(479e) Starting Early and Small with Technical Communication: Sophomores, Plots, and Captions

One obstacle to development of concise technical communication skills is the years of aiming for quantity of words at the expense of quality of content. In this work, that conditioning is challenged by focusing on a very small writing assignment – a caption that encapsulates all the essential information to describe a plot, without any extraneous information. The assignments are performed by students in a material and energy balances course, and the vehicle for the caption-writing is a series of assignments involving spreadsheet calculations for which the solutions are to be submitted as plots. In addition to teaching succinct communication, this practice provides an early opportunity to teach the basic mechanics of technical writing and to correct common errors before they become ingrained. Instruction on proper formatting and presentation of graphs is included. Critical thinking skills applied to communication are developed as students distinguish between essential and extraneous information. Finally, the inherent shortness of the assignment facilitates efficient grading and quick feedback, which can even be done in class by peers.