather; building less truss bridges, and designing suspension bridges instead cuts down on a lot of money and materials. Companies will look to see if you consider factors that make use of fewer materials. Both the Letter of Interest and the Research Proposal is standardly meant to be capped at 3 pages maximum (O’Riordan).
These are the writing techniques that he talked to me about in our interview. I originally went in there to find out about specific proposals pertaining to green projects at UCF but since the process as a whole for all Civil Engineers is generally the same, it seemed more logical to inquire about the research proposal process for any kind of Civil Engineering projects. There is a lot more to learn, especially when I get around to learning through secondary research. The techniques that I learnt from Professor O’Riordan will let me pin point what I should research, things like Letters of Interest and the proposal PowerPoint presentations. When asked whether he felt writing techniques were important in engineering, he simply responded, “I would say it does. It is very critical that they know how to write. There are engineers that just don’t like writing, but some engineers even get hired just to do that.” It will be very enlightening to be able to further explore Civil Engineering writing techniques.
Works Cited
O’Riordan-Adjah, Chris. Personal interview. 23 Mar. 2012.