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Writing Skill

Background

The era of international communication and


advanced technology

Bring chances for engineers to convey technical


information in English for various purposes.

Engineering students need to be equipped with

Adequate writing ability so they can communicate technical


information clearly.

Good English writing skill can be a contributing factor to


their professional recognition and career prospect.

Writing Skill

The goal of this topic (writing skill) is

to train students in writing clear, concise and


effective English.

Syllabus Outline, this topic consists of four


stages:
a. Preparation stage (writing short essay)
b. Tools Acquisition Stage (grammar)
c. Summary writing stage
d. Composition stage

a. Writing Skill: preparation stage (1)

This is the stage for building up students'


confidence or reshaping their perceptions of
English writing.
To start with, write a few short essays on topics
you are very familiar with

Write an essay about your home, consists of at


least 100 words (about 10 lines)

Hint: use the words and structures you are


familiar with

d. Writing Skill: Composition Stage

This is the stage where students practice some


common patterns of technical writing with the
application of skills taught at previous stages.

Some common patterns including:


1. Writing definitions
2. Writing processes
3. Writing comparisons and contrasts
4. Writing analysis

d. Writing Skill: Composition Stage


1. Writing definitions
Writing a definition is frequently used in technical writing. There are
two kind of definition:
1. sentence definition
The typical form is:
____ is a kind /form/category/device/type of (class) that
( distinguishing feature.)
Example:
A capacitor is an electronic device that is used to ....
2. Extended definition
One can write an extended definition by adding extra information, such as by
giving examples, analogies, descriptions of physical characteristics,
components, and functions.

Formal Sentence Definitions


The term
defined

Class to
which the
term belongs

Characteristics (details
about the term)

When you write the reference to the class to which the term
belongs;

It sets up a larger frame of reference or context.

It gives readers something familiar to associate the term with.

The term may belong to a class of tools, diseases, geological


processes, electronic components; it may be a term from the
field of medicine, computer science, agriculture, reprographics,
or finance.

Avoid vague references to the class the term belongs to: for
example, instead of calling a concussion an "injury" or botulism
a "medical problem," call them something more specific like "a
serious head injury" and "a severe form of food poisoning,"
respectively.

1. Lightning is a powerful sudden flow of


electricity (an electrostatic discharge)
accompanied by thunder that occurs during an
electric storm.

1. A data warehouse is a copy of transaction


data specifically structured for querying and
reporting.

d. Writing Skill: Composition Stage (3)


Writing definitions

Practice
1. Write sentence definition for the following
terms:
a. Computer
b. Smartphone
c. Computer network
d. C language

d. Writing Skill: Composition Stage (2)


Writing definitions

Writing a definition is frequently used in technical writing. There


are two kind of definition:

1. sentence definition
The typical form is:
____ is a kind /form/category/device/type of (class) that ( distinguishing
feature.)
Example:
A capacitor is an electronic device that is used to ....

2. Extended definition
One can write an extended definition by adding extra information,
such as by giving examples, analogies, descriptions of physical
characteristics, components, and functions.

A data warehouse is a copy of transaction data


specifically structured for querying and reporting. It
collects, transforms, and stores integrated sets of
historical data from multiple operational systems and
feeds them to one or more data marts. It may also
provide end-user access to support enterprise views of
data.
Data warehouse is distinctly different from the
operational data used and maintained by day-to-day
operational systems. Among the difference are
Operational data

Data warehouse

Detailed

Summarized, refined

Transaction driven

Analysis driven

Practice
2. Write extended definitions about one term that
you are familiar with (or choose one of
these terms):
a. Computer
b. Smartphone
c. Computer network
d. C language

d. Writing Skill: Composition Stage


2. Writing processes

A process is written to instruct or to inform.

A clear description of a process involves


sequencing the stages, locating the stages,
describing what happens at each stage and
explaining what happens at each stage.

Most operational process descriptions follow a


chronological order, which can be shown by
using sequence words like first, next then,
subsequently, at this point, later, afterwards,
finally and so on.

d. Writing Skill: Composition Stage


2. Writing processes
Click to edit Master text
styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level

Look at the diagram showing how


chocolate is manufactured.

Practice writing a description of


the process. First, you will need a
sentence to introduce your text.
Choose the best sentence from
the options below then proceed.
Chocolate is manufactured from
the beans of trees.
Chocolate is a natural product
made from the bean of the cacao
tree.
Chocolate comes from trees and
is made into many different
things.

d. Writing Skill: Composition Stage


3. Writing comparison and contrast

We use this type of writing to relate the similarities and


differences among things. This writing technique can be
applied when it is necessary to compare and contrast different
proposals, solutions to problems, and improvement or design
change of a conventional product with a new product.

Here are some suggested topics for writing comparison and


contrast.

Compare and contrast two generations of a product, e.g. computer/


stereo/robot

Compare and contrast two brand names of a product, e.g. cellular


phone, sports equipment, electronic dictionary, bicycles etc.

d. Writing Skill: Composition Stage


4. writing analysis

Technical writing is used to convince someone of something.

An effective approach to convince others is

to support the broad general statements with details by

begin with a generalization or topic sentence that covers the whole topic
and then
substantiate the generalization at a more specific level with facts,
examples, statistics and other details.
Example: It is difficult for foreign students to adjust to life in a new
country for several reasons. First,..........Second,.......

Write a more detailed analysis on the following suggested topics:

Analyze the reasons for an engineering student to study English

Analyze the effects of the Internet to the general public

Analyze the causes of a TV program/ movie / song for being very


popular

d. Writing Skill: Composition Stage


Exercise

Write a technical essay about safe electrical wiring in


homes OR developing good mobile software. It must
be your own writing, do not plagiarize.

The essay should include

Definition and/or extended definition

A description of process

Comparison and/or contrast

Analysis

Conclusion

Your essay is to be included in your writing skill


practice journal.

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