Transcript Engineering Discourse Community

Engineering Discourse
Community
Nate Fuss, Andrew Sedano, Justin Cobb, and Alec Pickup
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Discourse Community
o What is a Discourse Community
o Engineering Discourse Community
o Jargons
o Certain writing and citation styles
o How writing is used
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Types of Writing
o Technical Reports
o Research
o Memos
o E-mails
o Project Proposals
o Employee Reviews
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Writing Styles
o The style depends on the intended audience
o Passive voice is rarely ever used
o It is too objective and non professional
o High style or formal writing is most popular
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Writing Formats
o IEEE
 Research Papers and Technical Writing
o Chicago Manual Style
 Reports and Research Papers
o MLA Format
 Simple Papers that are non professional
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Jargon
o Important so that Engineers can communicate
efficiently
o Engineering Jargon is mostly made up of technical
terms related to design
o Use a lot of acronyms
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Jargon Examples
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CADD
ASCE
NSPE
MRP
TDM
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Jargon Purposes
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Quick form of communication
Efficient shorthand
Short but still professional
Easily recognizable
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Interview
With Professor Don Blackmon
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Real Life Examples
o Duke Power Company
- Four-story elevator for a power plant
- Involved specifications, proposals, and reports.
- High Voltage Lines
- Design needed to raise the lines 1200 feet, and then across
the river.
- Also needed proposals, reports, and specifications.
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Real Life Examples
o Duke Power Company
- Environmental Reports for state and federal agencies.
- Three or four 3-inch binders of material needed to be
submitted
- Proposal to US Department of Energy
o Turning weapons grade plutonium into nuclear fuel.
- As many as 100 people working at the same time on
specifications, environmental reports, and proposals.
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Real Life Examples
o National Account Manager for Duke Power
- Must be able to write letters, reports, proposals.
- Find out problems that companies are having, and then
solve them.
o One example, a yard spinning company had seven 700
horsepower air compressors.
o Variation in the power lines needed to be fixed.
o A proposal was written to do work to fix the air
compressors.
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Computers in Engineering
o Computers have become an integral part of engineering,
despite just recently being invented.
- In 1970, computers were only used for advanced modeling.
- Currently, computers can be used for modeling,
prototyping, word processing, and many other tasks.
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Academic & Professional Societies
• National Society of Professional Engineers
• American Society of Civil Engineers
• Computer Science & Engineering Society
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Forms of Publications
• Blogs
• Magazines
• Journals
• Books
• Contracts
• Documents
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What are They Like?
• News
• Legislative
• Educational
• Formal
• Technical
• Employment
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Works Cited
"American Society of Civil Engineers." ASCE. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Nov 2012.
http://www.asce.org/default.asp&xgt;
ASCE, "Writing Style." Accessed November 6, 2012. www.asce.org
"Chicago Formatting Guide." worksCited4U. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Nov 2012.
http://www.workscited4u.com/chicago.html
"Engineers: Why You Need A Work Portfolio." Key Personnel . N.p., 06 2012. Web. 7 Nov 2012.
http://www.keyjobs.com/Article.aspx?RSSId=18
Marquette University, "Writing in Engineering." Last modified July 7, 2011. Accessed November 6, 2012.
http://www.marquette.edu
"National Society of Professional Engineers." NSPE. NSPE, n.d. Web. 7 Nov2012.<
http://www.nspe.org/index.html
Online Learning Environment, "Engineering Jargons." Accessed November 6, 2012.
http://www.geocities.com/Baja/8205/jargon.htm
Professional Training Company, "The Passive Engineer." Last modified 2008. Accessed November 3, 2012.
http://www.protrainco.com/essays/passive.htm
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