American Society of Engineering Education - North Central Section Spring Conference 2018

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Responding to changing communication practices: Engineering better technical communications

For students and non-engineers, writing and communication generally are not considered the top tasks in engineers days. However, engineers in academia and industry alike spend between 60-90% of their days communicating, through meetings, emails, phone calls, grant proposals, technical and feasibility reports, and more. Writing and communicating are essential parts of engineering work and advancement, but it’s often the part of the engineering process we spend the least amount of time thinking and talking about. Not unlike students, some engineers dread writing so much that they are paralyzed, unable to act on writing tasks until an imminent deadline motivates them, and poor and rushed communication results in both time and financial losses. The lack of attention to thinking and talking about writing has resulted in curricula that often does not explicitly discuss and teach the appropriate writing and communication skills required for success. Engineering students may not understand the negative professional consequences of poor communication or the detrimental productivity, time, and money consequences for companies.

This work-in-progress will examine the writing and communication both industry and academic engineers engage in and the types of writing and communication we teach to and expect from our students. We also will focus on how this examination is influencing our development of a faculty-centered Writing Institute, which would help faculty and graduate students identify their own writing goals, challenges, and processes as well as explore how our curricula can better reflect the writing and communication expectations and needs of the professional engineering workplaces.

Deborah Kuzawa
The Ohio State University
United States

Jennifer Herman
The Ohio State University
United States

 

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