Communicating in Civil Engineering

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Authors & Contributors

Dave Alciatore, Mechanical Engineering Professor

Most engineering writing is rather dry. I usually count off for story telling, especially when students should be describing what they did and how they did it. If the material is straightforward and simple, it should be presented in a straightforward and simple way. Typically, it’s not professional nor appropriate to liven writing with stories. On the other hand, I’ve read some publications where analogies, anecdotes, and metaphors were used to depict a concept. One example was to show the limitations of technology. In the article, the writer compared a robot to an ant in a bath tub. Like the ant with its sensory limitations, the robot also has limitations. The conclusion was that a robot can’t operate in certain environments. It makes sense, though, that this type of writing is used with this subject matter. After all, in behavior based robotics, writers build comparisons between living creatures to show how we want robots to act. Usually a writer has to have a solid reputation in the field before readers will accept this type of writing.