Work-in-progress: Online tutorials to help undergraduates bridge the gap between general writing and engineering writing

Michael Alley, Joanna K. Garner, Kaitlyn Pigeon

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Although engineering students are regularly called upon to write as engineers in design courses, laboratory courses, and internships throughout their curriculum, many engineering students do not formally learn to write as an engineer until their third or fourth year of study. For this reason, a gap exists between what engineering students know about general writing and how they are expected to write as an engineer. As a first step to address this gap, this paper addressed the research questions of whether the following two tutorials can help teach younger engineering students the differences between general writing and engineering writing: Writing Reports: https://sites.psu.edu/scientificwriting/tutorial-reports/ Writing Emails: https://sites.psu.edu/scientificwriting/tutorial-emails/ This paper presents our development of these resources and their inclusion in a larger set of online resources that we have established: Engineering Writing: https://www.craftofscientificwriting.com/ Engineering Presentations: https://www.assertion-evidence.com/principles.html Although our online resources are no substitute for a full-fledged course on engineering communication, our overall finding is that these resources are helping students learn to write and present as engineers and scientists in design courses, laboratory courses, and professional development workshops across the United States. From September 2019 through April 2020, these resources received more than 39,000 film views.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number1605
JournalASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings
Volume2020-June
StatePublished - Jun 22 2020
Event2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference, ASEE 2020 - Virtual, Online
Duration: Jun 22 2020Jun 26 2020

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Engineering

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