Enhancing communication practices through development of a departmental civil engineering writing guide

This paper describes the development of a departmental civil engineering writing guide and assessment of student writing prior to implementing the guide. The pre-writing guide assessment will be compared to assessments of similar assignments after using the writing guide in instruction as part of an effort to quantify impact. The writing guide was a collaborative effort between the civil engineering and writing studies faculty. The collaboration reinforced work done in the required writing classes and allowed both parties to leverage their expertise. The writing guide currently contains sections detailing reports, figures, tables, equations, references, memos, homework, professional e-mails, and a general grading rubric. The rubric is general enough so that individual instructors can adapt it for a given assignment, while maintaining a consistent framework as students move from course to course. Civil engineering faculty used the proposed rubric to evaluate Fall 2014 assignments from a freshman-level introduction to civil engineering course, two required junior-level laboratory courses, and the department's capstone design course; all four courses were taught prior to use of the writing guide. Results demonstrate the need for a writing guide and suggest that the writing guide will help improve student work, particularly in the areas of format, summary, and conclusion.