ENGL 191 F22 El-Amyouni | English Language and Literature

ENGL 191 Communication in Civil Engineering

Instructor: Elianne El-Amyouni

Class hours & location: T-TH 11-12:30 EIT 3145 (except Sept 8 – location TBA) Office hours: Online, by appointment

I acknowledge that I live and work on the traditional territory of the Attawandaron (also known as Neutral), Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples. The University of Waterloo is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land promised to the Six Nations that includes ten kilometres on each side of the Grand River.

Course Description

This course will teach written and oral communication in civil, environmental, and geological engineering. Students will practice internal and external genres of communication relevant to groups that might include clients, peer groups, technical staff, public audiences, and regulatory and policy-focused stakeholders. Students will enhance their critical-thinking skills and creative competencies to better understand meaning-making, perception, and responsibility. Through iterative communication design processes that emphasize student agency and confidence, students will craft audience-specific messages through writing, presenting, and video making.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course students should be able to do the following:

Explain the role of reports, the press, advertising, video and other communications media in engineering,
Demonstrate command of appropriate writing skills and style,
Demonstrate good literature research skills (gathering data or relevant information, analyzing the results of research efforts in terms of data and argument, and assessing the credibility and applicability of information),
Construct a persuasive technical argument,
Write an effective engineering report by attending to context, audience, and genre,
Organize and deliver a persuasive oral presentation, and
Produce a short video that argues a case or makes a pitch.

Textbook and Reading:

Graves, Heather & Roger Graves. A Strategic Guide to Technical Communication. 2nd edition (Canadian).
Additional readings will be provided in class or posted to the LEARN website.

Course Assignments & Requirements

Assignment and Evaluation Overview*

Engineering project pitch 15%
Engineering progress report 20%
Engineering project proposal (written) 25%
Reflection 10%
Weekly learning tasks, contributions (details below) 30%

* There is no exam for this course

How and Where to Submit Written Assignments: Electronic format: Microsoft Word .docx format or PDF, online through LEARN.

Assignment #1: Engineering Pitch

You will create an e-mail message that demonstrates your specific learning of the conventions of e-mail authoring used in the engineering profession. Your objective is to communicate potential assets and ideas for an engineering project, and convince readers that your project is worth the investment of company resources.

Assignment #2: Progress/Status Report (2-4 pages)

As you are developing your project, you will complete an engineering-style progress report to update your team/project lead on your progress, any setbacks, and any changes to budgets or timelines.

Assignment #3: Project Proposal—Written Report (Maximum 10 pages)

You will draft a technical proposal for an engineering project of your own design. Your report will explain known information about a problem, support this description with research from credible sources, and articulate why and how the problem must be addressed. You will then demonstrate your knowledge of existing engineering know- how about the issue and propose future activities that could lead to a credible solution. Your concepts and report must show specific research and all original work. Your idea can change and grow over the process, but your objective is to meet the emerging needs of the fields of civil, environmental, and geological engineering.

Assignment #4: Engineering Project Reflection

You will produce a final document in which you identify the ways you have professionalized yourself as an engineer during this course.

Assignment #5: Weekly learning tasks, contributions

This course will require some kind of submission from you every week, so that I can check whether you are learning what you need. Weekly learning tasks will vary: little quizzes about lectures, surveys, reflections, worksheets, discussions, instruction manuals, and drafts of major assignments. Weekly learning tasks make up the largest single grade in the course, but each task will be worth less than 5% of the entire course.

Course Schedule

Week	Lesson	Assignment
1	Course Intro Gantt charts & project management	Activity 1
Sept 8		Make a Gantt chart in Excel
		and submit to LEARN
		Dropbox
		Due Sept 10
2 Sept 13-15	The Swales CARS model of engineering reports and articles	Activity 2a Swales CARS follow-along worksheet
	Begin Design Project: Project Pre- Research Worksheet Reading: Engineering articles, LEARN	Activity 2b Pre-Research Worksheet Both Due Sept 16
3	Engineering Information-seeking	Assignment 1
Sept 20-22	How working engineers find info to help	Project Pitch Memo &
	them create and propose projects.	RADAR analysis
		Due Sept 23
4	Structural analysis of engineering	Activity 4
Sept 27-29	articles	Swales CARS analysis of a
	Applying the Swales CARS model in class	new article intro
	to reading and understanding engineering	ENROLLMENT BY SEPT
	documents.	27
		Due Sept 30
5 Oct 4-6	Engineering process analysis: Making complex engineering processes accessible to clients and business stakeholders.	Activity 5: Following someone else’s process and evaluating instructions
	Reading: Chapter 10, “Writing how-to documents: instructions, procedures, manuals,” p. 233-255.	Minecraft Screenshots Due Oct 7
	Guest Engineer
6 READING & MIDTERM WEEKS
7 Oct 24-26	Engineering technical manuals: How engineers create them, current problems with these manuals in engineering industries	Activity 6: Design guide Due Oct 27
8 Oct 31-Nov 2	Engineering status/progress reports	Activity 7:

How engineers concisely assure supervisors

that design and projects are going well. Reading: Chapter 9, pages 193-198

E-mail in the engineering workplace

Reading:

Chapter 7: “Writing email and letters for the workplace,” p. 151-164

Prepare a first rough draft of your progress report.

Due Nov 3

Nov 7-9

Formatting Requests for Proposals (RFPs)

How to format the document that wins business in engineering industries.

Reading: Chapter 8, “Writing Winning Proposals,” p. 165-192

Assignment 2: Progress Report and Annotated Bibliography

Due Nov 10

Nov 14-16

Evaluating Requests for Proposals How real, large clients evaluate engineering proposals for competitive projects.

Activity 9:

Questions and reflection about `the client seminar

Nov 21-23

Writing Requests for Proposals

How actual engineering firms respond to RFPs

and design proposals to beat dozens of competitors.

Activity 10:

Questions and reflection about the professional seminar.

Nov 28-30

Engineering Proposals Research

Seeking industry context for your proposal.

Activity 11:

Submit a rough draft of your engineering proposal.

Due Dec 1

Dec 7-9

Engineering Proposals Review Process Using professional teams to review project proposals before submission

Assignment #3: Final engineering Proposal

Due Dec 12

Dec 12

Final submission date

Course Policies, Services, and Additional Support

Late Penalties: All assignments submitted late will be subject to a penalty of 5 marks (out of 100) per day, including weekends.

Academic Integrity: In order to maintain a culture of academic integrity, members of the University of Waterloo are expected to promote honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility. See the UWaterloo Academic Integrity webpage for more information.

Discipline: A student is expected to know what constitutes academic integrity, to avoid committing academic offences, and to take responsibility for his/her actions. Check the Office of Academic Integrity for more information. A student who is unsure whether an action constitutes an offence, or who needs help in learning how to avoid offences (e.g., plagiarism, cheating) or about “rules” for group work/collaboration should seek guidance from the course professor, academic advisor, or the Undergraduate Associate Dean. When misconduct has been found to have occurred, disciplinary penalties will be imposed under Policy 71 – Student Discipline. For information on categories of offenses and types of penalties, students should refer to Policy 71 - Student Discipline. For typical penalties check Guidelines for the Assessment of Penalties.

Grievance: A student who believes that a decision affecting some aspect of his/her university life has been unfair or unreasonable may have grounds for initiating a grievance. Read Policy 70 - Student Petitions and Grievances, Section 4. When in doubt, please be certain to contact the department’s administrative assistant who will provide further assistance.

Appeals: A decision made or penalty imposed under Policy 70 - Student Petitions and Grievances (other than a petition) or Policy 71 - Student Discipline may be appealed if there is a ground. A student who believes he/she has a ground for an appeal should refer to Policy 72 - Student Appeals.

Accommodation for Students with Disabilities

Note for students with disabilities: The AccessAbility Services office, located on the first floor of the Needles Hall extension (1401), collaborates with all academic departments to arrange appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities without compromising the academic integrity of the curriculum. If you require academic accommodations to lessen the impact of your disability, please register with the AS office at the beginning of each academic term.