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My professor have me an assignment to gather information about the context of the writing in my field.  I need this for the presentation.   Here are some of my questions.

1.  What is the importance of writing in chemical engineering?

     This may seem like a question that requires a long, detailed answer, but it's not.  Imagine for a moment, a brilliant engineer who cannot write well enough to effectively relay what he or she know or has learned....is that really a good engineer?  No!  A good engineer is an intelligent thinker who can effectively communicate through written and oral means.  If you think for a moment that this is not important, you will quickly find out that you're wrong.

2.  Who reads the documents that I'll prepare?

     Engineer's documents can be read by a wide variety of people with a wide variety of backgrounds and comprehension levels.  To me, the golden rule of writing is, "Remember your audience" and if you're audience will be diverse, you're writing content had better be diverse too.  Your proposal or report may be read by fellow engineers, purchasing managers, executives, and others.  All of them have specific pieces of information that they're looking for...make it easy because none of them will bother looking for long.

3.  What are some special techniques used to accomodate the readers?

     "Bottom Lines" or summaries are effective for people who are simply making financial decisions, but detailed writing and explanations may be necessary for engineers who have to duplicate your work.

4.  What conventions of presentation do chemical engineers need to follow?

     Again, this depends on who you're presenting to and why.  Are you trying to persuade someone to invest in a plant or an upgrade for a plant?  Or are you trying to instruct other engineers on how to perform a job?  Obviously, the conventions would be different for each.  In the first case, you'd want to avoid technical jargon and focus on the financial impacts of the change or plant construction.  Another think to remember is that during a presentation, try to avoid bombarding your audience with too much information.  Keep visual aid and slides uncluttered..ie. not too much information on one slide.  Always tell the audience what you're going to talk about, talk about it, then summarize the most important points that you've discussed.

5.  What electronic forms are used?

     Microsoft Power Point presentations are very popular as well as Adobe Acrobat due to it's flexibility and that anyone can download the reader for free.

6.  What are some different writing routines used by individuals and how much writing should be done by each member of a team?

     Typically, sections of a document can be written by different people so long as a singular point of view are used (third person throughout the document for example).  Some people will write three drafts before they're comfortable with a final one, but others can sit in front of a computer and simply type out a fairly good document.  This is usually based on the writing experience that someone has and the complexity of the document.