Supporting students’ disciplinary writing in engineering education

As demands for research productivity increase, engineering faculty, particularly untenured junior faculty, must efficiently expedite the development of their graduate students’ disciplinary writing skills. This paper reports on the outcomes of a semester-long graduate course offered to facilitate engineering students’ production of a manuscript ready, or near ready, for submission to a peer-reviewed engineering journal at the end of the semester. Course content addressed the purpose of and information included in each of four sections of a standard engineering research paper. Data generated from course participants and their faculty advisers were used to assess the extent to which course participation resulted in publication submission, textual production in each of four standard article sections, and perceived changes in student writing that was attributable to course participation. Findings suggest implications for policies and practices supporting the development of engineering students as disciplinary writers.

[1]  Ronald E. Hallett,et al.  Teaching Writing in Graduate School , 2011 .

[2]  Joseph D. Novak,et al.  Meaningful learning: The essential factor for conceptual change in limited or inappropriate propositional hierarchies leading to empowerment of learners , 2002 .

[3]  Rowena Murray,et al.  Writing retreat as structured intervention: margin or mainstream? , 2009 .

[4]  Sonia Manuel-Dupont,et al.  Writing‐Across‐the‐Curriculum in an Engineering Program , 1996 .

[5]  Wendy Laura Belcher,et al.  Reflections on Ten Years of Teaching Writing for Publication to Graduate Students and Junior Faculty , 2009 .

[6]  Chandler Stolp,et al.  The Visual Display of Quantitative Information , 1983 .

[7]  David F. Feldon,et al.  Performance-based assessment of graduate student research skills: timing, trajectory, and potential thresholds , 2013 .

[8]  W. Brad Johnson,et al.  The intentional mentor: Strategies and guidelines for the practice of mentoring. , 2002 .

[9]  Bugrahan Yalvac,et al.  Promoting Advanced Writing Skills in an Upper‐Level Engineering Class , 2007 .

[10]  B. Marx.  The Visual Display of Quantitative Information , 1985 .

[11]  Margaret Kiley,et al.  Threshold concepts in research education and evidence of threshold crossing , 2009 .

[12]  Mike Rose,et al.  A Call for the Teaching of Writing in Graduate Education , 2001 .

[13]  Sara Delamont,et al.  Doctoring Uncertainty: , 2001 .

[14]  Briana Eileen Timmerman,et al.  Peer Review In An Undergraduate Biology Curriculum: Effects On Students’ Scientific Reasoning, Writing and Attitudes , 2008 .

[15]  David F. Feldon,et al.  Factors Affecting the Occurrence of Faculty-Doctoral Student Coauthorship , 2012 .

[16]  Johannes Weber,et al.  Publish or perish: a systematic review of interventions to increase academic publication rates , 2006 .

[17]  B. Kamler.  Rethinking doctoral publication practices: writing from and beyond the thesis , 2008 .

[18]  Anne-Barrie Hunter,et al.  Becoming a scientist: The role of undergraduate research in students' cognitive, personal, and professional development , 2007 .

[19]  Corrine Glesne,et al.  Becoming Qualitative Researchers: An Introduction , 1991 .

[20]  W. Marsden.  I and J , 2012 .

[21]  Susan M. Lord.  Integrating Effective 'Writing to Communicate' Experiences in Engineering Courses: Guidelines and Examples* , 2009 .

[22]  Robert L. McDonald,et al.  Writing in Engineering Courses , 2000 .

[23]  Denise Strickland,et al.  Development of a ‘universal’ rubric for assessing undergraduates' scientific reasoning skills using scientific writing , 2011 .