project 1 draft

Memo

To: Clemson University Civil Engineering Committee

From: Joseph Utley, Clemson University Student

Date: July 18, 2005

Subject: Technical Writing in the Professional Field

As the Clemson University Civil Engineering Committee has asked me to do, I investigated how technical writing operates in the Civil Engineering field, and what would best prepare Civil Engineering students for technical writing post graduation.

Technical Writing in the Civil Engineering Field

The definition of Technical writing is the same in any field, and based on interviews with civil engineering professionals, the class web blog, and class readings, technical writing is the process of getting information to a wide range of people, as fast as possible.

There are many different forms of technical writing in the profession of Civil Engineering, including forensic report, design reports, project proposals, and of course memos to employees. Forensic reports are a form of technical writing where you have to report why a design or product failed to work. For example if a bridge starts to crack, like the four year old Broad River bridge, then a civil engineer would have to investigate on the issue and do an investigative report. For that same reason a civil engineer would also have to do a project report on how to fix the problem causing the cracks or failure of the bridge. These reports have to also be legible by a person with almost any educational background. So the reports can not have technical jargon that only people in the engineering field can understand.

English 314

One option to fully prepare Civil Engineering graduates, which is the option used today, is to take English 314, and no other technical writing is covered in the Civil Engineering courses. English 314, Technical Writing, is an intensive, project-based application of principles of audience, context, purpose, and writing strategies of technical writing. Projects include producing proposals, reports, and communication deliverables. During the course, students have to work by themselves and with partners to complete different tasks.

I investigated this route with a recent graduate and asked him if when he started his job, he had a sufficient amount of practice in the technical writing aspect of his job. He told me that he felt like the course helped them with the technical writing; however he was not fully prepared for the technical writing he was doing.

Work Experience

Another option is to have interns with Engineering companies while you are in school, or on breaks from school, to rely on being prepared for the technical writing a person is going to be doing after they graduate.

I interviewed a couple of people who had work experience when they graduated. One person graduated with the cooperative education degree, and the other person worked in internships during each summer. Whether the person had co-operative education experience or just did interns in the summer, all had technical writing projects in their work experience. The graduates also told me the technical writing course they took in college helped them start off with their technical writing projects during their work experience.

Technical Writing in Civil Engineering Courses

The idea of having technical writing involved in the Civil Engineering courses is being thought about today however no students have completed courses with this design. Civil Engineering courses could have labs where you have to do these Design Reports or Forensic reports to prepare students for post graduation.

I asked the person who graduated and had no work experience if he thought putting technical writing in Civil Engineering courses would be a good idea, and he told me he thought it was a good idea.

I also asked the same people who had work experience if they thought involving technical writing in civil engineering courses was a good thing. Both of the people I talked to told me they didn’t like this idea, however thought future employees would favor students with these kinds of courses

Conclusion and Solution

After considering all the options and thinking about the conversations with working civil engineers, I have come up with a solution. Even though students wont like to do the extra work of involving technical writing into their main courses, this could set the civil engineering program into a different league from civil engineering programs without this preparation. Also to make the program better students should be required to have a number of hours of work experience in their desired field of work. After my investigation I found that if the program makes these two adjustments, then graduates will have a much easier time adjusting into their post graduation jobs.