ENGL 191 F22 El-Amyouni

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:

1. Explain the role of reports, the press, advertising, video and other communications media in engineering,
2. Demonstrate command of appropriate writing skills and style,
3. 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),
4. Construct a persuasive technical argument,
5. Write an effective engineering report by attending to context, audience, and genre,
6. Organize and deliver a persuasive oral presentation, and
7. Produce a short video that argues a case or makes a pitch.

Textbook and Reading:

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

Course Assignments & Requirements

Assignment and Evaluation Overview*

1. Engineering project pitch 15%
2. Engineering progress report 20%
3. Engineering project proposal (written) 25%
4. Reflection 10%
5. 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