Task 4: Writing in Engineering Classes

Since we are still on the very basic stage of engineering study, we have not encountered much writing in our engineering classes yet in the Sem1 modules. However, taking my previous writing experience for the GEK module as example, the major difficulties that I have are vocabulary and academic writing style.

On the one hand, most of the writings in engineering classes are related to certain academic areas, such as MLE1101 is about material science and engineering, and EG1109 is about mechanical engineering, which are not usually mentioned in our daily casual conversation and involve a lot of specific academic vocabularies. Therefore, when I write on such topics, I usually feel that I’m repeating words and the essay looks very unprofessional and boring due to my lack of academic vocabulary. To resolve this problem, I have to read a lot on the topic that I’m going to write about beforehand so as to gather some vocabularies on the particular subject. In the long run, I think I’ll consist on reading academic essays and news articles and accumulate my academic vocabularies.

On the other hand, another most serious difficulty I met in my writing is the academic style of writing. In academic writing, we need to use an objective tune and cite examples and references for each of the supporting points. However, in my writing, I tend to explain my point base on my own logic and have difficulty in citing the appropriate examples. In addition, the format of academic writing also needs to be observed. In resolving this difficulty, same effort is required, that is to read more academic essays or journals and learn from their writing style. More practices may also help in familiarizing with the format of citation and reference.