EISE-101: Introduction to Engineering Academic Writing (PDF)

EISE-101: Introduction to Engineering Academic Writing By Dr. Mohammed Bazroun EISE-101 1st Semester 2025 Academic Writing Written Communication...

EISE-101: Introduction to Engineering Academic Writing By Dr. Mohammed Bazroun EISE-101 1st Semester 2025 Academic Writing Written Communication o Detailed Technical Report o Executive Summary o Memos Types of Technical o E-mails Communication Oral Communication o Face-to-face conversations o Telephonic o Meetings o Seminars o Conferences Graphical Communication o Engineering Drawings o Charts EISE-101 1st Semester 2025 Written Communication ❑ Written is important parts of engineering tasks. Written communications might be brief, as in progress reports or short memos, or longer and follow a certain format requiring calculations, graphs, charts, and engineering drawings. EISE-101 1st Semester 2025 Written Communication Types of Writing 1- Personal 2- Academic 3- Professional EISE-101 1st Semester 2025 Written Communication What is a Thesis? ❑ “A written work resulting from original research, one submitted for a higher degree in a university”. ❑ A thesis is a logical reconstruction With a single clear message EISE-101 1st Semester 2025 Written Communication Why write a thesis? Science aims to find pattern, trends, It will advance our knowledge and structure in the experiment Good scientific writing It will be read by others aims to bring forward in the text EISE-101 1st Semester 2025 Written Communication Addresses a problem or series of problems Describes what was known about the problem(s) How were the problems solved? What’s in Identify what else need to be solved? (what is unknown?) the thesis? How further progress can be made to solve the problem? How are you going to solve it? What is your interpretation of the results? EISE-101 1st Semester 2025 Written Communication Structure of a Thesis o What this study? o Why? o What has already done? o What was done? o What is known? o What is missing? o What are the results? o What is unknown? 1. Abstract 2. Introduction 3. Literature Review o What do we show? o What is it showing? o What is meant by the results? o What we have done? o How to represent? o What’s known now? o How it is done? o What are future directions? 4. Methodology 5. Results 6. Discussion EISE-101 1st Semester 2025 Written Communication Prepare a thesis outline Break the thesis into chapters; list the major sections in each Discuss with your supervisor Getting Started Prepare a chapter outline Assemble all the data, tables, figures and organize them into a sensible sequence Write Do a section at a time and start with something easy EISE-101 1st Semester 2025 Written Communication Writing the Thesis title ✓ Title reflects content of the thesis. ✓ Use concise but informative title ✓ Be specific & accurate ✓ Avoid jargon and acronym ❑ Physicochemical and Functional Properties of Ozone-Oxidized Starch ❑ Enhancement of drone performance by using Aluminum as construction materials EISE-101 1st Semester 2025 Written Communication Writing the Introduction ❖ The purpose of the Introduction should be to supply sufficient background information to allow the reader to understand and evaluate the results of the present study without needing to refer to previous publications on the topic. ❖ The Introduction should also provide the foundation for the present study. Choose references carefully to provide the most significant background rather than an extensive review of the topic. ❖ A description of the general problem followed by a statement of the specific problem and the motivation for the study EISE-101 1st Semester 2025 Written Communication What do we know about the topic? Provide a comprehensive & critical review of the major findings in the area What we don’t know (gap in knowledge) Identifying what the gaps in our current understanding of What to write in the the field are, and why it is important that these gaps be Introduction? closed What we are now showing A clear statement summarizing what’s known, what needs to be learned, and what your paper aims to accomplish EISE-101 1st Semester 2025 Written Communication Writing a good introduction ❖ The first paragraph should provide a brief background in present tense to establish context, relevance, or nature of the problem, question, or purpose (what is known) ❖ The second paragraph may include the importance of the problem and unclear issues (what is un-known) ❖ The last paragraph should state the rationale, hypothesis, main objective, or purpose (why the study was done). EISE-101 1st Semester 2025 Written Communication Writing a good introduction Example ❖ Start by giving a general background …The construction industry accounted for an average of 6% of the county’s GDP and grew by an average of 11.12% annually over the past 10 years. Additionally, government spending on construction over the past decade is estimated to be about $260 billion… ❖ Rational & problem statement ……. The construction industry in Saudi Arabia depends on a primarily expatriate workforce, and this generates several issues stemming from differences in national culture. Laborers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia encounter differences in culture, customs, and lifestyle that might conflict with their own values and living habits….. ❖ Connecting the problem statement to the objective (reason for undertaking the study) The guiding research question for this study is: Does national culture influence construction laborers performance in Saudi Arabia? The answer for this question involves the following objectives: 1. Identifying the major cultural factors affecting construction labor performance in Saudi Arabia. 2. Exploring the relationship between national culture dimensions and labor performance. EISE-101 1st Semester 2025 Written Communication Writing the Literature Review ❖ Literature review is a systematic method for identifying, evaluating, and interpreting the work produced by researchers, scholars, and practitioners. ❖ Literature is about telling a story…kind of a chain story where each writer starts with a partial story created previously by others and expands on it…the existing literature is the story so far… ❖ Literature review is an understanding and synthesis of published work EISE-101 1st Semester 2025 Written Communication Skills for “digesting” the literature EISE-101 1st Semester 2025 Written Communication Any critical review should include… o An assessment of the strengths & weaknesses of some of the theories o A clear understanding of the topic o A citing of all key studies in the subject area o A clear indication of how the review links to your research questions o A definition of the boundaries of your research o A selection & synthesis of existing arguments to form a new perspective o Through gradual enhancement, a clear demarcation of the research problem EISE-101 1st Semester 2025 Written Communication Scope & length of literature review… o Be selective o State the current state of the theory o How far back?(Master’s ~10 years; PhD –further back) o Avoid verbosity o Demonstrate ability to synthesize the body of literature – brief but focused. EISE-101 1st Semester 2025 Written Communication Background information Introduce Topic Describe scope & organization Review past & present literature Clarify purpose Theory All research has a precedent Components of literature review… Integrate key points & make appropriate inferences Be aware of the relationship to your topic Critical appraisal/synthesis Not just a list of the work of others Identify issues highlighted Highlight differences & similarities Identify consensus EISE-101 1st Semester 2025 Written Communication EISE-101 1st Semester 2025 Writing the Methodology 21  Provide detailed methodology used to Provide conduct the experiment Provide sufficient details but it is not Materials & Provide expected to be written like a laboratory Methods manual! (Methodology) section Describe Describe control used Highlight Highlight critical steps or precaution 22 Writing the Results Results section It contains all of the It serves to weave a data to support (or coherent story and refute) the hypothesis must communicate the that was proposed in findings to the reader in the introduction a logical, transparent section manner.  Results section Data presentation - Graph or Table? Tables can be used to display precise numeric values Figures are better for conveying trends or proportions Clear, succinct graphs, charts, photographs, and drawings can quickly convey the primary findings of research  The figure legends should provide a detailed description of the corresponding figure Results Explain each symbol in the figure (typically arrow heads, section arrows, asterisks) Label should be clear (e.g., scale bar on SEM) 27  Tables should be self- explanatory Results section Textual description should summarize & highlight table content (not to repeat) https://image.slidesharecdn.com/tabulationofdata-210216071316/85/biostatistics- tabulation-of-data-11-320.jpg?cb=1668039579 29  Arrange data in logical manner (in table) Cross-check reference to figures/ tables in the text Results section Give proper credit to figures/ tables taken from other sources All statistical analyses, where appropriate, should be described  Describe results briefly Describe specific trends, significant effect, similarity/contrast, exception, limitation, etc.... Data presented in Table 3 shows that the iPhone users in Riyadh’s school were 60 females and 90 males. Also, the data shows that the number of iPhone users is equal to number of Nokia users, as both have 150 users. The majority are iPhone (39%) and Nokia devises (39%) users. The Blackberry phone users represented about 22% of the total users. … 31  The same data are presented in figure (graph) and table Data presented in the table are Common simply stated (without describing the trend, making comparison, pitfalls highlighting anomaly, etc.) Unusual trend in data is ignored (not highlighted) Writing the Discussion  Discussion section TO COMMUNICATE THE TO INDICATE HOW THEY TO DESCRIBE HOW THESE SIGNIFICANCE OF YOUR SUPPORT (OR REFUTE) THE RESULTS ADVANCE THE FINDINGS EXPERIMENTAL FIELD OF STUDY HYPOTHESIS  How thorough is your discussion & interpretation? Have the main point to emerge from the results been picked for discussion? How to Are there links made to the literature? Discuss? Is there enough evidence in your data to attempt at theory building or reconceptualization of the problems?  Discuss results briefly …. Based on the results, most of the students in Riyadh’s schools are using iPhone (39%) and Nokia devises (39%). These findings are in agreement with findings by John (2014) that showed most of students in London’s schools are users of iPhone (37%) and Nokia (43%). ….. The findings from the current study contradict findings by Adam (2013) which showed that Blackberry users among students in Chicago’s schools represented 70% of the total population, while the current study showed that in Riyadh, abut 20% of the students are users of Blackberry devises. This dissimilarity could be due to the …… 36  Use phrases such as... One possible interpretation of the results shown in Figure...include the possibility that... The results shown in Figure 5 are in contradiction to the work of Karim et al. (2000)... These data suggest that... In contrast, Williams et al. (1998) reported that... Writing the Conclusion  What is the strongest and most important statement that you can make from your observations? How to write a conclusion? Refer back to problem posed, and describe the conclusions Should that you reached from carrying out this investigation include the followings: Summarize new observations, new interpretations, and new insights that have resulted from the present work.  What are the contributions of new knowledge that your thesis makes How to write a Does your work suggest interesting further avenues? any conclusion? Should Are there ways in which your work include the could be improved by future researchers? followings: What are the practical (broader) implications of your work?  In conclusion, gaseous ozone successfully oxidized the three types of starches studied, but the oxidation mechanism appeared to differ from that of chemical oxidation. Ozone oxidation introduced more carbonyl groups Example: than carboxyl groups in the starch granules. Under identical conditions, the extent of starch oxidation varied among different types of starch...  Using ozone as an oxidizing agent offers several advantages over hypochlorite. During ozone oxidation, starch is oxidized in a dry state and in the “as is” moisture content condition, whereas hypochlorite oxidation Example: requires use of organic solvents. The dry oxidation process using ozone is simpler than the hypochlorite oxidation process, and it offers 100% product recovery compared to hypochlorite oxidation. Writing the Abstract WHAT IS AN ABSTRACT? An abstract is a snapshot or brief summary of a thesis, conference presentation or journal article. Some aims of the abstract of a journal article are to: Historically contextualize the research in the area Concisely present a problem/research question and your response to it Outline the methodology/methods used in data collection and analysis Indicate findings and discuss/interpret findings Present possible implications of findings he findings Suggest the significance of this contribution to research in the field Possibly indicate the limitations of the research and the prospects for and directions of future research  WHY IMPROVE YOUR WRITING OF ABSTRACTS? “The abstract serves as an advertisement for the article.” (LaPlaca et.al. 2018, p.203) “…the abstract can influence the reviewer to develop a favourable bias toward the manuscript.” (LaPlaca et.al. 2018, p.203) AUTHORIAL ‘VOICE’ IN THE ABSTRACT Personal or Impersonal? Wallwork (2016, p.223) identifies 4 possible styles in writing the abstract and the paper: STYLE 1 “I found that x = y.” (first person singular – active voice) STYLE 2 “We found that x = y.” (first person plural – active voice) STYLE 3 “It was found that x = y.” (passive voice) STYLE 4 “The authors found that x = y. “ (third person plural – active voice)  What tenses should be used in the abstract? The two most common tenses used in an abstract are: PRESENT SIMPLE Describe what author is trying to show: “We show, we investigate…” Describe a common opinion or view of the topic: “The phenomenon is essentially random…” Refer to action carried out in experiments: “We show that such and such is the case…” Give conclusions: “X appears to have a strong positive correlation with Y, despite….” PAST SIMPLE Describe what they did “The authors examined…and found that…” Wallwork (2016, p.225)  What tenses should be used in the abstract? Both the present perfect and the present perfect continuous tenses describe a situation which was true in the past, and is still true now. PRESENT PERFECT “These phenomena have been studied for decades.” PAST PERFECT CONTINUOUS “Such results have been appearing in the literature since 1978” Wallwork (2016, p.225)  Descriptive abstract Is often very short – no more than 100 words. Different Informative Abstract types of Does much more than describe; it is a concise summary of the article. Could be 200-500 words. abstract Structured Abstract An abstract with clearly labelled headings and sections. Can be of variable lengths.  Descriptive abstract Indicates the type of information found in an article Avoids making judgements about the information Does not provide results or conclusions Does have key words; may include purpose, methods and scope More an outline of the work, than a summary; usually a max of 100 words Abstracts - The Writing Center https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/abstracts/  Informative abstract Covers all of the essential points of the paper Summarises the background, purpose, focus, methods, results, findings and conclusions Often comprised of one paragraph – but could be two or even three Length can vary between 200 and 500 words Often used in science, engineering and psychology https://www.victoria.ac.nz/education/pdf/Writing_an_abstract.pdf  Structured abstracts An Example PURPOSE: To summarize the main findings from research on structured abstracts. METHODS: A narrative review of all the relevant papers known to the author was conducted. RESULTS: Authors and readers judged the structured abstracts to be more useful than traditional ones. In 1987 the Ad Hoc Working Group for Critical Appraisal of the Medical Literature proposed guidelines for informative seven-headings abstracts. In 1990 Haynes et al. reconsidered the structured abstract of clinical research and review articles and proposed revised guidelines. Nowadays, most abstracts are informative, and the most commonly used structure is IMRAD (Introduction, Methods, Results And Discussion) format. CONCLUSIONS: There are many variations in the structured-abstract formats prescribed by different journals. But even in recent years, not all abstracts of original articles are structured. More research is needed on a number of questions related to the quality and utility of structured abstracts. Key words: Abstracting and indexing. Review literature. Peer review Guimaraes, C. A. 2006: Structured Abstracts: Narrative Review Acta Cir. Bras. vol.21 no.4 São Paulo July/Aug. 2006  Identify the major objectives and conclusions Identify phrases with keywords in Writing and the methods section effective abstract Identify the major results from the discussion or results section Assemble the above information into a single paragraph  State your hypothesis or method used in the first sentence Omit background information, literature review, and detailed Writing and description of methods effective abstract Remove extra words and phrases Revise the paragraph so that the abstract conveys only the essential information  Check to see if it meets the guidelines Writing and Make sure no grammar or effective spelling errors! abstract Give the abstract to a colleague and ask him/her whether it makes sense  Start out the Abstract by telling exactly what you did and how you did it. Focus on the rationale and ideas of the study and why it's important in the first two sentences. Writing and Example: effective Labor performance is one of the most abstract discussed topics of research in the construction industry. Much of the research focuses on factors related to work management, technique, characteristics, and workforce in use.  In the next few lines, focus on the materials and methods, and the data generated from the study (results). Tell the reader how the data were collected, compiled, and state Writing and statistical significance(s). effective Example: A questionnaire type survey was used as a abstract tool to collect data regarding perceptions of project managers, project coordinators, site engineers and field superintendents on culture factors influencing labor performance.  The end of the Abstract is just as important as the beginning! State the implications of your studies to the field of Writing and scholarship in which you are working. effective Examples: abstract Analysis of the study suggested that culture matters. National culture has both positive and negative influences on the performance of construction labors in Saudi Arabia.  References and citation Terminology: Citation Reference Bibliography Style Plagiarism  References and citation Referencing common styles: Vancouver Harvard Chicago APA (American Psychological Association) AMA (American Medical Association) MLA (Modern Languages Association)  References and citation The Vancouver system: Commonly used in medical and scientific journals.  References and citation Chicago manual style:  References and citation American Psychological Association (APA): Commonly used in psychology, education and other social sciences journals.  References and citation American Medical Association (AMA): Commonly used in medicine and biological sciences journals.  References and citation Modern Language Association (MLA): Commonly used in Literature and art sciences journals.  References and citation Why do we use references? To give credit to the ideas, work of others. To guide the readers and reviewers to find the source of the information. To make the work informative and show the quality. To get recognition and authentication of the work. To address the issue of plagiarism.  References and citation Plagiarism: The copying of others work without acknowledgement. The close paraphrasing of others work. (copy & paste) This includes paragraphs, figures, tables, data... (any type of information!) Programs: IThenticate and Turn it in  References and citation Source of information Books Journals Newspaper/ magazine Conference paper Reports Institutional and government publications Phone calls and oral agreement Meetings Videos Any type of information!  References and citation Element of a reference Author(s) Title of the referenced document Date Publisher Edition Periodicity (volume/ issue/part)  References and citation Common software EndNote RefWork Zotero Word reference  References and citation EndNote Need to buy Applicable to most text files Most professional software Helps in find the required paper from data base Extract citation styles if needed Always uptodate!  References and citation RefWork Free Online website (needs internet) Applicable to MS-Word (use add-on) Can be updated  References and citation Zotero Free software Can be connected to Chrome browser Applicable to MS-Word (use add-on) Can be updated  References and citation MS-Word reference Free Good for one use only