Paper 4: Literature Review
This last paper consists of my secondary research revelations. I did not include my first draft for this paper because it was dramatically different from the final. All of my sources changed many times before I arrived at my final. I was having a lot of trouble trying to find scholarly sources that talked about writing in the field of Civil Engineering; the most that I could find were abstracts and proposals that had already been written. Since I already talked about those in my interview paper, I ended up using less credible sources for this paper - sources that explained the details about how to write properly in engineering. As a result, the outcome of this paper was not as great. Had I been more adept and put in more effort into acquiring legitimate sources, I am sure that this paper would have turned out significantly better. Nevertheless, I was still able to explain and convey the main points that were necessary for this paper.
Final Paper
Writing Styles in the Field of Engineering
This semester we have been exploring different aspects of writing techniques and concluding how they are incorporated into our relative fields. I have learnt so far that the fundamental goals of writing are most important, regardless of the chosen major. These goals include what we learnt from Lennie Irwin (“What Is Academic Writing?”) about audience, purpose, and structure. So far, I have used primary research to discuss their role in engineering writing by interviewing my professor. Now, I am going to include secondary research into my investigation to help me get closer to answering the questions that I have about writing techniques in engineering. Apart from the essential goals – audience, purpose, structure etc. – there are specific engineering guidelines that tell us what to do and not to do when it comes to writing proposals, cover letters, laboratory reports etc. I decided to read about as many as I could to see if I could find what kinds of “rules” guide engineers.
Starting off with the basics, audience is a factor that our class has been emphasizing since the beginning of the semester. Who is the audience and how does it affect what we write for them? For engineers, it could be anyone from professors to our boss to a company that we are trying to bid to. After understanding who your audience will be, you have to deem their prior knowledge, what they do not know that you will have to explain, why they are taking an interest in the writing to begin with, and how it will be examined (Alley). For a proposal, your audience will most likely be a boss or company. In this case, they will know a lot about the subject. The things you would need to define for them would be your proposed achievements and methods for the project. Their purpose in reading the report would be to analyze your competency and determine if you are right for the job. This means that the company would pay more attention to cost, design, and safety propositions so it would be better to put a lot of emphasis on those sections and place them in the front. If on the other hand, the writing was part of an engineering laboratory report, your audience would probably be a professor and he too will know a lot about the subject at hand. Your job in defining your knowledge will be to show him the work you have done, what theories you have formulated and your observational results. The purpose of your professor reading your laboratory report is to assess how much you have learnt during the time frame you were his student; in this case, the professor will focus on the conceptual sections as those demonstrate your understanding of the material. Both these examples reveal how audience and purpose work together to build the first blocks of a writing piece.
Structure, or format, is another basic element of writing that we have highlighted this semester. It is no less important in engineering writing than in any other form of writing. Fonts, headings, citations – they all differ for every engineering project. Some will have summaries at the front, others will start with a breakdown of the costs, and some may have the design plans as the header. It all depends on what you are trying to showcase as your main purpose for your audience. Whether it is a proposal or a laboratory report, engineers need to understand what they are trying to achieve and how they need to present it. Also, most of the time engineering reports will require subheadings within each section. “One reason that a format specifies a hierarchy for headings is so that readers can understand what information in the document is primary and what information is subordinate. The actual ways to represent these hierarchies vary considerably. Common ways are different type sizes for the headings, different amounts of white space surrounding the headings, different typestyles for the headings, and numbering schemes for different order headings.” (Alley) This is very self-explanatory because engineers need to be very professional. The format of engineering ties in with the audience and purpose as well because they are all techniques that are used to convince your audience of your validity.
Within the field of engineering itself, there are many different forms of writing. I focused a lot on proposals when I was exploring through primary research but other topics include PowerPoint presentations for proposals, cover letters (like a resume), and laboratory reports. All of these require engineers to have skills in the writing department because they are important professional statements that are used to access how proficient you are in your field.
PowerPoint presentations are the basic element of an engineering proposal. Engineers may need to have good quality writing skills, but their design skills are showcased best with a PowerPoint presentation. The focus of the presentation slides is “that headline assertion is then supported not by a bullet list, but by visual evidence: photos, drawings, diagrams, graphs, films, or equations.” (Alley) These aspects are just as important, if not more important than the writing side of engineering. They are mentioned here only to show how they are fused together with the writing and work hand in hand to produce a successful proposal.
Cover letters are another aspect of engineering that necessitate writing skills. A cover letter is meant to showcase your best qualities, experiences and skills. Some pointers that should be focused on with a cover letter – keep the letter precise; use complete sentences (no shorthand); no contractions; try to use the third person; verify your spelling and grammar; demonstrate your passion and; make sure to direct different cover letters to individual employers (Civil Engineering Jobs). This is basically your letter to your potential future employer – your first one perhaps in a long list of letters to them. You need to impress them and use those skills precisely. Using contractions such as “don’t” and “isn’t” will not look as professional as using “do not” and “is not”. Things like that may seem petty, but they go a long way in showing that you aim to be a professional employee.
Laboratory reports are a component of engineering that I can currently relate to. As a student, I have had to produce many laboratory reports and they have always needed to have a specific format, geared towards a target audience with a designated purpose. Usually, the audience is my professor or laboratory instructor, occasionally a teaching assistant. In every laboratory class that I have had, it was always specified that we have to stay away from the first person passive voice. This is a specific format for laboratory writing, in fact engineering in general, and it helps to keep an unbiased paper that focuses on figures and facts. A lot of engineering laboratory reports obviously deal with numerical values, charts, graphs, tables, formulas, and calculations (Department of Civil Engineering, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville); this does not mean that the writing aspect is not as important. For example, an engineer should use the past tense to describe what was done instead of an active “future” tense to describe what should have been done (Department of Civil Engineering, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville). This will let the reader know that you know what you are doing and have carried out the experiments for yourself instead of making general assumptions. If you provide assumptions, they may assume that you did not do the experiment right or forwent it altogether. Another writing technique requires that you stay away from declarative statements that may seem like you are creating a new theory (Department of Civil Engineering, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville). While it may be tempting to write in such a way, it is better to explain different factors that contributed to the overall conclusion that you came to instead of attributing your findings to a singular statement. Also, the writing does not need to contain great detail as most of the taskforces is described in the reference standard. Laboratory reports focus on results more than procedures especially since your audience will already have knowledge of your procedures. In the results itself, the literature should be provable and factual without using conceited wordings about how astounding or accurate your procedure was (Department of Civil Engineering, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville). In the conclusion of laboratory reports, they are not merely looking for a summary of what procedures you underwent; they want to recognize that you have established a flair for identifying significant results in your experiments. If you write continuously about alternative conclusions or insignificant details, it takes away the precise proficiency of your professional skills. It is very different from a grade school type of conclusion that many are fond of. They do, however, contain the basic structures such as an abstract, introduction, procedures, results, conclusions, and appendices (Alley). This is not surprising as a report contains all those elements and needs to be organized to demonstrate an expertise in writing organization. These are the fundamental techniques that are demonstrated in writing laboratory reports for engineering fields.
Altogether, writing is most certainly a very important dexterity that is needed for all fields. This whole semester I have worked to attest to how important it is within the field of engineering. I surprised myself in learning how much writing is done in my field, but after learning about them through primary and secondary research I realized that it is very obvious in fact. Audience, Purpose and structure should be elements of writing that need to be memorized, they are so basic. After those, come the unique requirements needed of each individual field. The conditions that I have outlined earlier are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to engineering writing techniques. They suffice in providing a good interpretation of the scope however. If I’ve take anything from this semester’s research, it would be understanding how relevant writing will always be in every field, including engineering.
Works Cited
Alley, Michael et al. Writing Guidelines for Engineering and Science Students. Nov 2010. Sep 1997. Web. 12 Apr. 2012.
Department of Civil Engineering, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Comments on Civil Engineering Lab Reports – Dos and a few DO NOTs. 4 Mar. 2011. PDF File.
Civil Engineering Jobs. How To Write Cover Letters. 1999. Web. 12 Apr. 2012.
This semester we have been exploring different aspects of writing techniques and concluding how they are incorporated into our relative fields. I have learnt so far that the fundamental goals of writing are most important, regardless of the chosen major. These goals include what we learnt from Lennie Irwin (“What Is Academic Writing?”) about audience, purpose, and structure. So far, I have used primary research to discuss their role in engineering writing by interviewing my professor. Now, I am going to include secondary research into my investigation to help me get closer to answering the questions that I have about writing techniques in engineering. Apart from the essential goals – audience, purpose, structure etc. – there are specific engineering guidelines that tell us what to do and not to do when it comes to writing proposals, cover letters, laboratory reports etc. I decided to read about as many as I could to see if I could find what kinds of “rules” guide engineers.
Starting off with the basics, audience is a factor that our class has been emphasizing since the beginning of the semester. Who is the audience and how does it affect what we write for them? For engineers, it could be anyone from professors to our boss to a company that we are trying to bid to. After understanding who your audience will be, you have to deem their prior knowledge, what they do not know that you will have to explain, why they are taking an interest in the writing to begin with, and how it will be examined (Alley). For a proposal, your audience will most likely be a boss or company. In this case, they will know a lot about the subject. The things you would need to define for them would be your proposed achievements and methods for the project. Their purpose in reading the report would be to analyze your competency and determine if you are right for the job. This means that the company would pay more attention to cost, design, and safety propositions so it would be better to put a lot of emphasis on those sections and place them in the front. If on the other hand, the writing was part of an engineering laboratory report, your audience would probably be a professor and he too will know a lot about the subject at hand. Your job in defining your knowledge will be to show him the work you have done, what theories you have formulated and your observational results. The purpose of your professor reading your laboratory report is to assess how much you have learnt during the time frame you were his student; in this case, the professor will focus on the conceptual sections as those demonstrate your understanding of the material. Both these examples reveal how audience and purpose work together to build the first blocks of a writing piece.
Structure, or format, is another basic element of writing that we have highlighted this semester. It is no less important in engineering writing than in any other form of writing. Fonts, headings, citations – they all differ for every engineering project. Some will have summaries at the front, others will start with a breakdown of the costs, and some may have the design plans as the header. It all depends on what you are trying to showcase as your main purpose for your audience. Whether it is a proposal or a laboratory report, engineers need to understand what they are trying to achieve and how they need to present it. Also, most of the time engineering reports will require subheadings within each section. “One reason that a format specifies a hierarchy for headings is so that readers can understand what information in the document is primary and what information is subordinate. The actual ways to represent these hierarchies vary considerably. Common ways are different type sizes for the headings, different amounts of white space surrounding the headings, different typestyles for the headings, and numbering schemes for different order headings.” (Alley) This is very self-explanatory because engineers need to be very professional. The format of engineering ties in with the audience and purpose as well because they are all techniques that are used to convince your audience of your validity.
Within the field of engineering itself, there are many different forms of writing. I focused a lot on proposals when I was exploring through primary research but other topics include PowerPoint presentations for proposals, cover letters (like a resume), and laboratory reports. All of these require engineers to have skills in the writing department because they are important professional statements that are used to access how proficient you are in your field.
PowerPoint presentations are the basic element of an engineering proposal. Engineers may need to have good quality writing skills, but their design skills are showcased best with a PowerPoint presentation. The focus of the presentation slides is “that headline assertion is then supported not by a bullet list, but by visual evidence: photos, drawings, diagrams, graphs, films, or equations.” (Alley) These aspects are just as important, if not more important than the writing side of engineering. They are mentioned here only to show how they are fused together with the writing and work hand in hand to produce a successful proposal.
Cover letters are another aspect of engineering that necessitate writing skills. A cover letter is meant to showcase your best qualities, experiences and skills. Some pointers that should be focused on with a cover letter – keep the letter precise; use complete sentences (no shorthand); no contractions; try to use the third person; verify your spelling and grammar; demonstrate your passion and; make sure to direct different cover letters to individual employers (Civil Engineering Jobs). This is basically your letter to your potential future employer – your first one perhaps in a long list of letters to them. You need to impress them and use those skills precisely. Using contractions such as “don’t” and “isn’t” will not look as professional as using “do not” and “is not”. Things like that may seem petty, but they go a long way in showing that you aim to be a professional employee.
Laboratory reports are a component of engineering that I can currently relate to. As a student, I have had to produce many laboratory reports and they have always needed to have a specific format, geared towards a target audience with a designated purpose. Usually, the audience is my professor or laboratory instructor, occasionally a teaching assistant. In every laboratory class that I have had, it was always specified that we have to stay away from the first person passive voice. This is a specific format for laboratory writing, in fact engineering in general, and it helps to keep an unbiased paper that focuses on figures and facts. A lot of engineering laboratory reports obviously deal with numerical values, charts, graphs, tables, formulas, and calculations (Department of Civil Engineering, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville); this does not mean that the writing aspect is not as important. For example, an engineer should use the past tense to describe what was done instead of an active “future” tense to describe what should have been done (Department of Civil Engineering, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville). This will let the reader know that you know what you are doing and have carried out the experiments for yourself instead of making general assumptions. If you provide assumptions, they may assume that you did not do the experiment right or forwent it altogether. Another writing technique requires that you stay away from declarative statements that may seem like you are creating a new theory (Department of Civil Engineering, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville). While it may be tempting to write in such a way, it is better to explain different factors that contributed to the overall conclusion that you came to instead of attributing your findings to a singular statement. Also, the writing does not need to contain great detail as most of the taskforces is described in the reference standard. Laboratory reports focus on results more than procedures especially since your audience will already have knowledge of your procedures. In the results itself, the literature should be provable and factual without using conceited wordings about how astounding or accurate your procedure was (Department of Civil Engineering, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville). In the conclusion of laboratory reports, they are not merely looking for a summary of what procedures you underwent; they want to recognize that you have established a flair for identifying significant results in your experiments. If you write continuously about alternative conclusions or insignificant details, it takes away the precise proficiency of your professional skills. It is very different from a grade school type of conclusion that many are fond of. They do, however, contain the basic structures such as an abstract, introduction, procedures, results, conclusions, and appendices (Alley). This is not surprising as a report contains all those elements and needs to be organized to demonstrate an expertise in writing organization. These are the fundamental techniques that are demonstrated in writing laboratory reports for engineering fields.
Altogether, writing is most certainly a very important dexterity that is needed for all fields. This whole semester I have worked to attest to how important it is within the field of engineering. I surprised myself in learning how much writing is done in my field, but after learning about them through primary and secondary research I realized that it is very obvious in fact. Audience, Purpose and structure should be elements of writing that need to be memorized, they are so basic. After those, come the unique requirements needed of each individual field. The conditions that I have outlined earlier are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to engineering writing techniques. They suffice in providing a good interpretation of the scope however. If I’ve take anything from this semester’s research, it would be understanding how relevant writing will always be in every field, including engineering.
Works Cited
Alley, Michael et al. Writing Guidelines for Engineering and Science Students. Nov 2010. Sep 1997. Web. 12 Apr. 2012.
Department of Civil Engineering, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Comments on Civil Engineering Lab Reports – Dos and a few DO NOTs. 4 Mar. 2011. PDF File.
Civil Engineering Jobs. How To Write Cover Letters. 1999. Web. 12 Apr. 2012.