Communication skills used by all engineers include writing, reading, speaking, and listening. Whereas reading and listening focus on comprehension, writing and speaking are forms of expression. Engineers employ technical writing with the goals of being accurate, brief, clear, and easy to understand. Engineers use many forms of written communication: on the job, they compose technical memoranda, project reports, and proposals for new business; while in graduate programs, they may assist professors with technical reports and publishable articles, while individually writing their thesis or dissertation. Written English has many conventions intended to impose order on the chaotic English language. While the graduate student may eventually encounter a "style manual" at his employer, international graduate students who are still learning to write technical English require a more active, rather than passive, learning method. This paper presents a case study of one approach to teaching English academic writing skills to international engineering graduate students.
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