ENGR 101

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ENGR 101

• Learning Skills Centre

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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
  towns new wastewater system. The stupid pipe
  construction dudes who have fouled things up by
  missing deadlines. You cant build a wastewater
  system with no pipes. Funding is a nightmare too.
  The Governments threatening to pull the plug on
  its 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?

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Points to consider

• Avoid colloquial language
• Do not use first person (I, we) and never, second
  (you)
• Do not use contractions cant cannot.
  Governments 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

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Points to consider

• Sentence fragment
• Run-ons
• Rhetorical questions
• Pronoun antecedent disagreement Company manager
  on top of all their other problems
• Apostrophe errors
• Clarity

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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.

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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.

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Body of the report

• Planning saves time
• Planning also results in a balanced report

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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.

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Note-taking Cornell method
Bibliographic details author, date, title, publisher, place. Bibliographic details author, date, title, publisher, place. 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.
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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 Bibliographic details Rowe, M. (2006). Is engineering a profession? TMWorld.com Retrieved 10 Feb 2009 from http//www.tmworld.com/article/CA6367336.html 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?
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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 Zealands 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
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Evidence

• Relevant
• up to date
• drawn from reputable sources
• factually accurate
• correctly referenced

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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).

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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
• Authors 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

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Conclusion

• Gives a sense of completion
• Brief and to the point
• Addresses the problem/aim set out in the
  introduction

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Main Slide with Bulleted List
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Blank Slide with Bulleted List