Teaching the kinds of topics outlined in the second half of Explaining the Future can be difficult in an engineering context, especially with large classes. To improve, students need detailed feedback so that they can improve the next time. That takes time, energy, and money. At the IEEE Professional Communication (ProComm) conference in Aachen in July, I presented a paper on this to help other teachers to think about how to go about designing rich, meaningful writing assignments in a practical way. As a result of my experiences at ProComm, I decided it made sense to set up a resource to help teachers of science and engineering students to teach writing. Read More …
Author: Sunny Bains
Writing effective e-mails VII: Long project e-mails/Summary
Long project e-mails
Sometimes we have to write e-mails that cover a number of different issues, aimed at a number of different people. Remember that people are overwhelmed with the amount of e-mail they get: because of this — beyond a certain length — people don’t read e-mails properly. So, if you do have to send something long you need to use special tricks to make them at least read the most important sections. Read More …
Writing effective e-mails VI: Getting the basic elements right
The subject line
Don’t just use the subject line of an e-mail you’re replying to. Often, after e-mails have gone back and forth between people for a while, the subject matter changes. People only tangentially involved with the initial subject may have already started ignoring the conversation, and may therefore completely miss a message that is important to both your and their interests. This is less likely to happen if you update the subject line. Read More …
Writing effective e-mails V: Providing clear context
If you are writing to someone you do not correspond with regularly, you need to make sure to provide them with context right at the start. They may not know (or remember) who you are. Even if they recall your name, they may not be aware of the team, department, or company for which you are working. If you’ve corresponded a long while before, but you’re one of hundreds or thousands of people in their network, then they will likely not remember anything about your previous correspondence. Read More …
Writing effective e-mails IV: Manners, flames, and diplomacy
There are lots of ways to annoy people in an e-mail. One we have already discussed is not writing in a formal-enough tone, or not calling them by their appropriate name or title, or not using capital letters. Another one involves SHOUTING BY WRITING IN ALL CAPITALS, or using emoticons when it’s not appropriate. Read More …
Writing effective e-mails III: Making decisions
One frustration that we all have at one time or another is that we need someone to make a decision and they don’t do it in time for us to get our work done. There are ways you can use e-mail to help you to break this bottleneck. Read More …
Writing effective e-mails II: E-mail as evidence
E-mail messages can do a lot for you if you write them properly (and can get you into trouble if you don’t). In particular, they can document your work and your relationship with your teammates in a way that will prevent them (or your boss) for blaming you for others’ failures later. Read More …
Writing effective e-mails I: Why are you writing?
In the world of work, e-mail messages are now formal documents. Based on an e-mail, a contract may be won or lost (or its terms altered), a team may be strengthened or shattered, a project may be furthered or set back. Nevertheless most people (not just students) don’t take e-mail seriously enough. We often ask colleagues to do things, report on our progress, and make requests for information by e-mail. If we fail to do this clearly, our colleagues will not do what we want, recognize our progress, or give us the information we need. Read More …
Book launched
It’s been a busy few weeks. The book was launched last Monday at UCL: really appreciated all the enthusiasm of past and present students and colleagues. Also wrote a short piece about why the Theranos scandal could have been avoided if more people had asked the right questions, and a blog post for the Engineering Professors Council on how we can teach students how to do better research. Read More …
Helping students with research
This post may be of interest to those of you trying to teach undergraduates.
