IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION, VOL. E-27, NO. 3, AUGUST 1984

Of Classrooms and Contexts: TeachingEngineers to Write Wrong

KARL E. GWIASDA

Abstract-Classrooms, especially engineering classrooms, can be poorplaces for students to learn about writing. By their very niature as traininggrounds, engineering classes establish a misleading context for writing.Through the writing done for these classes, students learn to ignore theirreaders, to misunderstand the purpose of the writing they will do on thejob, and to misconstrue the crucial process of revising their texts. Never-theless, despite the liabilities that may hamper their efforts to teach stu-dents about writing, professors of engineering must not abandon theirefforts to encourage clear writing. Neither teachers of engineering norteachers of writing can alone turn students into capable writers. Workingtogether, however, they may succeed.

C LASSROOMS can be poor places to learn abouttwriting. Engineering classrooms may be the worst

places of all. The problem does not stem from an indiffer-ence or incapability among teachers, nor does it stem froma congenital defect among students ("engineers can't write").It is derived instead from the unhappy fact that the class-room context is, too frequently, altogether wrong for learn-ing how to write.

Engineers on the job write to transmit information topeople who, out of need or responsibility, must have thatinformation. Frequently, the recipients act upon the infor-mation. They make decisions to start some activity, or tochange some situation, or to stop some practice. The mes-sages from the engineers have consequences. Effort, time,and money are expended on the basis of the engineer'swords. Words that are misleading, ambiguous, or impreciseyield bad decisions, improper actions, wasted efforts. Orperhaps the engineer's words are unclear or confusing, andso the information is ignored. More waste, more error.

Classrooms offer a considerably different experience.Students do not write for people who need information;they write to teachers who already know what the informa-tion is supposed to be. Students do not write to influencedecisions or affect actions; they write to demonstrate toteachers that they have acquired the skills and knowledgethe teachers want them to have. Small wonder, then, thatthe initiation rite for the newly employed engineer includesthe peremptory rejection of that engineer's first report de-spite all the labor and earnestness thrown into it. In theclassroom, the engineer learned to write to an audience andfor a purpose that bear little relation to the circumstanceson the job. Consequently, the engineer has acquired habitsof thought and procedure that must be unlearned before the

Manuscript received December 16, 1983; revised May 11, 1984.The author is with the Department of English, Iowa State University,

Ames, IA 50011.

engineer's writing can accomplish what all worthwhile writ-ing must do: say something of significance to someone whowill gain from knowing what is said.

Jacques Barzun observes that the only valid motive forwriting is "to be read" [1, p. 48]. Students, however, rarelylook upon their writing as meant to be read in part, I fear,because teachers do too little to suggest that it is. Instead,the students' lab reports, term papers, and project reportsexhibit a disposition to report data and information fortheir own sake or to dwell on demonstrations that theproper references were consulted and the correct formulasapplied. The students address writing exactly as the class-room context requires of them. The teacher-readers haveno particular need to know what is being said; they justwant assurance that the students know it. Moreover, theywant assurance that what the students know was acquiredthrough the appropriate methods. The teachers are notreaders for information, but evaluators of procedures andperformance. The writing, in turn, is not meant to haveconsequences beyond the receipt of a favorable evaluation.

In a letter to Louis Untermeyer (March 11, 1937), RobertFrost described his attempt to teach a class that writingmust be motivated by a wish to be read. Having received aset of papers from a class, Frost asked the students if thethemes had in them anything the writers wished to keep.Apparently, none did, so Frost took the themes and "threwthem unread into the waste basket while the class lookedon. If they didnt care enough for the themes to keep them Ididnt care enough for the themes to read them. I wasntgoing to be a perfunctory corrector of perfunctory writing."The lesson was stark, and Frost conceded that he "couldntdo that a second time" [2, pp. 289-290]. Few teachers woulddare do it even once, quite possibly because perfunctorywriting is all that teachers expect to see and perfunctorycorrecting is all that they are able to provide.

"But," you may say, "this is unfair. Teachers certainlyteachers of engineering do pay attention to what studentsput into their reports, and they do care about clear writing."I wholly agree. I say only that what the teachers pay atten-tion to and what they care about either differ from thematters that will be central to the engineers' professionalwriting or else concern matters that are of secondary impor-tance to the task of being read.To be sure, the teachers are neither negligent nor indif-

ferent, but they read their students' writing under a distincthandicap: they know in advance what the writing is sup-posed to say. Ultimately, the students suffer most fromtheir teachers' liability, for they learn to defend their writing

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GWIASDA: TEACHING ENGINEERS TO WRITE WRONG

by saying that "my reader will know what I mean." Peoplewho know the message in advance, however, are not thereaders for whom writing usually is intended. As trainers ofthe students, moreover, teachers concentrate their readingupon the demonstrations of the students' technical com-petence. Finally, through the knowledge of the intendedmessage and through a necessary attention to method orprocedure, teachers understandably limit their editorialemendations to the more grievous misphrasings and themore apparent, but secondarily important, errors in gram-mar, punctuation, and spelling. Unintentionally, they traintheir students in bad habits of writing: the bad habits ofignoring the audience for a document, thinking that proof ofcompetence is the central purpose of an engineer's writing,and construing the crucial task of revision to consist of littlemore than cleaning out the clunkers and correcting thegrammatical goofs within a draft. Such bad habits are, Ibelieve, a major cause of the poor writing in business andindustry or anywhere else, for that matter. They promptthe easy excuse that "everyone knows engineers can'twrite," when the more likely truth is that engineers havebeen ill-prepared in how and what to write.

Things have not changed much since 1962, when West-inghouse conducted a study of the writing done by and forits employees. After the results came in, Westinghouseengineers were advised to "discard the habits of an engineerand replace them with the habits of an author." The newhabits were to include writing technical reports "from thereader's-and not the writer's point of view" [3, p. 10].Westinghouse managers, in turn, were urged to "make sureeach employee under your supervision knows what hisreport is to do, how it is to be used, and who is going to useit" [4, p. 3]. Unless all the advice was gratuitous, manywriters were not sufficiently attentive to their readers andthose readers' needs.My own knowledge of the writing done in industry sug-

gests that the habits of the engineer still take precedenceover the habits of an author. An engineer who supervisesthe design of chemical processing plants once complainedto me of the reports prepared by the obviously bright andconscientious men and women who came to him fresh fromcollege. The reports were rich in detail about the engineers'ingenuity in developing their designs, but the reports ig-nored or buried the answers to the two questions of fore-most importance: will the process work and what will itcost? Similarly, while assisting a group of engineers em-ployed by a large corporation, I learned of their disap-pointment over having too little influence upon the manu-facturing and marketing decisions made by their company'smanagement. I found that the engineers' reports and memoswere always clear in defining proposed changes and rec-ommended choices, and were always explicit in explainingthe way that the change would be accomplished or thechoice implemented. The reports said little, however, aboutwhy the proposed or recommended step was desirable.While the habits of an author would have revealed thatmanagement is most concerned with the "why," the habitsof an engineer produced an emphasis on the "how."

Describing the how rather than explaining the why is,however, precisely what preoccupies students in their writ-ing for classes. Teachers of engineering courses could pos-sibly alter that emphasis by giving assignments that requirereports like those prepared by practicing engineers. Forinstance, I know of a Department of Civil Engineering inwhich students taking a course in water supply and wastedisposal were to evaluate a given town's water supply anddistribution facilities, and then to direct the report of theirfindings and recommendations to the town's City Councilrather than to the CE professor.

Although such assignments are commendable for makingstudents conscious of writing to a specific audience for aparticular purpose, they are, finally, unlikely to eliminatethe nuts-and-bolts detail that an engineering professor mustsee but that no council-member (or any other "lay" reader)would ever slog through. Even with the keenest desire toprepare students for on-the-job writing, teachers of engi-neering courses cannot forsake their responsibility to seethat students have mastered the appropriate methods andprinciples for solving problems. Furthermore, as long asengineering classes grow ever more crowded, few professorswill be ready or able to require that reports be rewritten andresubmitted so that they may be read anew. The alreadyoverburdened professors are even less likely to have thetime for conferring with students to define the full extent ofneeded correction and rewriting. Yet no clear writing is everachieved without lots of rewriting. One of the better writersI know an engineer, by the way declares as his first ruleof writing, "Ain't nobody never gonna see my first drafts."First drafts, though, are almost all that students get aroundto writing in their courses.From research into ways of teaching writing to early

grade schoolchildren, Donald H. Graves (University ofNew Hampshire) has found that the revision process fol-lows an identifiable pattern. The writer begins by correctingmechanical errors such as misspellings, then brings the textinto line with stylistic conventions like punctuation, andfinally advances to the addition, deletion, and rearrange-ment of material to achieve greater clarity and coherence.Although these steps are reiterative rather than mutuallyexclusive, the last stage comes only with the writer's aware-ness of audience [5]. This last and most important stage is, Ibelieve, the one most likely to be ignored in the writing thatstudents do for undergraduate courses.

I have seen many so-called "second" and "third" draftsthat students dutifully prepare. Usually, they differ fromthe first draft only in the removal of the more glaringglitches in grammar or spelling, a prettifying of someungainly phrasing, and maybe an occasional addition ordeletion of a sentence. Perhaps no more is called for whenthe writing is not meant to be of any moment to anyonespecial. What the students do, in any case, is still a long wayfrom representing revision.

Revision has to be governed by a clear sense of audienceand purpose. Tidying up the messy spots is one of the lessimportant, albeit necessary, parts of revising. Teachers,however, may speak as though the messy spots were the

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whole of what "bad" writing is. Bad writers are studentswho clutter their reports with mispellings, who fail to rec-

ognize that the pronoun which is used for restrictive clausesis "that," and who apparently never learned that preposi-tions are not for ending sentences with (sic). While suchpoints of style and grammar concern me, too, they are notthe chief impediments to clear writing.

Consider, for instance, the two sentences below, bothtaken from documents prepared by working engineers.Which of them more exemplifies "bad" writing?

1) After a roaring beginning of project 3D/4D and a

subsequent becalming in the doldrums of the start-upperiod, we are again running hard for daylight.

2) During my visit to the Dallas plant, it was agreed thatthe contingency funds from project AT-3 would be divertedto project TT-6 to expedite its completion.

Certainly, the first sentence has problems. The writerapparently takes the doldrums to be somewhere discourag-ingly far from an opponent's goal line, or else has some

curious notions about sailing. Nevertheless, despite the dis-traction of the mixed metaphor, the sentence does convey a

rudimentary message.

The second sentence does the opposite: it omits a keypiece of information. Though it is grammatically "correct,"it neglects to name the parties to the agreement, and thatneglect is deadly. Only the reckless reader would dare as-

sume that the agreement has any validity. For all that thereader knows, it may have included only the writer and a

junior engineer, neither of whom has authority to reallocatebudgeted funds.My fear, based upon the testimony of my students and

the evidence of the documents I see, is that the writing donein engineering courses will encourage sentences like thesecond one. The passive voice seems a nearly sacred devicefor the supposedly "objective" reporting that engineeringstudents do. In truth, the passive does have proper andlegitimate uses, but the concealment of central informationis not among them. Too often, the passive is simply theperfect vehicle for documents that record material of no

intended consequence to anyone at all. Better the mixedmetaphor that still makes a point than the tidy sentencethat omits a central one.

But now, let me offer another two sentences. Again,which is the more striking example of bad writing?

I) The lack of involvement by Pressure Specialists in thepurchase and design approval of tanks, pressure vessels,and other similar equipment is frequently not happening.

2) American-Western European relations have been im-portant since the post-World War II era because of U.S.private investment in Western Europe.No one who is at least half-awake can read the first sen-

tence without sensing that the message is garbled. There is

much to ponder in a lack that is frequently not happening.Nevertheless, one can get a fair idea of the writer's probableintent. The sentence is certainly not good, but it is notnearly so bad as the second. The second sentence typifiesthe most pernicious writing of all-seemingly sensical non-

sense. What is the "post-World War II era?" Presumably,we are now in that era, but we cannot speak of something's

happening since the time we are in. Perhaps the writermeant "since 1945." What date the writer meant, however,is of no real consequence, for the rest of the sentence isabsurdly false. By any measure, the relations betweenEurope and America have been important for a period wellpreceding 1945, World War 11, or any post-World War IIera. The sentence simply fills space; it carries no intelligentmessage whatsoever.

In confessing to a worry that sentences like the secondone would pass without comment in the writing done forengineering teachers, I return to what I said at the begin-ning: engineering classes may be the poorest of places tolearn how to write. The habits of an engineer are not thehabits of an author, and teachers of engineering coursessuffer unavoidable restrictions and liabilities in showingstudent-writers how to think and function like an author.Through writing courses taught outside of engineeringdepartments, students have a better chance to acquire thehabits of writing to be read, of remembering the reader andthe reader's needs, and of regarding early drafts with a senseof suspicion rather than satisfaction. I hope, however, that Ihave said nothing to discourage my colleagues in engineer-ing from continuing to insist upon the best possible writingfrom their students. Any editorial response to a student'swriting, even one limited to the breaches of grammar andgood style, is better than no response at all. Students mustbenefit from knowing that their professors, like their even,tual employers, do care about writing. They will gain fromknowing that expressing ideas clearly and exactly is asimportant to the work of engineers as is following soundprinciples and reliable practices. Neither the teachers ofengineering courses nor the teachers of technical writingcourses can by themselves turn students into capable writ-ers. Working together, however, these teachers can makeclassrooms fine places for students to learn about writing.

REFERENCES[I] J. Barzun, Teacher in America. New York: Doubleday, 1954.[2] L. Untermeyer, Ed., The Letters ofRobert Frost to Louis Untermeyer.

New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963.[3] What to Report, Westinghouse Electric Corp., Pittsburgh, PA, 1962.[4] Managing Report Writing, Westinghouse Electric Corp., Pittsburgh,

PA, 1962 (emphasis in original).[5] A. Brandt, "Writing Readiness," Psychol. Today, vol. 16, pp. 55-59,

Mar. 1982.

Karl E. Gwiasda was born in Chicago, IL, onNovember 2, 1937. He received the B.S.Ch.E.degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology,Chicago, in 1955, the B.A. degree in English fromButler University, Indianapolis, IN, in 1964, andthe M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from NorthwesternUniversity, Evanston, IL, in 1966 and 1969,respectiey

Since 1969 he has been on the faculty of IowaState University, Ames, where he is an AssociateProfessor of English and serves as Vice-Chairman

of the program in technology and social change. Prior to his graduate study,he worked six years in industry. At present, he teaches courses in technicalwriting, British literature, and technology and social change. His particularinterest is the relationship between literature and science.

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