Barbara M. Olds
Colorado School of Mines
In these days of ``less is more'' characterized by brief e-mail messages, faxes, and voicemail is there any purpose to be served by asking our engineering students to write long technical documents (over 15 pages)? I believe that the answer is a qualified ``yes,'' but that we need to plan and design such assignments carefully or they will become exercises in frustration for students and faculty alike. Why assign lengthy documents in some engineering classes? Mainly because not every on-the-job assignment calls for a one-page memo. Feedback from government and industry professionals tells us that engineers are still expected to write substantial technical reports, proposals, and other documents which must be carefully planned, organized and edited in order to be effective. Students should have experience designing and writing such documents, preferably in authentic contexts, in their undergraduate careers.
In this paper I will explore several keys to developing effective major assignments using three examples from the curriculum at the Colorado Schools of Mines (CSM): the EPICS (Engineering Practices Introductory Course Sequence) program; the required field session for chemical engineering majors; and the Multidisciplinary Senior Design (MSD) sequence.
EPICS is an eleven-credit four semester sequence required of all first- and second-year students at CSM. [1] A major part of the EPICS curriculum is the project/communications track in which students work in teams to solve problems for clients outside the university. The teams report the results of their research and their recommendations through oral presentations and written reports. Over the course of their four semesters in EPICS, students make over ten oral presentations and write six major reports, five collaboratively and one individually.
All CSM juniors in chemical engineering are required to complete CR 312, a rigorous six-credit-hour summer field session in which they spend six weeks preparing, conducting, and reporting the results of a series of complex unit operations experiments. [2] The course objectives include ``developing proficiency in design of experiments, analysis of data, and professional communications (both oral and written).'' In teams of three, students perform a total of ten experiments; they present the results of five experiments orally and five in writing, two using a ``long'' format and three using a ``short'' format.
MSD is a two-semester (6 credit hour) sequence in which multidisciplinary teams of students work with faculty from eight departments in cooperation with industry clients to solve complex, open-ended problems with both technical and non-technical constraints. [3] Over the course of the year students make several informational presentations to faculty, other students, and clients and write frequent progress reports. Their major products for the year, however, are a proposal due at the end of the fall semester and a final report due at the end of the year.
Based on over fifteen years of experience in assigning lengthy documents in authentic contexts such as those described above, the engineering and technical communication faculty at CSM have reached the following conclusions about designing effective long assignments:
In order for any communication task to be perceived as useful, it must have a clear purpose and a focus. The writer must see it as an important communication or the assignment will not be taken seriously. That is why we believe careful audience analysis and authentic contexts (discussed below) are crucial. However, clarity of purpose does not necessarily mean that the instructor should be expected to provide a template for the assignment or to ``walk the students through'' the process of defining their project and designing appropriate documentation for it.
While most technical writing texts include useful chapters on writing proposals and reports, [4,5,6] we have found it helpful to supplement such general resources with material we have developed ourselves. Even excellent resources developed for engineering students such as Michigan Tech's Manual for Design Report Writing in Engineering have been supplemented because they don't completely meet all of the needs of our specific culture and context. [7] The material we have developed varies considerably from situation to situation but includes such handouts as a three-page ``Guide to Preparing Effective Technical Documents'' used in EPICS, handouts on writing effective long and short reports in the chemical engineering field session, and a formal Request for Proposals (RFP) in the Multidisciplinary Senior Design sequence.
The latter, developed by CSM engineering professor Nigel Middleton [8] is a six-page document intended to simulate the kind of RFP students may encounter later in their careers whether from a contractor or a government agency such as the National Science Foundation. We have found that our students have considerable experience writing technical reports by the time they enroll in senior design classes, but that very few of them have written proposals, a skill some of them will rely on to provide their livelihood. As developed by Middleton, the RFP has six sections: Proposal Solicitation and Program Description; Eligibility; What, When, and Where to Submit; Content of the Proposal; Budget Development; Proposal Format Requirements; Evaluation of the Proposal; and Attachments (Format for a Cover Sheet and Format for a Budget Statement Sheet). Students are expected to adhere to the ``rules'' of the RFP, just as they must with funding agencies and customers later in their careers. For example, under Format Requirements they are told that ``Proposals must be submitted on standard 8.5"x11" white bond paper and must be stapled in the top left corner. The top page must be the cover sheet prepared in the format described below.'' In addition, ``Proposals must be typed and doubled spaced. Preferred font sizing is 12 point and may not be less than 11 point. The body of the proposal, including figures, may not exceed 25 single-sided pages.'' The experience of writing a proposal adhering to strict guidelines is valuable; in addition, our students rely on the effectiveness of their proposals to obtain funding from CSM and their clients for their design projects.
As useful as written resources may be, the mentoring function of the faculty is a key to completing successful major assignments. In this area, engineering faculty may call on their own, usually wide, experiences as writers and reviewers of technical journal articles, reports, and proposals. For example, in the case of the RFP described above, we spend several class meetings discussing the writing of successful proposals, not simply handing out the RFP and expecting students to follow it and produce a professional product. During these classes, the faculty team members bring examples of their own successful and unsuccessful proposals and discuss with the students how they approach such a task. Sample student proposals from previous years are also distributed and discussed. Such exchanges allow the faculty and students to function as a professional team with common goals and aspirations.
Of course, the mentoring of seniors is much easier if they have been exposed to faculty coaches earlier in their undergraduate careers. In EPICS students work in teams from their first semester on and are coached by interdisciplinary faculty pairs (an engineer or scientist and a communication specialist) on effective teamwork, listening skills, and running effective meetings, as well as on effective oral and written communication. By the time they reach their senior year, students are generally effective team members and have excellent oral communication and adequate written communication skills on which to build.
One of the strengths of all three of the programs described here is the opportunity students have to work in authentic contexts and to write for a variety of audiences with a variety of needs and levels of expertise. For example, EPICS clients sometimes have not defined their projects fully before asking students to ``solve'' them. Or, they may have a very clear idea of the problem and no idea how to solve it. In such cases first-year students, most of whom have very little experience solving open-ended problems, often become frustrated because they expect either the client or the professors to know ``the'' answer and suspect them of withholding it until the end of the semester when it will be revealed like tablets off the mountain. After several opportunities to work with clients, students realize that they really are the ones who need to develop expertise and advise their clients about best solutions; they also learn to deal with the ambiguities and trade-offs inherent in all complex problems in devising their solutions and documenting them effectively. We have found over the years that such experiences are priceless in aiding our students' maturation and that case studies or simulations cannot substitute for the experience of dealing with a ``real'' client and a variety of stakeholders in producing effective technical documents and presentations. Motivation is not a problem, even with a long report, if the students realize that their recommendations will be scrutinized by decision makers who may choose to implement their engineering designs at considerable cost and with considerable visibility.
Most of us who teach writing now agree that writing, like engineering design, is an iterative process and that multiple drafts and frequent feedback are essential in order for students to become effective technical writers. Anyone who doubts this need only think of the papers he or she has handed back with copious comments about how the document could have been improved only to see the student glance at the grade, ignore the comments, and move on to the next assignment.
In the field session course written reports are submitted first in draft form for review by course instructors and communication specialists. Draft reviews are then held with each student team to provide feedback and discuss problems before the final version of the report is submitted for grading. In addition, a series of writing workshops is conducted by technical communication faculty to help students improve their writing skills. This process has only been in place for five years. Previously students received no formal writing instruction and no draft reviews were held. In essence, students conducted their experiments and reported their results in a vacuum. They began their field session guessing what their instructors wanted in the lab reports; in order to appear thorough, they often completed a ``data dump'' which included all of their experimental results (in excruciating detail) but little or no analysis, synthesis, or evaluation. In addition, the reports were often poorly organized and poorly written. Confronted with several 100-page reports, instructors were understandably reluctant to grade them and so students often received no feedback on their first report until they had written several others. Since the draft review process has been implemented, both faculty and students report high satisfaction with the learning the students achieve and with the quality and professionalism of the written documents they produce.
While there is a great deal to be gained from asking students to write shorter pieces frequently (ease of grading, forcing students to think concisely, etc.), it is also important to give our engineering students opportunities to write more comprehensive technical documents. We have found that major assignments are most effective when:
Following such guidelines allows our students to bring broad writing experience to their careers and helps to prepare them for the professional world.