Herramientas y fundamentos del AED que se aplican al objeto de investigación.

As noted, there are discrepancies between what instructors believe engineers read and write on in their careers and the assignments given in their technical writing, technical

communication, and professional writing classes. Instructors note that engineers spend considerable time of their day reading documents, yet they seldom assign reading technical documents as part of the course requirements. In addition, they are often aware of the primary documents that engineers write while in their professional careers, but they do not typically emphasize the same types of documents in their classes. The reasons for disparity between workplace requirements and technical writing classes are not clear, but there are various avenues that should be explored to help determine why the gap exists and how to close it.

The first thing that we must remember is that most technical writing instructors are not trained in engineering. While schools are depending on technical writing instructors to teach

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Cover Topic with Appropriate Detail Use Percise Language Provide True Understanding

Use simple, direct language Be grammatically Correct Describe Information's Importance and Implications Instructors' Responses Engineers' Responses

engineering students the necessary skills to effectively communication in their future

professional careers, those technical writing instructors typically have no engineering experience, so they do not have the background to bring real-life examples from the engineering field. In addition, the instructors are typically in departments outside of the college of engineering, but rather English or communication departments. As a result, the instructors have limited access to engineering faculty, making it difficult to get feedback and suggestions from others who are familiar with the demands of professional engineering.

In addition to limited experiences with engineering, many instructors asked to teach introductory technical writing, technical communication, or professional writing classes do not have experience in technical writing, either professionally or academically. Rather, they are often English professors (sometimes with a specialty in literature) who were asked to teach

introduction to technical writing class. When instructors are asked to teach a subject that is out of their area of expertise, they often fall back to assignments that they are comfortable with. For composition professors, this comfort level includes standard research documents, such as technical proposals, which resemble the research proposal that most academics have experience producing and reading. So it makes sense that the proposal would be a common assignment in technical writing classes taught by professors with limited experience in technical writing. Although the research from this study did not provide evidence that the instructors had limited experience in technical writing, it is a consideration that should be explored to determine how heavily the academic and professional background of the technical writing instructor affects the assignments required for completion of the course.

Another consideration when exploring the limitations of assignments in the technical writing classroom is that many instructors are not aware of the professional business standards.

While some professors have personal experience working in the corporate world, many do not. Instead, they took a direct path from undergraduate to graduate school, ending with a job at a college or university. So the professors do not have experience working in a corporation, which has different approaches and procedures than academia. Instructors are asked to prepare students for future careers, but they may not be aware of the intricacies of those careers, especially when the future career is outside of the research field of the professor, as engineering is for many instructors of technical communication. This lack of experience can limit the professors’ ability to create assignments that parallel the reading and writing that the students will do in their future careers. It appears, for example, that instructors of technical writing are unaware of the

importance of meeting minutes in professional engineering settings. It is possible that this misunderstanding is not limited to instructors of technical writing, but rather is applicable to many fields.

Of course, if the instructors have no engineering experience and little-to-no technical writing experience, it can be concluded that most instructors do not have access to engineering documents, which would present a problem with getting students to read sample documents for analysis. Instructors are often limited to sample documents provided by the textbook, which are not necessarily from the field, especially considering that the textbooks are seldom written by engineering professionals. If the instructors do not have access to documents that engineers typically use in their professional careers, they are limited in what they can require students to read. In order to combat this issue, instructors of technical writing, technical communication, and professional writing would benefit from being reaching out to a professional engineer, or at the very least, a professor of engineering, to help identify and provide material for students to read and analyze in their technical writing classes.

For those instructors with limited access to real-world sample documents, the textbook is often used as the primary source for course materials. The textbook can easily become the leading source for course design. There are a few problems with this approach. The primary issue is the intended textbook audience. Technical writing survey textbooks are designed to work for a variety of majors, from liberal arts degrees such as English and history to STEM fields like engineering and biology. Because the books are not specifically designed for engineering majors, it is not logical for the textbooks to include engineering-specific documents. But the lack of sample documents specific to the field makes it difficult for instructors to provide reading material that resembles the material students will read in their future careers, and it makes it difficult for instructors to design courses that have assignments that resemble the writing done by professional engineers. In addition, the textbook authors are seldom professional engineers, which again is logical based on the intended audience of the textbooks. But the lack of

engineering background can be detrimental when the technical writing classes are the primary course for teaching future engineers the necessary writing skills.