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Improving Written Communication Skills in University Engineering / Technology Programs: The Grading Nightmare

Christopher S. Ray, Sharyn L. Switzer Purdue University

Introduction

The necessity of communicating in engineering and technology careers is of the utmost importance. Companies’ and employees’ success, in many instances, depends on their ability to communicate in a clear, complete, concise, and accurate manner. A significant number of university programs require various language skills ranging from basic English to technical report writing. Yet, employers still indicate that newly hired graduates have an extremely difficult time preparing internal memorandums, business or technical letters, and reports.

One of the major complaints from faculty members teaching these skills is the overwhelming and time-consuming process of grading assignments. As a result, many faculty reduce the number of required writing assignments to a minimum. Requiring students to prepare only three or four written assignments during the semester may make grading easier, but the students’ writing skills are adversely affected by this shortsightedness of quality versus quantity 1. This paper presents one method of requiring students to write a significant number of documents while maintaining minimum faculty-grading time.

Objective

The objective of this paper is to demonstrate how the Purdue University Building Construction Management department utilizes Microsoft Word 2000 Readability Statistics in assisting and evaluating student writing skills. The primary course used in this study was the course in Construction Documentation and Administration.

Construction Documentation and Administration deals primarily with the correspondence and written portion of the commercial construction process. Students were required to write a significant number of letters, reports, memorandums, and Requests for Information (RFI).

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Switzer, S. L., & Ray, C. S. (2000, June), Improving Written Communication Skills In University Engineering / Technology Programs: The Grading Nightmare Paper presented at 2000 Annual Conference, St. Louis, Missouri. 10.18260/1-2--8446