Assessing Technical Communication within Engineering Contexts Tutorial

UNDERGRADUATE WRITING ASSIGNMENTS IN ENGINEERING: TARGETING COMMUNICATION SKILLS (Attribute 7)

“…This specialist is in a better position to do what writing scholars have long promoted [4], [11]. [14]; namely, that students need to learn the discipline-specific writing genres because doing so helps students to acquire disciplinary knowledge and to shape their work so that the rhetorical demands of the genre are met.…”

“…Instead of seeing the technical work as the "real" work [6] and the communication of that work as less critical to engineering success [4], students may at last recognize that communication is integral -even critical -to engineering practice [9].…”

The Self-Reported Confidence and Proficiency Levels of Undergraduate Engineering Students in an Engineering Technical Communication Course

“…Now that they've experienced the various communication genres and communication exigencies within a discipline-specific context, they may feel less well equipped to deal with these demands than they once did at the beginning of term -in other words, before they learned what it is that engineers do in terms of communication and lifelong learning. As well, they have now completed a major team-writing project that may Sadly, communication is rarely mentioned as contributing to engineering success [7], probably because the technical work is often viewed, even now, as the "real work" [8].…”

Attribute 7 and Assessing Written Communication Skills in Engineering

“…As M. Davis has already noted, these "soft skills" are difficult to define and their success -or failure -is even harder to measure [1]. However, integrating communication into courses and into a program means it has the "same weight and attention" as any other outcome.…”