Title: Engineering in Writing
At the start of the semester, my writing skills were not particularly strong, and writing in general wasn’t something I enjoyed. I always felt more drawn to the sciences than to writing. So, when I saw that I had to take “Writing for Engineers,” it seemed like a contradiction. In my mind, engineers only dealt with math and nothing else. However, this class challenged that perception. Throughout each phase of the course I discovered that writing is indeed a crucial aspect of engineering, separate from mathematical calculations.
When delving deeper into the responsibilities of an engineer I had noticed the importance of well written project proposals play in the career of any engineer. Before being able to even do any math or calculations for a project it’s important to have an engaging one propose a project. I used the course learning objectives to take into account what I can improve on in order to be a better overall writer. One of the course learning objectives is to enhance strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self assessment. This is an important learning objective that can be seen through all phases with research being one of the most important factors behind each phase. Phase 1 would consist of exploring different programs, internships, and jobs that would suit your interest. This research would affect how the personal statement and resume would be ordered and made in order to accommodate a certain job. This can be seen in my resume where I attempt to cater to a STEM related program. I took the learning objective to account and made changes in the programs and jobs that I would list in my resume in order to seem relevant to the program I was applying for. Making drafts and editing are another very important aspect of this learning objective that coincide very well with each other. These two strategies were seen more in phase two and three where the research made would contain a lot of information. Although more information would lead to a better in depth explanation in both phases, it was easy to oversee some important details from everything. With the use of the learning objective the drafts would set a solid foundation of what the final product would look like but would also allow you to put as much information out in order to make sure all the needed information was on paper. Following the draft, revisions would allow me to have the text flow from one another and allow the information to be coherent and relevant. Overall this course learning objective is important to any aspect of writing which is clearly seen throughout the different phases.
Phase 3 was a phase that would lean more into the course learning objective of developing and engaging in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes. Phase 3 was a project proposal where a group of three or more students would write about a subject and idea in engineering that would be proposed based on our major studies. For the group project that I was a part of, we had done a study on the effectiveness of lithium ion batteries as a source of energy for electric cars. There is a lot of extensive research done and a lot of information taken. In the group of three we had decided to all do our separate research and then come together and collaborate with the research we had found. Each group member had different information on the same subjects but they were different enough to classify it as a different idea in our project proposal. Doing individual research first and only after the research coming together to collaborate on a single project was proven to be very effective. Our joint ideas allowed us to develop new ideas of research we did not have and allowed us to write a long enough information packed proposal. It was ultimately the use of the learning objective that led us to this conclusion. It was easy to look back on this learning experience and see how applicable the learning objective was and how important it is to incorporate into group projects. The use of the learning objective was crucial to the development of the project proposal; it allowed us to hold each other accountable for work while still being able to engage and collaborate on the project. In conclusion, Phase 3 highlighted the significance of the course learning objective in effective collaboration and accountability within group projects, ultimately allowing us to have a well written proposal on lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles.
All the research done in the previous phases were all found strictly by searching up relevant information on the ideas we were going to present about. There were two key learning objectives that would help us in our research which were, “practice using various library resources, online databases”, and “the internet to locate sources appropriate to your writing projects and the second one was to strengthen your source use practices (including evaluating, integrating, quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, analyzing, and citing sources).” Both of these learning objectives worked very well together and led to an efficient and well done source. When it came to using various online databases it allowed for less biased information and a wider spectrum of knowledge to be used. This was heavily seen in the second and third phase. In both phases I would research and look through multiple online databases and compile many. I would read them all and see which ones were swaying out of topic and which ones were not fully telling the truth. More often than not there was a lot of untrue information that could be easily determined. This was where the second course learning objectives came into play. This was one objective I feel all though I was aiming to achieve I was not fully capable of doing.I was able to find resources that were relevant and reliable but when it came to the quoting and citing the source I had trouble. I had noticed that I paraphrase a lot of information and tend not to quote information as much as I should. In conclusion the research conducted throughout the previous phases has shown how vital it is to properly cite online databases and library materials in order to have a reliable and non plagiarized paper. However, moving forward I strive to improve on quoting and citing properly.
Reflecting back on my journey through this course it’s clear how important writing for engineers really is. It has also become apparent the proper way of writing for an engineer typically is like. Through each phase and the multiple course learning objectives I see how I can become a better writer and become more efficient in each learning objective.
