Writing SkillBackground The era of international communication and

advanced technology Bring chances for engineers to convey technical

information in English for various purposes. Engineering students need to be equipped with – Adequate writing ability so they can communicate technical

information clearly.

– Good English writing skill can be a contributing factor to their professional recognition and career prospect.

Writing Skill

The goal of this topic (writing skill) is– to train students in writing clear, concise and

effective English. Syllabus Outline, this topic consists of four

stages:a. Preparation stage (writing short essay)

b. Tools Acquisition Stage (grammar)

c. Summary writing stage

d. Composition stage

a. Writing Skill: preparation stage (1)

This is the stage for building up students' confidence or reshaping their perceptions of English writing.

To start with, write a few short essays on topics you are very familiar with– Write an essay about your home, consists of at

least 100 words (about 10 lines)• Hint: use the words and structures you are

familiar with

d. Writing Skill: Composition Stage

• This is the stage where students practice some common patterns of technical writing with the application of skills taught at previous stages.

• Some common patterns including:1. Writing definitions

2. Writing processes

3. Writing comparisons and contrasts

4. Writing analysis

d. Writing Skill: Composition Stage1. Writing definitions

Writing a definition is frequently used in technical writing. There are two kind of definition:

1. sentence definition

The typical form is:

____ is a kind /form/category/device/type of (class) that ( distinguishing feature.)

Example:

• A capacitor is an electronic device that is used to ....2. Extended definition

One can write an extended definition by adding extra information, such as by giving examples, analogies, descriptions of physical characteristics, components, and functions.

Formal Sentence Definitions

The term defined

Class to which the term belongs

Characteristics (details about the term)

When you write the reference to the class to which the term belongs;

• It sets up a larger frame of reference or context.

• It gives readers something familiar to associate the term with.

• The term may belong to a class of tools, diseases, geological processes, electronic components; it may be a term from the field of medicine, computer science, agriculture, reprographics, or finance.

• Avoid vague references to the class the term belongs to: for example, instead of calling a concussion an "injury" or botulism a "medical problem," call them something more specific like "a serious head injury" and "a severe form of food poisoning," respectively.

1. Lightning is a powerful sudden flow of electricity (an electrostatic discharge) accompanied by thunder that occurs during an electric storm.

1. A data warehouse is a copy of transaction data specifically structured for querying and reporting.

d. Writing Skill: Composition Stage (3)Writing definitions

• Practice

1. Write sentence definition for the following terms:a. Computer

b. Smartphone

c. Computer network

d. C language

d. Writing Skill: Composition Stage (2)Writing definitions

• Writing a definition is frequently used in technical writing. There are two kind of definition:

1. sentence definition

The typical form is:

____ is a kind /form/category/device/type of (class) that ( distinguishing feature.)

Example:

• A capacitor is an electronic device that is used to ....

2. Extended definitionOne can write an extended definition by adding extra information, such as by giving examples, analogies, descriptions of physical characteristics, components, and functions.

A data warehouse is a copy of transaction data specifically structured for querying and reporting. It collects, transforms, and stores integrated sets of historical data from multiple operational systems and feeds them to one or more data marts. It may also provide end-user access to support enterprise views of data.

Data warehouse is distinctly different from the operational data used and maintained by day-to-day operational systems. Among the difference are

Operational data Data warehouse

DetailedSummarized, refined

Transaction driven Analysis driven

• Practice

2. Write extended definitions about one term that you are familiar with (or choose one of these terms):a. Computer

b. Smartphone

c. Computer network

d. C language

d. Writing Skill: Composition Stage2. Writing processes

• A process is written to instruct or to inform.

• A clear description of a process involves sequencing the stages, locating the stages, describing what happens at each stage and explaining what happens at each stage.

• Most operational process descriptions follow a chronological order, which can be shown by using sequence words like first, next then, subsequently, at this point, later, afterwards, finally and so on.

d. Writing Skill: Composition Stage 2. Writing processes

• Look at the diagram showing how chocolate is manufactured.

• Practice writing a description of the process. First, you will need a sentence to introduce your text. Choose the best sentence from the options below then proceed.– Chocolate is manufactured from

the beans of trees.– Chocolate is a natural product

made from the bean of the cacao tree.

– Chocolate comes from trees and is made into many different things.

d. Writing Skill: Composition Stage 3. Writing comparison and contrast

• We use this type of writing to relate the similarities and differences among things. This writing technique can be applied when it is necessary to compare and contrast different proposals, solutions to problems, and improvement or design change of a conventional product with a new product.

• Here are some suggested topics for writing comparison and contrast.

– Compare and contrast two generations of a product, e.g. computer/ stereo/robot

– Compare and contrast two brand names of a product, e.g. cellular phone, sports equipment, electronic dictionary, bicycles etc.

d. Writing Skill: Composition Stage 4. writing analysis

Technical writing is used to convince someone of something. An effective approach to convince others is

to support the broad general statements with details by begin with a generalization or topic sentence that covers the whole topic

and then substantiate the generalization at a more specific level with facts,

examples, statistics and other details. Example: It is difficult for foreign students to adjust to life in a new

country for several reasons. First,..........Second,.......

Write a more detailed analysis on the following suggested topics: Analyze the reasons for an engineering student to study English Analyze the effects of the Internet to the general public Analyze the causes of a TV program/ movie / song for being very

popular

d. Writing Skill: Composition Stage Exercise

• Write a technical essay about “safe electrical wiring in homes” OR “developing good mobile software”. It must be your own writing, do not plagiarize.

• The essay should include– Definition and/or extended definition

– A description of process

– Comparison and/or contrast

– Analysis

– Conclusion

• Your essay is to be included in your writing skill practice journal.