Why engineering students can't write good...
Last wednesday was the due date for my latest assignment: writing a 1-page critical review on a journal article "Output Resistance of the Common-Emitter Amplifier" by Rode. I thought that this must be a good assignment to give, for several reasons:
1. the paper talks about the exact same topic we're discussing
2. i was curious about student's writing skills
3. i wanted to know how good the students are in understanding english language text...
^_^
I had just finished marking the whole class's work, and... phuff why am i not surprised to the fact that engineering students aren't good at writing??
Most of the students showed lack of Indonesian written language skills... (is 12 years of bahasa indonesia education still not enough??). On average, they also showed poor technical style writing skills.
When i told them to include their own opinions and critique of the original paper, i did not mean they could put in words like these:
- "menurut saya"
- "jujur saya tidak bisa paham"
- "Komentar: ..."
Some of my students must have not been paying attention as well: several papers that i read were more like TRANSLATIONS with HEAPS OF PAGES instead of a summary plus critique that i wanted.
But i don't blame them. As a matter of fact, I never got this sort of assignment before when i was still in undergrad. Apparently, my senior lecturers had barely ever teached good writing skills to the students. The only chance students can practice writing is during their thesis. And this might be a bit too late!
Let's hope we can all fix this up.
1. the paper talks about the exact same topic we're discussing
2. i was curious about student's writing skills
3. i wanted to know how good the students are in understanding english language text...
^_^
I had just finished marking the whole class's work, and... phuff why am i not surprised to the fact that engineering students aren't good at writing??
Most of the students showed lack of Indonesian written language skills... (is 12 years of bahasa indonesia education still not enough??). On average, they also showed poor technical style writing skills.
When i told them to include their own opinions and critique of the original paper, i did not mean they could put in words like these:
- "menurut saya"
- "jujur saya tidak bisa paham"
- "Komentar: ..."
Some of my students must have not been paying attention as well: several papers that i read were more like TRANSLATIONS with HEAPS OF PAGES instead of a summary plus critique that i wanted.
But i don't blame them. As a matter of fact, I never got this sort of assignment before when i was still in undergrad. Apparently, my senior lecturers had barely ever teached good writing skills to the students. The only chance students can practice writing is during their thesis. And this might be a bit too late!
Let's hope we can all fix this up.
posted by Irfan at 3:59 pm
6 Comments:
I don't thing writing is something you can teach, particularly to Eng undergrads :p
Many geeks have the same problem as well. My boss told me: "you should be able to write docs as well so you can be an all round engineer"
I have friends in engineering field and damn good in writing :)
So I think it's not about the field you are studying, cos as far as I concern, engineer students are good at being systematic n this is the first thing you need when you write.
I think it's the system that didn't give enough opportunity for students to explore. Good job pak Irfan
everyone should be able to write,because writing is just write,what we are thinking about, what we know,n soon..should the engineer be trained in writing?
just ...very good point of view, Kang Irfan. I also feel the same difficulty, when I start reading paper and summarize them...maybe we can make some changes in our department by introducing the undergraduate student with technical writing such as conference paper, IEEE journal ....or something like that....hopefully i can join you soon...wish me success and be a good engineering writer =)
In my opinion, actually there are some students who have enough capability in writing. But your task is not just about writing skills but also about how to understand a such scientific matter. And this is the point. Still many students not yet used to understand such kind material with journal especially in english,hehehe. And i very appreciate with what yo've given to us to introduce those matterials.Hope it will give benefit for the future.^^
Terima kasih mas atas komentarnya. Betul sekali. Sukses selalu...
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