Engineering Writing and Writing Engineering

Out of the four readings for this week, the one that caught my attention (and my interest) the most was “Engineering Writing/Writing Engineering” by Dorothy A. Winsor. This was more interesting to me because it sought to fill the gap of “how engineers writing would look when contemporary views about the textual shaping of knowledge are applied” (342) Also I find it interesting to try to bring someone over to our side, so in clear terms, make our engineer who doesn’t think that writing is a major component of his work realize that in fact it is. Winsor shares her own feeling of this at the end of her paper. She makes note of how, as a person of the English field, she is a little biased however, science is the “better” more important field in many people’s minds and to have an engineer understand the importance of writing within his scientific discipline.

This also applies to how I want my students who are getting in to engineering to be. If I could, I would assign them this reading. They are still young, and hopefully through what I have taught so far, they have gotten a small bit of why learning the basic writing skills I am trying to instill in them is important.

“The engine, rather than a document, is “final publication” for the engineer.” (343)

This statement, made at the beginning of Winsor’s paper, exhibits the mentality of a generalized “engineer”. This however does make sense and one can keep that in mind while reading the rest of the paper. I think that this is an interesting view to take because I have not thought of it that way. For the writer, the publication of a work is the “final product”, but for the engineer, any writing is merely part of the interpretation and the journey to get to the product, which in this case would be a more fuel efficient engine. This is understandable, however to devalue the writing that is part of the transmission of information within their field is not at all helpful. Winsor’s paper showed to some small degree that writing is of course important to an engineer and also goes to shape how they produce their work and other writing.

“Knowledge may be defined as that which most people in a discourse community are convinced of, and what a discourse community is convinced of is indicated by the texts it has accepted.” (343)

This connects directly to something we have read earlier in the semester, though at this moment I am unable to pinpoint it. The part of this reading which connects well, deals with the socially constructed understanding of a discourse or a community. Because it is socially constructed and socially accepted, it is true; and that in turn goes to shape how society thinks. It is a never ending cycle that progresses and works around within itself. For this quote from the paper, combined with other discussions within her paper, one can see the engineering knowledge world as being one that is shaped by certain ideas that currently exist as well as those already written in past engineering texts. This second, crucial idea completes Winsor’s work.

“These engineers seem to be explaining these actions to one another and most importantly to themselves so that those actions would square with their ideal notion of themselves and their work. They were, in other words, writing themselves as engineers.” (347)

Winsor, D. A. (1990). “Engineering writing/writing engineering.” In J. Johnson-Eilola & S. A. Selber (Eds.), Central works in technical communication (pp. 341–350). New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2004.