Improving Students' Writing Skills by Integrating Prototyping Activities in their Writing Course

Abstract

Writing is the most important means of communication in the engineering field. Although understanding the content of an engineering discipline is very important, engineers become much more appreciated if they know how to convey their expertise to a variety of audiences. This paper reports on a collaboration between a writing professor and Engineering Enrichment Program at an international branch campus in the Middle East. Over the course of three semesters, a technical and business writing course was redesigned by integrating prototyping, collaboration, and entrepreneurship skills.

Towards a Transformative Collaboration: Technical Writing, Engineering, Industry

“…Because ENGL 210 is a general technical writing and communication course that can be taught across all disciplines, there are numerous approaches English instructors may use. Some focus on content and assessments better suited to business settings -newsletters, memos, incident reports, and business proposals -while others have introduced ideation presentations and prototyping [7].…”

Client-Focused Technical Writing through Laboratory Report Preparations in Geotechnical Engineering: A Case Study

“…The end of semester project deliverables consisted of the prototype, a poster describing the product and a brief video inviting the viewer to invest in the product. Student surveys showed that the entrepreneurial aspect of the project inspired students to be better communicators [32].…”