Report writing skills of engineering students

Abstract

There is some concern that engineering students may only be concerned with technical content, and not with the quality of writing. There is also the issue that engineering writing is so different that only engineering lecturers are in the position to teach them better writing skills. This study examines recommendation reports written by Engineering students at a Malaysian university from the aspects of focus, analysis of data, and language for making recommendations. The data are obtained from reports written by Engineering students enrolled in an English for Professional Communication course which requires students to identify educational or physical conditions needing improvement in the university. The students conduct a study to assess the condition and make recommendations based on their findings. The recommendation reports of the Engineering students are compared with reports of students from the Arts faculties to highlight the distinctiveness of reports produced by Engineering students. The findings suggest that the nature of the engineering discipline is manifested in the precision and substance of the recommendation reports produced by the engineering students. The paper ends with a discussion of the contribution of language educators to the enhancement of writing to meet the needs of the engineering profession.