Chemical Engineering Communication Tutorial

About This Course

Success in engineering and research depends heavily on one's ability to understand the written, oral, and visual presentation of others' previous work, to discuss, reason about, and argue for possible approaches with one's colleagues, and to develop a variety of ways of explaining the implications of one's work for different purposes and audiences. In short, engineering cannot be separated from communication, as writing, speaking, and visualizing are integrated with project work and problem solving at every stage of the process.

This set of tutorials is designed specifically to teach you how to develop the conceptual knowledge about technical communication that you will need as a professional in Chemical Engineering. It begins with the WHAT-HOW-WHY Diagram, and explains how you can use this tool both to understand the basic elements of your project and their relationship, and also to systematically consider how to develop coherent explanations of the research process and results for the different genres you will produce this semester. Separate modules go into more detail on doing the background research and finding sources of information, writing the proposal, writing the technical report, developing oral presentations, and collaborative writing.