Interview with a Civil Engineer

I interviewed Civil Engineer, Rick Werts, from the South Carolina Department of Transportation. He is the director of traffic engineering and from this management position, has developed more experience with technical writing than most civil engineers. He said that the most important type of writing in his job is, “Any kind of correspondence between parties that outline proposed actions between these parties. These correspondences can be in the simple form of a letter or as complicated as a formal contract.”

He continues saying, “Most of my writing consists of correspondence with individuals requesting action by my organization. The responses are generally a detailed and technical explanation of what actions we propose to take. This correspondence is primarily through formal letters.” One major challenge in writing these letters is explaining the technical aspects of his job in laymen’s terms to members of the community. An example would be explaining in a letter to a concerned citizen why or why not an intersection has a warranted the installation of a traffic signal. What is very simple to explain to a fellow engineer by referencing a design manual, may be more difficult to convince someone unfamiliar with highway design standards.

He says that, “The best way to learn how to create these written correspondences and documents of specifications is to study good examples. This will allow you to familiarize yourself with the technical content and method of presentation.”