ENG 574: Improve Scientific Writing and Avoid Perishing - Sarah Felicelli

Carraway, Leslie N. 2006. "Improve Scientific Writing and Avoid Perishing." American Midland Naturalist. 155: 383-394. This article analyzes what is wrong with scientific writing in scholarly journals and discusses how researchers can improve their communication of scientific concepts along with their chances of being published. Carraway explains the common mistakes that writers make in scientific publications (she focuses mostly on the mistakes) and makes recommendations on how to avoid those common mistakes. In Carraway's opinion, the title is the most important part of a scientific document. She points out that the title must be concise and explanatory so that the article will be easily found in database searches. In addition, if the title does not accurately reflect what is discussed in the article, the reader will become frustrated and move on to another article. Her recommendations for titles include:

• Don't use a question for a title


• Don't use a sentence or abstract format for a title


• Avoid subtitles and hanging titles


• Avoid acronyms or jargon


• Make sure that word order is appropriate

For the text portion of an article, Carraway discusses many common mistakes of writers that include misusing words, misplaced modifiers, use of acronyms and jargon, dangling participles and use of passive voice. At the end of the article, there is an extensive appendix with a list of commonly misused words.

Many, if not all, of the writing suggestions are ones that most English majors have learned in grammar classes; however, the examples that the author provides are specific to scientific writing. She does an excellent job of showing actual examples of errors in titles and texts and how writers can avoid those mistakes. This article is extremely useful for anyone who is interested in improving their writing in the sciences, but it only indirectly applies to my topic. Carraway's discussion is specific to scholarly journals and she clarifies that she is focusing on readers who have a "moderate knowledge of science." The focus of my study is to determine how technical writers can communicate information to those people who do not have a basic understanding of science. I will definitely use this article as a resource for my own writing in the future though!

Computers and Technical Communication in the 21st Century

Carliner, Saul. “Computers and Technical Communication in the 21^st Century.” In Digital Literacy for Technical Communication, edited by Rachel Spilka, 21-50. New York: Routledge, 2010.

In this article, Carliner describes how digital technology affects technical communicators, especially how technology has changed the job titles and roles of technical communicators in organizations. The author also includes a history of technology and how it has changed, starting in the 1970s.

My interest in this reading is the history of technology, especially the author’s discussion of the coming-of-age of the Internet. His discussion will be useful when I address some of the obstacles to early efforts to make public libraries points of access to the Internet. As part of the background information on my topic, I will be looking at how libraries dealt with those obstacles and which ones remain.

In addition, the section of Carliner’s article dealing with the Internet, within the larger context of the history of technology, contains useful information and interesting quotations.

Using alumni networking to teach technical communication - Ron Choi ENG 574

Sharp, Julie E. "Using alumni networking to teach technical communication." American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition. Salt Lake City: American Society for Engineering Education, 2004. 1-8.

In this conference paper, Sharp, a teacher of technical communication courses for engineering students at Vanderbilt University, reports on a pilot mentoring project with a technical communication course.  Working in small groups, each student was required to survey two engineering alumnae regarding the types of communication they used in the workplace, the percentage of time spent in communication, and their perceived importance of communication skills in their work.  The students were also given the opportunity to review and analyze real workplace documents.  Students reported their results individually, and as a group, with an opportunity to re-write the report based on instructor feedback.  The students’ results were generally as expected – technical communication is a significant part of technical and managerial engineering positions, and can affect job success.  These results surprised many of the students.  At the end of the mentoring project, students were asked to rate the project, and the results showed that they found the project to be helpful in learning about technical communication and its significance.

I really liked the concept of this project, because it not only helped teach engineering students how to communicate by looking at real-world examples and writing their own reports, but also to illustrate the importance and prevalence of technical communication within the engineering workplace.  There was also an added side benefit of networking and mentoring, as some students maintained contact with their alumni participants.  If this had been done as a research study instead of as a pilot project, I would have preferred to see a more in depth assessment of the improvement in the technical communication skills of the students, compared to those who had not taken the course with the mentoring project.  The student feedback tells us that they liked the project, and that they thought it was useful and enlightening, but that does not actually mean that they became better communicators for it, or focused any more of their energy into improving their communication skills.

Technical Communication Instruction in Engineering Schools: A Survey of Top-Ranked U.S. and Canadian Programs - Ron Choi ENG 574

Reave, Laura. "Technical Communication Instruction in Engineering Schools: A Survey of Top-Ranked U.S. and Canadian Programs." Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 18, no. 4, 2004: 452-490.

In this peer reviewed journal article, Reave analyzes the results of a survey conducted of 73 top rated U.S. and Canadian engineering schools, which examines how these schools teach communication to engineering students.  Reave begins by establishing that there is a gap between the communication skills of engineering graduates versus what is expected of them in the workplace.  Both engineers and their employers place high importance on communication skills, and agree that they are not adequately prepared by curricula of their engineering schools. 

Reave’s surveyed 50 U.S. and 23 Canadian engineering schools, and categorizes their technical communication initiatives by their:

• Department home. The department (e.g. Engineering, English) home, location, and faculty affiliation can affect the diversity of the student body, the situated learning environment, the availability of instructors, as well as their moral.   
• Required courses. Many schools require their engineering students to take some form of written and/or oral technical, business and/or academic communication course.
• Integrated Instruction.  Communication instruction that is combined or integrated within engineering programs.  This could take the form of a partnership or team teaching with an English or Communication expert; the addition of communication modules to engineering classes; through expert feedback; and communication instruction across the entire engineering curriculum.
• Elective courses.  School can go beyond their minimum requirements and offer elective courses to keep communication in the foreground for engineering students.
• Engineering Communication Centers.  Schools can also enhance communication education by providing a site for individual instruction and assistance in written and oral communication.

Before concluding, Reave also examines how communication skills are assessed, and establishes that communication instruction does indeed improve the communication skills of the learner.  Reave states that a well-designed communication program would begin with a strong base, but continue throughout the curriculum, and is best taught by communication experts that integrate their instruction with the situated engineering environment.  The survey results indicate that the schools with the most extensive communication programs are amongst the highest rated.

I found this article to be a very useful summary of the current communication instruction within engineering schools.  It also validates some of my initial assumptions, e.g. that there really is a engineering communication gap.  It is also a newer article compared to the others I have read up to this point, and therefore offers a bit more relevance, although I’m sure that many of the schools surveyed have since modified or upgraded their communication programs.  I did find the final conclusions to be a bit weak though.  It is clear in reading the article that Reave favors the “integrated instruction” model, but really only describes how different schools apply it, without proving that these techniques are actually better.  Reave also correlates extensive communication programs with the ranking of top engineering schools, but I believe that there are too many potential extraneous variables in order to draw this conclusion.    

How to teach engineering students to become better writers - Ron Choi ENG 574

Beer, David F. "How to teach engineering students to become better writers." Professional Communication Conference. Garden City, 1989. 106-107.

In this conference paper, Beer asserts that despite the conventional wisdom, engineers can be taught to be effective written communicators.  He goes on to provide a list of specific recommendations for teaching engineering students to write, including:

•  Engineering departments should take responsibility for educating engineering students , not English departments, to provide real-world context and ensure that engineers are taught to write as required by their professions.
• Do not accept the convention wisdom that engineers cannot write.  Engineering students are intelligent, and therefore can be taught.  Beer also recommends using “technical communication” instead of “English”.
• Treat technical communication as a series of tasks for problem solving.  This aligns the teaching style of technical communication to match other engineering classes.
• Use the metaphors of signal noise and control systems (common engineering concepts) to help engineering students relate to issues with syntax, grammar and other undesirable communication traits. 
• Provide relevant assignments.  Tailor the writing tasks to be appropriate for what the engineering students will actually need to do in the future.
• Provide a grading checklist, such that the students can breakdown the task into smaller components, and provide a semblance of objectivity.
• Use visual aids, under the assumption that many engineers are visual learners.
• Motivate learners with a real application, e.g. a class newspaper.

Beer’s paper does not contain any references or bibliography, however, at the time he was a senior lecturer in the department of ECE at the University of Texas, Austin, and taught technical communication to numerous engineering students. 

As a former engineering student myself, I found this source to have a lot of phenomenological validity.  It would also appear to validate some of my own theories on the matter – that engineers are intelligent enough to communicate effectively, however they may not have the motivation or the proper education to learn how to do so.  I would like to find more research data to back up this single qualitative account of what has worked in one professor’s classroom.

Beyond Technicalities: Expanding Engineering Thinking - Ron Choi ENG 574

Beder, Sharon. "Beyond Technicalities: Expanding Engineering Thinking." Journal of professional issues in engineering education and practice. 125, no. 1, 1999: 12-18.

In this article, Beder discusses the skills that will be required by engineers of the next millennium[1], and asserts that traditional engineering education does not address these new requirements.  The author cites educational sources acknowledging the gap between engineers’ technical education and the need for social understanding, human interaction and written communication in their careers.  Beder discusses the public perception of engineers as being singularly focused and lacking in social skills, and goes on to discuss how this perception impacts the selection and recruitment of engineers.  The author examines some of the historical reasons for the strict technical and scientific focus of engineering programs, and then proceeds to look at the problems that have resulted from this approach.  Beder further expands as to why this methodology does not fit with the inherent social aspects of technology development.  Beder lists a set of required skills for the engineer of 2010 that go beyond the technical, and “enhanced communication skills” (1999, 17) tops this list.  Beder concludes that a new educational approach is required in order to produce the engineers that are needed for the future.

The author is a visiting professor in the School of Social Sciences, Media and Communication at the University of Wollongong.  Beder was first trained as a civil engineer before shifting her focus to the social and philosophical aspects of engineering.  This background would seem to reflect her motivations for this paper, very similar to my own in fact.  The article includes and extensive list of references, is peer-reviewed, and published through a large professional body.  Although the article is over a decade old, it does speak to the recognition of a communication skills gap in engineering.  In my research I would need to show that this gap still exists today.  This article may not end up being used as a source, however it has been useful for initially validating some of my ideas, and providing a useful list of further sources to investigate.

---

[1] The article was written in 1999.