Why Writing in Material Science & Engineering Matters
Materials scientists and materials engineers are active research contributors and can be expected to write research proposals, lab reports, technical reports and even patent applications. Given the technical nature of their work, being able to communicate clearly to non-technical audiences is also an asset.
Materials Science & Engineering Writing
This section has help for the types of writing assignments that you're likely to have as a student in materials science and engineering. It also includes style guides from key associations in your field. These style guides may help you become familiar with particular conventions of your discipline.
Assignments:
- Laboratory reports(University of Toronto) Engineering Communication Program online handbook
- Technical reportsJoe Schall, Effective technical writing in the information age
- White Paper: Purpose and Audience (Purdue OWL)Authoritative and persuasive works.
- PatentsThis provides an anatomy of a U.S. patent
- Proposals(University of Toronto) Engineering Communications Program online handbook
Style guides:
- ACS Guide to Scholarly CommunicationThe standard writing style for cited references in chemistry.
Resources for Further Study
Library guide to materials science and engineering - this guide provides suggestions for the best resources to use to locate trustworthy information on your topic. The guide lists the top places to search such as:
- Compendex (Ei Village 2) This link opens in a new windowa comprehensive interdisciplinary engineering database in the world with over 9 million records referencing 5,000 engineering journals and conference materials dating from 1884.
- Web of Science This link opens in a new windowindexes articles from thousands of journals and also indexes the citations used in those articles, thus allowing the user to see which papers have cited a core paper, and how many times a paper was cited in a given time period. Covers published content is almost every discipline.
Engineers' Guide to Technical Writing by This book provides easy-to-follow guidelines, methods and rules that will make you a more efficient technical writer.
A Guide to Writing as an Engineer by Publication Date: 2005This text covers technical writing and speaking issues encountered in day to day work, writing reports, business letter, memoranda, proposals, emails, presentations, and more.
The IEEE Guide to Writing in the Engineering and Technical Fields by Helps both engineers and students improve their writing skills by learning to analyze target audience, tone, and purpose in order to effectively write technical documents.
A Writer's Handbook for Engineers by This handbook covers numerous types of common writing projects likely to be found in a career as an engineering student or a practicing engineer.
