• Intro

The common conception of engineering is mainly focused on the mathematics and scientific portion of the field. Through my research and interview, i have learned this is not true. While getting the actual solution to a problem is ultimately the goal of the engineering process, the results mean nothing if they cannot be communicated properly. I learned through my interview process that writing could take up as much as half of an engineer’s professional time. Most of this writing is composed of things such as emails, journals, proposals, books, the list goes on. A majority of the task in these writings is communicating results in a clear, but efficient way. While an engineer does spend a lot of time writing scholarly pieces of work that is meant for professionals in their field, they also must learn to communicate to their clients, or the general public, without the use of all the technical jargon they and their peers learned through years of school.

• Header 1: Format
• Formal technical (scholarly)
• Interview
• 2-100 page reports over the summer
• Makes up most of the scholarly writing in engineering
• most relevant (genre)
• Quick and easy communication of information
• Selective reading
• Sections with numbered headings and subheadings
• Figures and diagrams to convey information
• Format is what distinguishes Formal writing from informal
• Expected to be methodical and well organized
• Specific format of reports
• Title
• Explains not only general topic but what specific field aspect being discussed
• Bad: “Advanced monitoring systems”
• Good:”Developments in integration of advanced monitoring systems” (Oborski, 2014,)
• Summary/abstract
• States topic, approach, important data, main outcomes
• Table of contents
• Sets out sections and subsections using page numbers
• Makes information easy to find
• Introduction
• Background info/context of topic
• Clear statement of purpose
• “RECENT years have witnessed an explosive growth of multimedia data (e.g., image and text), which usually follow sophisticated and diverse data distributions. As an important and challenging problem, effective multimedia information retrieval for such complicated  multimedia data plays an important role in content-based multimedia analysis” (Zhao, Li, Zhang, 2015, p.2756)

• Technical background necessary to understand report
• Body
• Presents data
• Organizes information
• Coveys efficiently
• Tables or charts
• Bulleted lists
• Page breaks
• Conclusion
• States if project achieved the aims/goals
• Brief summary of key findings
• Major outcomes
• References
• Non-academic
• Correspondences
• Memos and letters
• Memos: has a title line
• “Evaluation of Vibration Analysis Tools to Predict the Dynamic Integrity of a Truss Structure” (Lalime, 2001)
• Decides if going to read
• Memos are for in the office, letters outside
• Memos may serve as short reports
• May have headings
• Emails
• Not able to format for the most part
• Articles
• Loose format
• May include pictures or tables
• Proposals
• Overview
• Brief description of the problem at hand
• Summary of how they intend to solve the issue
• Goals
• What they would like to see out of the project
• “Functional prototype”
• “On-board sensors and data acquisition”(Dartmouth college, 2016)
• Deliverables
• Why they should fund the project
• What they will get out of the solution
• Required facilities (no explanation)
• Knowledge areas needed
• What fields of study will be required

• Proprietary Information and Confidentiality Requirements

• Confidentiality agreement
• Ownership rights
• Header 2: Language selection
• Main points
• Being concise is key for all genres
• The purpose is to present information as efficiently as possible
• Make sure all relevant information is presented
• Appropriate level of detail
• Complexity buries ideas
• Avoid ambiguity
• Simple language wherever possible to counteract the complexity of technical/scientific terminology
• Language selection is dependent on audience
• Interview
• Claimed writing for a non-technical audience is the hardest part of writing in engineering
• Job experience is what helped him learn to explain technical terms
• Learned to “get into his audience's shoes” and understand what prior knowledge they have
• Academic
• Mainly reports and peer reviewed journals
• Audience: professionals or peers
• Being concise is less important for academic but still should be considered
• Able to use technical Jargon
• “Our proposed algorithm is a general learning to rank algorithm, which is composed of two key components” (Zhao, Li, Zhang, 2015, p.2758)
• Only people in that field will understand
• More informative than entertaining (purpose)
• Non-academic
• Correspondances
• Audience: bosses, managers, coworkers, etc.
• Memos, emails, letters, resume
• It is vital to be concise in this genre

Usually read quickly

• To the point
• “Thank you for the interview at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Thursday October 30, 1997”(Bloom, 1997)
• Tone is also to be carefully considered
• Appropriate formality
• Straightforward but respectful
• “Sincerely”
• “Mr. Jeffrey Peterson”
• Articles or books
• Audience: General public
• Does not use too complex of language
• “DNA”
• “Megabyte”
• Well known everyday references
• Purpose: to entertain or inform
• references well known topics
• “Our precious selfies, snaps of our felines, and shots of our cappuccinos—to say nothing of our texts, emails, and songs—have created a massive data set” (abrams, 2016)
• This would have no place in academic writing
• Interview: Professor bradley wrote a book on the flood in iowa city
• The audience was the general public
• Had to explain things such as conservation of momentum or fluid dynamics
• This is where the “getting into your audience's shoes” aspect comes into play