The Difficulties in Writing in Engineering Classes
There are always some writing assignments in engineering courses, such as experiment reports, some questions which need to be answered in words, and sometimes essays. Just as same with other academic writings, there comes along with the difficulties in writing.
To start with, there are different difficulties with different kinds of writing, even within a same task. For instance, when writing an experiment report, the most common writing assignment in engineering classes, it needs high accuracy in describing the processes with all the single words. It makes a big difference to the experiment result if a single word changes. Here are three very similar sentences: (1) Pour HCl into NaCO2 slowly; (2) Pour HCl into NaCO2; (3) Pour XXml (some certain large amount) HCl into NaCO2 at once. As we can see, the results are totally different between the first one and the third one, while the second one can be considered wrong due to its inaccuracy. Besides the language, the organization can have the same importance, because for almost every experiment, it should be done continuously, thus requires a very clear flow of statements for the processes. To sum up, it should be accurate, clear and quite straight forward. In contrast, when writing the discussion section, it requires more about contents (ideas) and logic.
To solve these problems, of course the first thing is to work hard to get clear concepts and ideas about what I am writing. In other words, it is to make the content valuable. Apart from this, it is also very important to improve the language for writing. In fact, in the past time, if I am mot sure about my expressions, I would just refer to some other reports to check whether it is usually reported in a certain way. However, it is only a temporary solution obviously. I think I really need to read more and learn more, not only about the academic reports, but also other good English works. Only in this way, I can accumulate more knowledge and experience to master the language well. At the same time, practice plays an inevitably role, since it is always the best way to understand and remember. All in all, although the difficulties in writing in engineering classes may come up in different forms, they can be solved if the academic knowledge are well-mastered and language can be improved.
