Writing is a major part of the world today, whether it’s a book
being read for fun or an email to a big promotion. But writing in a field is
not just for fun, what I mean by that is: Scientist do not write about
discoveries in an email, they take the time to create a report and list their
findings so the world can understand. This is what is can be considered as
professional writing in that field, but I am not a scientist so this does not
concern me that much. I am studying to be a mechanical engineer, so what I will
be focusing on is writing done by engineers specifically. To do this I have
interviewed two engineers, whom I will refer to as Mr. A and Mr. B, and three
written sources done by engineers. I hope to analyze these sources and present
a better understanding of what it means for a piece of writing to be considered
‘professional’ in this field.
Being an engineer can mean many different things, but
professional writing as an engineer will be the same no matter what type of
engineer you are. Writing as an engineer means that you are presenting facts or
data or both, the reason for presenting the information can vary greatly but
generally this is what engineers are attempting to do with their writing. As an
example here is a piece about solar energy, as a little background the author
is trying to persuade a group of investors to fund a project that will replace
several major roadways and most parking lots in California with solar panels. The author writes, “…solar panels of this size
will not exactly be cheap to make, at about $200 per piece and around $50 to
install…but after only 3 years of these panels being the road and absorbing the
sun’s energy the cost of creation and installation would have been repaid.”
(source 2). The writer of this report lists the statistics of what it would
cost to create and install these solar panels as the roadway, “…now these
panels are actually going to be driven on, and it will also be outfitted with
many mini multicolored lights to help with the road and parking lot
configurations after installation, this all contributes to the cost of
production and why these panels cost more than other panels of the same general
size and shape.” (source 2).
The source I used as examples above
matches what one Mr. A said repeatedly during my interview with him, “When I
write seriously as an engineer there is nothing casual about it, I am putting
my name on something so above everything else it must be accurate and correct.”
was what he said to me. This moment had a huge impact on the way I think about
writing as an engineer, I had not understood exactly how important and serious
presenting every little detail of information was. “If you want to keep or get
more funds to continue your project than you have to give detailed information
on everything…if you are behind schedule you better have a damn good reason
why, and if you are over budget it is actually worse…everything comes back to
me because I am in charge of these projects so at the end of the day it is my
name on the document they read” is what I was told when I asked him why it was
so critical for everything to be accounted for in a report.
After this it came to my attention
that writing as an engineer is incredibly different from writing as an English
major, the first example that came to my mind was the use of facts. When
writing in English it has been my experience that the facts are used to back up
my opinion or position, I use the facts that are relevant to me and leave out
the ones that may harm my point. As an engineer I am not allowed to leave
anything out, Mr. A explained, “If something gets left out, even by accident,
when the superiors find out you will almost certainly lose your job but you
will definitely lose your reputation as an engineer…” So even if the facts are
nothing but harmful for me to included, they must be included. I cannot
overlook a failure or blunder for the sake of my position simply because my
position is dependent on those facts. One of the last things Mr. A said to me
that really sent the engineering writing style home was “Honesty is paramount
in this profession, your reputation is your job application.” Mr. A’s interview
went along almost perfectly with the writing style and layout of (source 2).
Mr. B provided me with a report he
wrote and turned into his company about the operations of the new cargo lift
that needs to be installed on the back of the moving trucks the company uses,
during my interview with him he was kind enough to actually talk about the
report and how he implemented the information in a way that showed all of both
the positive and negative aspects of the cargo lift. Mr. B started with, “This
report definitely has information on it that I do not want there, that is even
harmful to the convincing that we need this new lift, ‘…the GEN. X lift has a
written max payload of 6 tons, 2 tons lighter than our current lift…its size is
¾ that of our current Champion model so we will be able to install it on our
smaller trucks and not have to load them at the warehouse.’(source 1) like
right here for example, it comes with a pro and a con but I must list them both.”
I understood the importance of this immediately but then Mr. B used a great
example of why it was important, “Imagine ordering 20 of these new lifts and me
not mentioning the maximum load size, we would break all of them on day one.
Then I would get blamed for all the lost expensies and broken equipment, and
most likely get fired.” Mr. B reiterated many things that Mr. A had said in my
earlier interview, reminding me that it was of the utmost importance to list
everything that was relevant to the report and not what was relevant to making
me look good. “The best way to look good in the world of engineering is to be
honest, honesty gets you promotions as an engineer...” was the best quote I
heard from Mr. B, he and Mr. A have had no contact that I am aware of and yet
the both told me countless times that being honest was the most important thing
about writing a report as being an engineer.
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