The Chemical Engineering and Materials Science faculty generated the following description in response to the question, “What characterizes academic and professional communication in this discipline?”

• Reporting information and analysis
• Describing processes
• Providing necessary documentation for industry (failure analysis)
• Creating regulatory and safety documents
• Supporting business plans or venture proposals
• Publishing and presenting original research (papers and presentations)
• Communicating progress toward milestones 
• Evaluating personnel, processes, and performance
• Introducing standard operating procedures for companies and plants
• Offering Instructions for operators and manufacturers, individually and in teams
• Reviewing research and research evaluation
• Clarifying one’s ideas or activities

Similarly, they identified a spectrum of potential audiences, including other scientists and engineers, industry executives, managers, and professionals, government agencies, officials, regulators, and research supporters, plant operators and employees, federal, state, and international agencies and organizations, trade groups, news media, and the general public.

The Chemical Engineering faculty generated the following description in response to the question, “With which writing abilities should students in this unit’s major graduate?”

Desired writing abilities for Chemical Engineering undergraduate students:

• Record data based on research, testing, and experimentation accurately.
• Describe procedures clearly and accurately so they can be reproduced under similar conditions.
• Organize data according to the conventions and expectations of the discipline, with clear labels and references.
• Organize calculations, formulae, and technical solutions legibly, systematically, and logically.
• Communicate data numerically and graphically in well-composed, accurate sentences, tables, and figures
• Identify key results and avoid unnecessary information when communicating them.
• When figures are required, select the best type of figure or chart to display information based on purpose and audience.
• Articulate interpretations of data from experiments, tables, and figures to draw accurate, evidence-based conclusions.
• Connect solutions to problems and research questions to underlying chemical and physical principles.
• Synthesize information from multiple sources to draw reasoned inferences and reach evidence-based conclusions.
• Understand the role of assumptions, limitations, and uncertainties in reporting answers to technical questions and communicate that understanding to audiences.
• Understand audiences' needs, technical knowledge, and understanding when writing and communicating information.
• Use the technical language of the discipline precisely.
• Justify decisions based on evidence.
• Recognize and produce commonly written genres for chemical engineers or materials scientists: Professional correspondence, including executive summaries, technical memos, archival reports, etc.

The Materials Science faculty generated the following description in response to the question, “With which writing abilities should students in this unit’s major graduate?”

Desired writing abilities for Materials Science undergraduate students:

• Understand the role of assumptions, limitations, and uncertainties in reporting answers to technical questions and communicate that understanding to audiences.
• Articulate interpretations of data from experiments, tables, and figures to draw accurate, evidence-based conclusions.
• Connect solutions to problems and research questions to underlying chemical and physical principles.
• Record, organize, and communicate data numerically and graphically in well-composed, accurate sentences, tables, and appropriate types of figures.
• Justify decisions based on evidence and present work in ways that make the logic and choices transparent to audience members.
• Use the technical language of the discipline precisely.
• Identify key results relevant to the intended audience and avoid unnecessary information when communicating them.
• Organize calculations, formulae, and technical solutions legibly, systematically, and logically.
• Synthesize information from multiple sources to draw reasoned inferences and reach evidence-based conclusions.
• Describe procedures clearly and accurately so they can be reproduced under similar conditions.

The Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science received approval for its First-Edition Writing Plan on May 28, 2024.

The WEC meeting 4 discussion indicated interest in formalizing the style guides and distributing them widely to all undergraduate instructors and students for consistency, rather than just those in the lab or design courses. This will enable more consistent communication of expectations across multiple courses in the programs. The intent is that instruction related to the early introduction activities (see implementation plan section 5.3) will strategically introduce students to content within the style guides so that students begin using the guides consistently in multiple courses in the curricula. During the implementation year faculty will be made aware of the style guides at feedback sessions and the liaisons will work with the faculty working group involved in developing the guides to develop pilot implementation activities in relevant courses.

In the follow-up implementation planning survey, eight faculty indicated an interest in developing and integrating peer review/response activities into their courses and seven faculty indicated interest in incorporating revision steps into assignments. WEC staff and departmental faculty will plan a workshop series on these topics and ask participants to share their initial attempts and their results.