Somerton, C. W., & Gunn, C. J. (2011, June), Improving the Public Communication Skills of Graduate Students  Paper presented at 2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Vancouver, BC. 10.18260/1-2--18123

\bibitem{asee_peer_18123}
  Somerton, C. W., \& Gunn, C. J. (2011, June), \emph{Improving the Public Communication Skills of Graduate Students}
  Paper presented at 2011 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Vancouver, BC.
  10.18260/1-2--18123

Craig W. Somerton and Craig J. Gunn.  "Improving the Public Communication Skills of Graduate Students".  2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Vancouver, BC, 2011, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2011.  https://peer.asee.org/18123 Internet.  07 Jan, 2025

\bibitem{asee_peer_18123}
  Craig W. Somerton and Craig J. Gunn.
  "Improving the Public Communication Skills of Graduate Students".
  \emph{2011 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Vancouver, BC, 2011, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2011.
  https://peer.asee.org/18123 Internet.  07 Jan, 2025

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_18123
author = "Craig W. Somerton and Craig J. Gunn"
title = "Improving the Public Communication Skills of Graduate Students"
booktitle = "2011 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2011"
month = "June"
address = "Vancouver, BC"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/18123}
number = {10.18260/1-2--18123}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -          Improving the Public Communication Skills of Graduate StudentsMore and more engineers have found themselves in the situation of communicating theirtechnical work directly with the public. This might include press briefings, customerinteractions, or government hearings. Often the engineers who are involved in thesecommunications are graduate level (M.S. or Ph.D.) engineers. We have undertaken a setof classroom exercises whose goal is to improve the communication abilities of graduatestudents when talking to the public.The “Hot or Not” course assignments that were made in a graduate level course in heatconduction asked the students to explain in a 500 word essay a mystery of heat transfer,and to do it at the level of a nontechnical, educated person. Four such assignments weremade and included the mysteries of:   •   Why does metal feel cold?   •   How does water freeze when the ambient temperature is above freezing?   •   Ice or water and ice to cool a champagne magnum?   •   What cools faster, black coffee or creamed coffee?The assignments are graded by the director of communication for the Department ofMechanical Engineering, who has years of experience in teaching and editing technicalcommunication, but is not formally educated in a technical field. The assignments aregraded with a rubric that includes:Correctness of Explanation (20%)Clarity of Explanation (30%)Brevity of Explanation (5%)Technical Level of Explanation (15%)English Usage (30%)The grader is provided with an explanation of the mystery by the course instructor. Thestudents are given 2 weeks to complete the assignment and the course instructoraddresses the assignment at least twice during lecture time.Student progress in monitored and mistakes in English usage are tracked. Studentfeedback was collected at the end of the course,
AU  - Craig W. Somerton
AU  - Craig J. Gunn
CY  - Vancouver, BC
DA  - 2011/06/26
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Improving the Public Communication Skills of Graduate Students
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/18123
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--18123
ER  -