ENGR 101 Learning Skills Centre. Common Writing Errors The town of High Boulders is above the snowline in winter, this means that building projects’ have.

ENGR 101

Learning Skills Centre

Common Writing Errors

The town of High Boulders is above the snowline in winter, this means that building

projects’ have to be completed by April. This is a problem for the company that is

laying the pipes for the town’s new wastewater system. The stupid pipe

construction dudes who have fouled things up by missing deadlines. You can’t

build a wastewater system with no pipes. Funding is a nightmare too. The

Government’s threatening to pull the plug on it’s promised grant for the High

Boulders project which has been on the cards for nearly ten years and which

needs to be done because the people there have health issues because of the

waste water oozing into the drinking supply which comes from a well at the end of

the town it is like being in a second world country, commented Town Councillor

Rocky Ledger. With not being able to round up enough skilled workmen the

company manager of Super Sewers is in deep despair on top of all their other

problems. Whose going to sort out all this mess?

Points to consider:

Avoid colloquial language

Do not use first person (I, we) and never, second (you)

Do not use contractions can’t = cannot. Government’s = Government is

Avoid emotive personal language stupid, deep despair, nightmare

Phrasal verbs sort out = resolve, round up = to collect, foul (something) up = to negatively affect

Comma splice

Points to consider:

Sentence fragment

Run-ons

Rhetorical questions

Pronoun antecedent disagreement Company manager … on top of all their other problems

Apostrophe errors

Clarity

Revised version

Super Sewers, the company which is constructing a new wastewater

system for the town of High Boulders, has encountered many

problems. There is an obvious need for this system because waste

water is contaminating the drinking water supply, but it seems

possible that the Government may withdraw the grant that was

promised a decade ago. The pipes must be laid before the winter

snows begin, but late delivery by the pipe construction company has

delayed the schedule. The company has also been unable to recruit

sufficient skilled workmen. In view of these difficulties, it is possible

that the project may never be completed.

Structuring the report

Title - short, relevant title.

Introduction - context (focus / main subject)

Explain the project you have chosen

Outline the tasks that will need to be done

Aim/objective (what you intend to achieve)

Introduce the people necessary for the project (their main function)

Significance of the information contained in the report.

Body of the report

Planning saves time

Planning also results in a balanced report

Reading

If you find something that looks relevant before you take notes:

Read the first and last paragraphs (introduction and conclusion)

Skim the section headings and read the topic sentences of each paragraph to give you the main points.

Note-taking – Cornell method

Bibliographic details: author, date, title, publisher, place.

Headings or Themes

Notes or Content Personal comments

Reactions/ Insights/Cross-references/ Ideas/Confusions/ Questions

This column is used to indicate which theme the notes relate to.

This column is for your notes: direct quotes/paraphrasing/ summarising main points

This column is where you critically evaluate the information, asking questions, responding and interpreting and sorting out points into a hierarchy of relevance.

Note-taking – Cornell method

Bibliographic details: Rowe, M. (2006). Is engineering a profession? TMWorld.com Retrieved 10 Feb 2009 from http://www.tmworld.com/article/CA6367336.html

Headings of themes

Notes or content Personal comments(Reactions /Insights/ Cross-references /Ideas/Confusions /Questions)

Definition of professional

Rowe (2006) reports that some believe Engineering is not a profession because there is “gross deficiency” in the areas of registration and in defining what the first professional degree syllabus should cover (p. 1).

Disagrees with the idea of engineering as a profession. If not a profession, how would you counter that?

Although New Zealand currently has a wide range of research ventures within the many branches of biotechnology, its rating on the international market is relatively low in terms of commercialisation. New Zealand’s main biotechnological strength derives from its primary production sector which is farming. Years spent genetically improving plant and animal species has produced a successful biotechnological agriculture (agritech) industry, which generated an estimated $811million in 2005 (MoRST, 2006). Nevertheless, despite over 350 organisations producing groundbreaking work, New Zealand has yet to see this kind of commercialisation in other biotechnology sectors. For example, New Zealand is considered a world leader in primary drug discovery and research, yet the pharmaceutical sector barely registers on the international pharmaceutical radar (Cleland, 2007). The reasons for this are the slow growing New Zealand economy and its relatively small business market size in comparison to multinational companies; lack of financial capital for investment; insufficient technological expertise; and its distance from global markets (MoRST LEK Report, 2006, cited in Helm, 2008). Although New Zealand maintains a strong commendable position in the global research market, this advanced status does not produce, manufacture, nor export products.

Topic sentence (main claim – point of argument)

Sub-claim 1

Evidence

Sub-claim 2 (developing the argument)

Evidence

Support

Wrap up sentence

Evidence

Relevant

up to date

drawn from reputable sources

factually accurate

correctly referenced

Referencing – APA citation style guide

In-text Referencing

Referring to a book or any source with an author in your text:

This is becoming an international issue (Yates, 2007).

or

Yates (2007) believes that this is becoming an international issue.

If you quote directly, put the exact words in double quotation marks and include the page number in the reference:

Smith states, “This is a major breakthrough for mechanical engineering” (2007, p. 22).

The Reference List

The Reference List

Sources are presented in alphabetical order by the surname of the author (or by the source title if there is no author).

A book in a reference list:

Author’s family name; initials; year date of publication in round brackets; name of book in italics; city of publication; name of publisher:

Yates, J.K. (2007). Global Engineering and Construction. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Examples of APA referencing is on the Learning Skills on-line resources page: www.learningskills.canterbury.ac.nz

Conclusion

Gives a sense of completion

Brief and to the point

Addresses the problem/aim set out in the introduction

Main Slide with Bulleted List

Blank Slide with Bulleted List