Preparing students for writing in civil engineering practice

Abstract

This paper describes a project designed to investigate characteristics of effective writing in civil engineering practice and improve writing instruction for students. The project analyzes documents written by civil engineering practitioners and compares them to papers written by undergraduate students in civil engineering classes. A major finding of the project has been that practitioners and students exhibit a fundamentally different view of writing: practitioners see writing as integrated with engineering content and practice, whereas students view writing as separate from engineering. In this paper, we present three cases studies that illustrate the empirical analyses that have led to this finding, focusing on organization, sentence structure, and grammatical errors. We then offer five specific suggestions for approaching writing in civil engineering classes so that students will be better prepared for writing in the workplace, discussing how these ideas have been implemented at the university where the project is based. © 2012 American Society for Engineering Education.