Gary Swenson decribed the current writing assignments in ECE 445
and the changes that would be made to satisfy the campus Advanced
Composition requirement.
While the course already involves a great deal of writing, including
laboratory notebooks, a design proposal, a design review document,
a final report, and materials for an oral presentation, the majority
of these are team documents.
An individual eight-page report would be required after the design
review (approximately midway during the semester) in which each student
would document their own background research for the project and their
specific prospective contributions toward its completion.
Two weeks before the end of the semester, each student would submit
a 12-page individual final report, which would presumably be merged
into the team final report.
Each of the assignments would be reviewed for English usage by the
ECE Publications Office.
Gary assured us that he has discussed the workload and timing with
Jamie Hutchinson and confirmed that this will not overload them.
Several Committee members were concerned that there was insufficient
focus on the organization and exposition of technical content in
the writing (as opposed to English grammar and usage) and expressed
the opinion that this is even more important.
They recommended that the material be critiqued for technical aspects
in the first round so that the rewrite addresses this aspect as well;
Gary promised to consider that.