ENGL 191 Communication in Architectural Engineering
Instructor: Dr. George Lamont
Sections: 1 and 2
Section 1: T/Th, 2:30-3:50
Section 2: T/Th, 4:00-5:20 Online platform: See learn.waterloo.ca.
Email: glamont@uwaterloo.ca.
Office hours: Online, Microsoft Teams drop-in
Mondays & Wednesdays: 2:30pm-4:00pm (COVID online) Mondays & Wednesdays: 12:45pm-2:15pm (after COVID)
Office location: Online Microsoft Teams
How will this course work during COVID-19?
The course will accomplish all the main goals in a regular class. However, here are the essentials of what you will need to do:
Working online: Go to learn.uwaterloo.ca, sign in, and find our course under the “Winter 2021” section.
Download/install Microsoft Teams: this free software is available to you through the University of Waterloo. We will use this to meet online.
Learn about Teams here: Microsoft Teams at the University of Waterloo.
Download Teams here: Download link for Microsoft Teams.
Lessons: Lessons will be “synchronous” (live: you need to be there). Some materials from my lessons will be posted for follow-up reading.
Activities:
Each week has its own folder, with everyone you need for that week.
Video lessons: If we need to go fully online, there will be video lessons.
Textbook readings: read the relevant readings from the textbook.
Activities: any activities and dropboxes will be in that week’s folder.
Assignments: Assignments or weekly learning tasks are usually due on Sunday evening.
Submitting documents: Don’t e-mail me your submissions. Upload them to the specific dropbox for that item. You’ll find the dropbox in the weekly folders.
Communicating with me: I will be available on Microsoft Teams during our class time. I stay in the call for the first 10-15 minutes. If not shows, I leave, but you can just call me in Teams if you show up later. We can set up appointments for other times, and we can use the telephone, too. Just let me know if you need to communicate.
1. Official Course Description and Outcomes
This is the “official stuff” necessary for accreditation.
Course Description
This course will teach written and oral communication in architectural 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.
2. Course Assignment and Requirements
Assignment and Evaluation Overview*
| No | Activity | Weight |
|---|---|---|
|
1. |
Engineering project pitch |
15% |
|
2. |
Engineering progress report |
20% |
|
3. |
Engineering project proposal (written) |
25% |
|
4. |
Weekly learning tasks, contributions (details below) |
40% |
|
* There is no exam for this course |
100% |
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 architectural engineering.
Assignment #4: 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. I built the course this way in order to give you fewer major assignments and facilitate your success in this unusual educational situation.
3. Course Schedule
The following schedule is tentative and may change to suit class needs. Additional readings may be posted to LEARN, and you will be responsible for these.
General timings in this course:
Lesson materials released: Mondays (except first week)
Assignments or learning tasks due: Sundays
Time required for major assignments: plan to spend several hours on major assignments.
|
Wk |
Dates |
Lesson |
Assignments |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Unit 1: Professional Communications in Engineering: A real course in engineering-document management, in collaboration with a local engineering firm. |
|||
|
1 |
January 5th |
Course Introduction: Interviews with engineers, engineering- proposal teams, and engineering directors. E-mail in the engineering workplace Gantt charts and project management |
Activity 1a Survey. Activity 1b: Make a Gantt chart in Excel, hand it in. |
|
Readings: Chapter 7: “Writing email and letters for the workplace,” p. 151-164. |
Activity 1c: Download and install Microsoft Teams. |
||
|
Unit 2: Communicating Problems in Engineering: A course in how engineers structure problem-solution messages, using authentic engineering technical documents and articles. |
|||
|
2 |
January 10th |
The Swales CARS model of engineering reports and articles. Begin Design Project: Project Pre-Research Worksheet assigned today. |
Activity 2a: Swales CARS follow-along worksheet. |
|
Reading: Engineering articles, LEARN. |
Activity 2b: Pre-Research Worksheet. |
||
| 3 | January 17th |
Engineering information-seeking How working engineers find information to help them create and propose projects. |
Activity 3: Course check-in #1. Assignment #1 released |
| 4. | January 24th |
Structural analysis of engineering articles Applying the Swales CARS model in class to reading and understanding engineering documents. |
Activity #4: Swales CARS analysis of a new article intro. |
|
Assignment #1: Project Pitch Memo and RADAR analysis. DUE Jan. 24th |
|||
|
Unit 3: Engineering Documents: real engineering requests, reports, and proposals, provided by actual engineering firms, and how to read and write them. |
|||
| 5 | January 31st |
.Engineering status/progress reports How engineers concisely assure supervisors that design and projects are going well. Reading: Chapter 9, pages 193-198. |
Activity #5: Prepare a first rough draft of your progress report. Assignment #2 released |
| 6. | February 7th |
.Engineering process analysis: Making complex engineering processes accessible to clients and business stakeholders. Reading: Chapter 10, “Writing how-to documents: instructions, procedures, manuals,” p. 233-255. |
Activity #6: Following someone else’s process and evaluating instructions. |
| 7 | February 21st – 25th |
Reading Week No official classes or activities. |
|
|
Unit 4: Designing Documents and Presenting Engineering Projects: a course in engineering-proposal creation designed by current engineers doing this in industry. |
|||
|
8 |
February 28th |
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. |
| 9 | March 7th |
Evaluating Requests for Proposals How real, large clients evaluate engineering proposals for competitive projects. |
Activity 9: Questions and reflection about the client seminar. |
| April 3rd | Final engineering proposal | ||
April 5th No late submission will be accepted after this date.
* No final examination in this course.
Important Dates: Travel plans NOT accepted reasons for absence.
|
Event |
Date |
|---|---|
|
Lectures begin: |
Wednesday, January 5 |
|
Last day to add a class: |
Tuesday, January 18 |
|
Last day to drop, no penalty: |
Tuesday, January 25 |
|
UW days off |
Monday, February 21 |
|
Reading Week |
February 22-25 |
|
Last day to drop, receive a WD: |
Tuesday, February 22 |
|
Lectures end: |
Tuesday, April 5 |
|
Last day to drop, receive a WF: |
Thursday, April 7 |
|
Exams begin: |
Friday, April 8 (no exam in this course) |
|
Exams end: |
Tuesday, April 26 (no exam in this course) |
Terms:
“Drop, no penalty”: no record of the course appears on your transcript.
“WD”: this means the word “Withdrawn” will appear on your transcript. This will let readers know that you attempted the course but decided to leave the course.
“WF”: this means “withdrew/failure.” This will let readers know that your withdrawal constitutes a failure in the course. This course will be calculated as a grade of 32% and will be included in your overall grade average.
4. Course Policies
Late work, missed work, grade concerns, “incomplete” courses
Extension requests: You must request an extension 48 hours or more before a due date, and provide a reasonable justification, subject to verification by me. Last-minute extension requests will be denied unless there is medical documentation, an accommodation, or a counselling referral to support the need.
Late submissions: 5% penalty per day unless the late submission is justified by medical documentation.
Missed tests, quizzes, contributions: If your absence is supported by medical documentation, your grade will be re-weighted to your other quizzes or contributions. Otherwise, you will receive a grade of 0 for the quiz or contribution.
Medical documentation: You must submit a “University of Waterloo Verification of Illness” form, available at https://uwaterloo.ca/campus- wellness/sites/ca.campus-wellness/files/uploads/files/VIF-online.pdf.
No “incomplete courses”: I will not grant an “incomplete course”. All course work is due by the final day of lectures (December 3rd).
Grade challenges: You may re-submit an assignment for regrading only if you provide a detailed letter explaining why the concepts and criteria of the course justify a different grade. I do not accept any requests to challenge a grade while I am returning any papers in class. Please make an appointment to visit me, and we will have a fair conversation about your concerns.
Grade concerns: If you are struggling, I want to help you. However, don’t procrastinate. The sooner you consult with me, the sooner we can address the problems.
Academic Integrity and Plagiarism—Official Policy
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 and the Arts 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. 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.
Using Turnitin in this Course
Text matching software (Turnitin®) will be used to screen assignments in this course. This is being done to verify that use of all material and sources in assignments is documented. Students will be given an option if they do not want to have their assignment screened by Turnitin®. In the first week of the term, details will be provided about arrangements and alternatives for the use of Turnitin® in this course.
5. Services and Additional Support
If you are struggling, do realize that there are services here that will help you and protect your privacy.
Accommodations for Students with Learning Challenges
If you have any concern about a learning challenge or learning disability, please feel free to consult with me about how to support you. You may also wish to register with the AccessAbility Services office. This office is located on the first floor of the Needles Hall extension (1401), and 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.
Counselling Services
Counselling Services provides support free-of-charge and protects your privacy. Find them at https://uwaterloo.ca/counselling-services/.
Student Success Office
The Student Success Office also provides support free-of-charge and protects your privacy. This office provides academic and personal development services, resources for international students, as well as study abroad and exchange support. They are located at South Campus Hall, second floor. Office hours: Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.; and Tuesday and Thursday, 8:30 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
The Writing and Communication Centre
The Writing and Communication Centre works with students as they develop their ideas, draft, and revise. Writing and Communication Specialists offer one-on-one support in planning assignments, synthesizing and citing research, organizing papers and reports, designing presentations and e-portfolios, and revising for clarity and coherence. You can make multiple appointments throughout the term, or drop in at the Library for quick questions or feedback. To book a 50-minute appointment and to see drop-in hours, visit www.uwaterloo.ca/writingand-communication-centre. Group appointments for team-based projects, presentations, and papers are also available.
Please note that communication specialists guide you to see your work as readers would. They can teach you revising skills and strategies, but will not change or correct your work for you. Please bring hard copies of your assignment instructions and any notes or drafts to your appointment.