Research Conference

John Lauer

ENGL 250

Research Conference

4/4/2014

2014 Graduate and Professional Student Research Conference

               When I first go to the conference, it seemed like it would be pretty boring. But after looking around at all the booths and talking to some researchers, it was actually pretty cool and interesting!

               I went around 2:00 pm on Friday for Session V, to look at the only booth that had a researcher in the Mechanical Engineering field. The booth was about the “Characterization of Information Automation on the Flight Deck” and was led by Rachel Dudley. Her major specifically is: Mechanical Engineering and Human Computer Interaction. I was led to this booth because it had the most to do with my major, but also interested me in the sense that not only was research being done on how to properly engineer and program a flight deck, but also looking at the safety of humans when operating and controlling a plane.

               If you have ever looked at the flight deck on a plane, you will realize how crazy complicated it really is. There are so many buttons and switches that control all aspects and commands the plane must be told to lift off and land the plane with no casualties. The automation systems in the plane are in charge of informing the flight crew when something is going wrong with the engine or flight system, and then the pilot and his crew must work together to solve any problems and keep the flight safe for all passengers. One of the problems with this is how complicated flight deck systems are, so making them more user friendly and easier to solve problems on is the first step to a safer flight. The paper that the researcher has written, went over the human factor issues and challenges that the aircraft flight deck systems may go through, and how to reduce any risk and problems that happen during a flight. The big idea here is that planes and other automotive devices go through many problems throughout their life, and if other systems can be implemented to eliminate those risks and help the technology grow in smartness and effectiveness, then important systems like planes can be more trusted and no one will die from errors in automation systems.

               This was actually a real cool booth, where not only engineering is involved but human computer interaction is considered in operation of those devices. A lot of people want to get a system working right, but when humans have to interact with it and operate it, what kind of designs can be put towards making the device easy to work and smooth with controls. Design is one part of mechanical engineering that I can consider focusing on in the future, and this gave me a good example of one unique thing I could do in my field someday.

               

Research Paper

Iowa State University

 

 Technical Communications in Mechanical Engineering

John Lauer

 

 English 250

Angie R. Mallory

April 4, 2014

 

As many majors in college have, writing is a substantial part of the main focus that every college student must be proficient in. This forces students to be active in learning to write better and specifically better in the styles and formats that they must write in for their specific major. Each major has a different writing style, along with different setups of memos, reports, presentations, and drawings that must be done in the correct format. How will other students in the mechanical engineering field know how to produce this writing? Obviously, they will learn over time, but what better way to prepare for the next four years of college then to learn about these different writing styles in the beginning. This paper encompasses four general types of communication that Mechanical Engineering encounters, which is the following: Problem Sets, Written reports, Oral Reports, and Lab Notebooks. To be a successful engineer, and specifically a Mechanical Engineer, it is important to master each of these types of writing and apply them through your entire career.

In case you were wondering, I’m John Lauer, a student at Iowa State University, currently working on my undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering. I have now been exposed to the start and basics of the Mechanical Engineering degree. This paper is to be used to help engineering students with all types of technical communications and how to develop each type successfully. The information in here is universally based, so it may differ from other university standards and situations, but my hope is that if you need any help with communication styles in this field, that you can look to this paper and get something out of it to improve yourself as a Mechanical Engineer.

Problem Sets:

One of the first types of writing you will do as an engineer is problem sets. When analyzing and completing problem sets, there is a certain standard that all professional engineers must follow so that their work can be documented properly and understood, while serving as an understandable reference material for yourself in the future. When carrying out problem sets, there are two ideals that you must consider: the form the problem is written in, and the problem solving method. There are many guidelines for writing the problem itself.

First, “Engineer’s Pad” paper is very strongly recommended to be used when doing problem sets. It has been around for a long time, and has many advantages to it. When using the paper, only use the front side without the gridlines. The gridlines are faintly visible from the front. This is used to draw accurate diagrams, as they are visible against a light background and invisible against a dark background. The paper is usually a tinted green color with gridlines on the back having five lines to the inch with one inch major divisions. These lines work great to be slightly visible for drawing, but not obscure other writing on the page.

(Example of engineer’s pad paper: http://www.theofficedealer.com/mm5/graphics/product_images/1300/seo/1384215058/Tops-35500-Engineering-Computation-Pad.jpg)

Second, the paper should also be properly labeled on the top of each page. The reader should be able to identify easily what he is reading, who is responsible for it, and keep the pages in order. You should also consider basic good practices that you follow with all assignments, these include: writing legible and uncrowded, always staying out of margins, using the same color for a whole problem, and writing with a pencil.

(Example of labeled paper: http://web.mit.edu/me-ugoffice/communication/pset-format.pdf)

There are also requirements that deal with the problem solution itself. These include starting the problem with a list of givens and what is to be determined at the end of the problem. You should also sketch any diagrams to help you and the reader visualize the problem better. You should also overall explain in words what you are doing throughout the problem. Other recommendations are to always write the symbolic form of an equation before you plug in numbers and solve.

Finally, always be careful of units throughout the problem, box your final answer, and explain, interpret, and discuss the final answer to show what you have deduced. All of these steps should be used to help write helpful problem sets that can be useful to anyone.

(Example of homework problem: http://web.mit.edu/me-ugoffice/communication/samplehomework.pdf)

Written reports:

When looking at written reports, there are two concepts that need to be applied, which are the format of the written report, and the sentence structure of the technical writing. The sentence structure that all engineers must follow is the same, universally between all fields. So first I will go over how to write as an engineer, and then touch on how written reports can be formatted.

            When starting in the engineering field, you must first consider how your writing will change when communicating with other engineers. Out of all majors, engineering is very unique in how data and information should be communicated. There are a lot of engineers out there that had the same reason for going into engineering that I did. That major reason being, “I like science and math, and I hate reading and writing.” Most engineers do not like writing in large amounts. So the way we engineers go about writing reflects that mindset.

            To look at the style of writing in engineering, we will first look at the sentence structure of technical writing. Good technical writers in the engineering field practice these points: Planning, Clarity, Brevity, Simplicity, Word Choice, Active Voice, and Committing to Writing as a Process. Each of these concepts plays an important part in writing as a professional engineer. The first concept is planning. When planning your writing, you need to consider your audience, know your purpose, understand what task you are trying to accomplish, organizing your thoughts, and budgeting time to write and revise your writing. The next point to be covered is clarity. This refers to using any kind of jargon or acronyms that are unfamiliar to the reader. These should be avoided if not needed, or defined earlier in the report. Using acronyms is not bad, but making sure the reader understands everything on the page is.

            The next point is the most important out of list, and that is brevity. The dictionary definition of brevity is, “the quality of expressing much in few words, briefness” (Dictionary.com). This relates to engineering writing by the simple phrase of “less is more”. You should never use two words when one word will do, and simplify your writing down to get the main message out in the least amount of words. Engineering writing is all about simplicity, by using details wisely, and efficiency, in relation to redundancy in writing. Putting the most important information first and removing redundancy is always integral to a well written, effective paper.

            Overall, when starting to write some kind of written report, make sure to plan your project and topic before beginning drafting and understand basic qualities of good technical writing and used them throughout the writing. Just remember that good writing is a habit that takes time to develop, so keep practicing the technique and fully develop your writing.

(Good overview of technical writing:http://web.mit.edu/me-ugoffice/communication/technical-writing.pdf)

            The other idea is the format of writing a written report. This can vary greatly between the purpose of the report and what a professor or boss wants for a report. So it’s hard to cover a topic like this specifically. The main idea that should always be followed is to organize all information and data, plan your report with all the information and order of it, and make sure to proofread and edit your writing multiple times before submitting the finished report. These principles will help you write a successful report every time.

Oral Reports:

            Many of the writing aspects of written reports, also applies to oral reports. So for using writing in your presentations, refer to the previous topic. The subject I want to focus on in this section is the development of an oral presentation, and how to strengthen them.

            One of the first things that you should focus on when preparing a presentation is analyzing the audience, time limit, and organization of the topic. The presentation must work for the audience and make sense so that it will be successfully presented. Another thing you must consider is what your audience will be able to understand out of what you’re presenting. This will help the audience stay engaged and not fall asleep during your talking. Overall, be direct with your information when showing graphs or diagrams. Explaining the graphs and the main points that the audience should take from them, helps them to stay with you through the report and stay interested. Making a fancy and colorful presentation is also not a good idea. These things will only distract people from the important things you are trying to present. In the end, making an effective presentation is easy as long as you follow these professional standards and the ones you have already been taught. If you need a refresher, you can visit the link below.

(Refresher on writing effective oral presentations: http://web.mit.edu/me-ugoffice/communication/oral__presentations.pdf)

Lab Notebooks:

When using lab notebooks, there are many standards to keep up if you want to keep a successful notebook. First off, keeping a complete and accurate record of your experiments is a very important part of engineering, especially when keeping your research and findings accredited to you. Your laboratory notebook is a permanent record of what you did and observed in the laboratory. Learning to keep a good notebook now will establish good habits and help you become a successful engineer.

Every lab, you should write everything you do, including what you did and why you did it. You should also record your mistakes and difficulties performing the experiment. This is sometimes more useful than reading all the perfect things that went with the lab. It is extremely important that you keep an accurate and correct notebook. A good test is to ask yourself if someone else were to read you’re your notebook, could they follow it and go through the same experiment and carry out what you did. This also means that you could come back to your own work and still be able to interpret it.

Some key points that you always want to follow when carrying out a lab and completing it are: always write neat and legibly, the experiment title and purpose are clearly stated, the procedure explained clearly and thoroughly, include errors and the steps taken to correct them, computations performed neatly showing all steps, and date all pages at the top and signed by lab professor and yourself on the same date. If you follow these tips and carry out labs with a purpose, then you won’t have a problem with you lab book and the recording of it.

Conclusion

            In conclusion, each writing and presentation style will be useful in some way to every engineer. Some jobs may focus on certain ones, but having a library of knowledge that covers the ins and outs of technical writing in your field, will truly be of use to you for the rest of your life. I hope this paper was informational and helpful to the readers. Please email me with any questions you may have about any items covered in this paper. Thank you.

(jalauer@iastate.edu)

Works Cited

Banuazizi, Atissa. Creating Your BE.109 Presentation. Cambridge: MIT Mechanical Engineering Office, 15 Mar. 2006. PDF.

Cheng, Wai K. A Guide to Writing 2.672 Analytical Reports. Cambridge: MIT Mechanical Engineering Office, Fall 2007. PDF.

Hunter, Ian W., and Barbara Hughey. Instructions for Using Your Laboratory Notebook. Cambridge: MIT Mechanical Engineering Office, 5 June 2007. PDF.

Kelley, Nicole. Sentence Structure of Technical Writing. Cambridge: MIT Mechanical Engineering Office, Fall 2006. PDF.

Lauer, James. "Communication in an Engineering Career." Telephone interview. Mar. 2014.

Perelman, Leslie C. Effective Oral Presentations. Cambridge: MIT Mechanical Engineering Office, n.d. PDF.

Poe, Mya. Effective Written Communication: Storyboarding a Technical Report. Cambridge: MIT Mechanical Engineering Office, Sept. 2005. PDF.

Sample Problem and General Advice for Homework. Cambridge: MIT Mechanical Engineering Office, 24 Oct. 2001. PDF.

"Technical Communications in Mechanical Engineering." Technical Communications in Mechanical Engineering. MechE Department, n.d. Web. 03 Mar. 2014. <http://web.mit.edu/meugoffice/communication/>.

The Preparation of Engineering Problem Sets. Cambridge: MIT Mechanical Engineering Office, Mar. 2002. PDF.

Why is My Research Topic Important

John Lauer

ENGL 250

Research Thoughts

3/25/14

Why is My Topic Important?

  1)      My research paper, Technical Communications in Mechanical Engineering, is important to me because it includes a complete overview of writing and presenting in the mechanical engineering field. This is beneficial to me, as it will be a resource I can use later in my college career and on that can help me remember all the guidelines of technical writing in my field. Other people in my field can benefit from it too, so this is important to other people too if the information gets out to them.

  2)      One of the biggest issues I am having is organizing the essay. All the information incorporated somewhat repeats throughout the essay, as writing is common through a lot of different types of technical writing. So I’ll have to determine what I want to include in each in depth review of each type of technical writing. It’s a work in process and I hope it turns out well!  

Bibliography for Research Paper

Bibliography

Banuazizi, Atissa. Creating Your BE.109 Presentation. Cambridge: MIT Mechanical Engineering Office, 15 Mar. 2006. PDF.

What do you want your reader to remember about your talk? Remind your reader of primary findings. Explain what these findings contribute to the field. Those three topics in the sentences before, along with the basics of good presentations, and the concepts behind the effective approach of presenting information are in this source. These are all concepts that this presentation goes over and focuses on to help other engineers produce effective presentations.

Cheng, Wai K. A Guide to Writing 2.672 Analytical Reports. Cambridge: MIT Mechanical Engineering Office, Fall 2007. PDF.

This document is intended to highlight what should be contained in lab reports for a specific course, but it can also be used to show the general setup of any good lab report. This document assumes you are familiar with writing lab reports from previous classes. It builds on that knowledge while pointing to some key differences. In particular, the focus of lab reports is on the theoretical model you develop, not on the experiments you do to test it. This is intended for college students who are writing lab reports for classes.

Gopsill, James A., Hamish C. McAlpine, and Ben J. Hicks. "A Social Media Framework to Support Engineering Design Communication." ScienceDirect. Advanced Engineering Informatics, Oct. 2013. Web. 3 Mar. 2014. <http://ejournals.ebsco.com.proxy.lib.iastate.edu/Direct.asp?AccessToken=95J5XIX8XIRIDK5551ZI1EUUQP5P8DM4Q&Show=Object>.

Engineering Design Communication (EDC) is fundamental to almost all Engineering Design activities as it provides the ability for knowledge and information to be shared between engineers. This communication contains a great deal of rationale relating to the evolution of Product Development and is essential for understanding the product and the reason for its design. The need to support EDC is becoming more important due to the fact that Product Development is becoming more distributed, multi-disciplinary and involving greater re-use of past designs. With the advent of social media, it is argued that there is the technical capability to provide more effective support for EDC within a computer-mediated environment. In order to explore this potential, this paper defines the requirements for the effective support of EDC through an extensive review of the literature. It then discusses the suitability of a social media approach and then presents the theoretical foundations of a social media framework to support EDC.

Hunter, Ian W., and Barbara Hughey. Instructions for Using Your Laboratory Notebook. Cambridge: MIT Mechanical Engineering Office, 5 June 2007. PDF.

“Keeping a complete and accurate record of experimental methods and data is a vital part of science and engineering. Your laboratory notebook is a permanent record of what you did and what you observed in the laboratory. Learning to keep a good notebook now will establish good habits that will serve you throughout your career. Your notebook should include recording of what you do, and why you did it. It is extremely important that your notebook accurately record everything you did. A good test of your work is the following question: could someone else, with an equivalent technical background to your own, use your notebook to repeat your work, and obtain the same results? For that matter, could you come back six months later, read your notes, and make sense of them? If you can answer yes to these two questions, you are keeping a good notebook. It is also important to maintain a good laboratory notebook in order to protect your intellectual property. An appropriately maintained laboratory notebook can often mean the difference between gaining or not gaining recognition for a discovery. U.S. patent law states that inventor-ship is determined by the "first to invent," not the "first to file." The laboratory notebook can be the key piece of evidence in helping to make that determination.” This key paragraph from this source explains all that it focused on in this paper. It goes over good practices with lab books and gives the ins and outs of how to be a good student when it comes to reporting labs.

Kelley, Nicole. Sentence Structure of Technical Writing. Cambridge: MIT Mechanical Engineering Office, Fall 2006. PDF.

The main focus of this presentation is to show how engineers should write in a formal manner. It goes over steps such as: Plan your project before you begin drafting, Understand basic qualities of good technical writing, use the examples presented to guide you in your writing and revising process, Good writing is a habit that takes time to develop, and practice makes perfect. This is obviously for engineers to look over.

Lauer, James. "Communication in an Engineering Career." Telephone interview. Mar. 2014.

I interviewed James Lauer, a Senior Manager at Caterpillar Inc. in charge of teaching new managers the position and certain engineering techniques. This man does a lot of presentations and teaching which deals with communication. So the interview consisted of questions about his job and communication plays a role overall and day to day. I also asked about any troubles he has with communication at times. I also ask about each of the five general technical communications I was researching and how he has used those from back in college to now in his full career. This was very interesting information and really showed how basic knowledge of these communication styles and really help you over your whole career as a college student and a full engineer.

McKinley, Gareth H. Some Helpful Hints in Preparing Scientific-Quality Plots for Reports by Hand or by Using Excel. Cambridge: MIT Mechanical Engineering Office, Spring 2004. PDF.

Excel is a wonderful tool for rapidly manipulating laboratory data. However it is helpful to remember that it was designed with accountants in mind, not scientists. It is really configured to manipulate financial data, and this is reflected in the names used for many items. It takes some significant effort to make data tables and plots into the form that is acceptable for reporting scientific data. Even with this extra effort, the results are marginal at best. So this essay focuses on help with excel and how it can be used in a helpful way when trying to use it to reports findings in the form of graphs. All the helpful hints give college students some much needed guidance to help them produce professional looking reports.

Perelman, Leslie C. Effective Oral Presentations. Cambridge: MIT Mechanical Engineering Office, n.d. PDF.

This presentation goes of many basic rules that are very crucial to an effective oral presentation. It covers topics like preparing the talk, knowing and analyzing the audience, the introduction, the time, the conclusion, and the look of your visual. It also shows the perils of PowerPoint and how to make your presentation the most effective. This is for helping all engineers present data and results in a presentation so that it is easy to understand and present.

Poe, Mya. Effective Written Communication: Storyboarding a Technical Report. Cambridge: MIT Mechanical Engineering Office, Sept. 2005. PDF.

The goal of oral presentations and written reports is to explain a technical finding of the information you are reporting. The power point gives good guidelines to writing presentations and written reports so that they are effective to your audience, they have good sentence structure, properly organized data, and explanation of said data. This is for all engineers.

Sample Problem and General Advice for Homework. Cambridge: MIT Mechanical Engineering Office, 24 Oct. 2001. PDF.

The purpose of this handout is to give you a sample problem and some advice for writing problem sets in all engineering fields. The attached solution shows you one way that the homework can be written.  This does not mean that your homework has to look identical. This sample is merely a guide.  However, keep in mind that you can receive full credit only when you show clearly what you did.  In engineering you must get the right answer and present it clearly. This shows a good example of problems engineers will encounter and how to properly set them up and answer them. This is for college students in engineering.

"Technical Communications in Mechanical Engineering." Technical Communications in Mechanical Engineering. MechE Department, n.d. Web. 03 Mar. 2014. <http://web.mit.edu/meugoffice/communication/>.

Engineering work is critically dependent upon communication skills. Engineers must be able to report their ideas and designs clearly to their coworkers, supervisors, and customers. The format of engineering communications can vary widely, from summaries of calculations, to short technical memos, to complete written reports, to oral presentations, to drawings describing data or machinery. The undergraduate curricula of the MechE Department include instruction in all of these formats. The main focus of this site is to provide an information highway to engineering students who need guidance with technical writing in the mechanical engineering field. The audience is for all engineers and specifically mechanical engineers that may or may not be students.

The Preparation of Engineering Problem Sets. Cambridge: MIT Mechanical Engineering Office, Mar. 2002. PDF.

These documents describe basic guidelines for formatting problem sets. This guide is for teaching students how to correctly format your problem sets in an organized fashion. These guidelines may be different for other teachers and schools, but are a good base for starting problem sets properly. The audience is students in engineering.

Wilson, David G. Wilson’s Guide for the Preparation of Theses, Reports, Articles, and Papers. Cambridge: MIT Mechanical Engineering Office, n.d. PDF.

Writing, presenting orally, or a report are all ways you can formally transfer information. These are some simple overall rules for optimum information transfer, a framework that might help you to put these rules into practice, and some rules of grammar. This guide just gives a short overview of the basic for main topics of what to focus on certain reports and papers. This is for students in engineering.

Research Paper Proposal

John Lauer

ENGL 250

Research Proposal

3/3/14

Technical Communications in Mechanical Engineering

               As many majors in college have, writing is a substantial skill that every college student must be sufficient in. This forces students to be active in learning to write better and specifically better in the styles and formats that they must write in for their specific major. Each major has a different writing style, along with different setups of memos, reports, presentations, and drawings that must be done in the correct format. How will other students in the mechanical engineering field know how to produce this writing? Obviously they will learn over time, but what better way to learn a lot in the beginning of your college career then to read a research paper giving a quick crash course of what kinds of technical writing will come up in the mechanical engineering field and how you should deal with them when the time comes to write them.

               My topic for research is “Technical Communications in Mechanical Engineering” and answers the question, “What technical writing do Mechanical Engineers do?” So the paper will go over five general types of communication that mechanical engineers encounter, which is the following: Problem Sets, Written reports, Oral Reports, Lab and Design Notebooks, and Graphical Presentation and Technical Material. The paper will cover the general concept of each writing style and communication technique, along with an explanation of the format of each of how they should be written and some tips on communicating with each communication style. So the technical and conceptual side of writing will be touched on so to help whoever is reading to actually produce quality writing in each format. Each of these have a very good chance of showing up in college and a future job as a mechanical engineer, so the write up of all of these together will help give a small refresher course of these different communications.

               This paper will be written with specific research from the internet from different credible sites, along with some scholarly sources, and some interviews with mechanical engineers. All of this will be pulled together to produce a very direct research paper that will be a great source to use when needing a reminder about these communication styles.

Research Question Topics

How is writing involved day to day for engineers?

What is proper writing etiquette for engineers?

What technical writing do Mechanical Engineers do?

Textual Rhetorical Analysis Paper

John Lauer

ENGL 250

Textual Rhetorical Analysis Paper

2/24/14

Textual Rhetorical Analysis of Effects of Leadership on Engineers: A Structural Equation Model

               As a future engineer, what better way to learn about my field and build on my leadership skills than to read and analyze, but the writings of three experienced engineers and businessmen that have researched the  specific topic of engineers and the effects they have as leaders. Each author of this scholarly article has great educations as PhD holder, an engineer of different sectors, and extended management experience that contributes to the in-depth analyzing of the topics discussed. These authors are Jose-Luis Mascaray Laglera, Javier Conde Collado, and Juan-Antonio Marco de Oca. As stated in the beginning of the paper, the main goal of this article is to, “propose a structural equation model to comprehensively explain the relationship between leadership and the variables linked to it.” The article also hits on specific topics that contribute to the success of a leadership role which include transformational leadership, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, trust in leadership, job performance, and relationship constructs. This clear goal is what the author hopes to fully explain, and a textual analysis, which will be carried out in this paper, is used to evaluate how well this was accomplished through the authors writing. 

               Starting with an overall look at the article, one component that must be analyzed is the style. The audience for this article is all engineers that are, or could be in a leadership role. So the piece must insure that it is written in a way that engineers will understand and agree with. As the article is written by engineers, the style is clearly correct in the straight forward, direct writing that is done. Engineers prefer to read and write as little as possible with getting all information across the writing. There are also some acronyms that were used, in which the authors took into account and labeled not only in the paragraphs, but in a separate list on page ten, so as to make future tables less cluttered when showing the data from the research. As all scholarly articles are, the writing is very formal, and as engineers, the transitions are sometimes a little rough, but as the audience is clear, the information stated is the important thing to absorb, and not the literary grace of more interpretive pieces.

               Another style that engineers prefer is tables and graphs. The authors show tables providing quick, straight forward information on exhibits 2, 3, 4, and 6, along with a diagram on page twelve labeled exhibit 5. Each exhibit supported the hypotheses given in the article, and has its own set of structure that helps interpret the data in number values. This is complicated, and not needed to be explained to evaluate the article itself. These visuals add to the understanding of the data, and the author knows these are beneficial to the engineers that will be reading the article, so the implementation of them helps with validity and quality of the writing. Another small, but important aspect is the spacing done with each new section of the article. The bolding and spacing done between points is well done, and holds to standards in proper writing.

               Organization is one of the most important parts to writing and is integral to the success of understanding and communicating the message and findings without confusing and frustrating the reader. The authors do a great job of organizing the introduction of the paper where it talks about crucial aspects of a company’s survival, in which one of the most important is leadership within the management staff. It then explains factors that affect outcomes in the work place between employees and their job performance related to how management acts.  And then a smooth transition takes the topic to transformational leadership. In the Previous Research section on page 8, there are multiple sections that talk about the aspects of leadership, but the order of “Job Satisfaction” and “Job Performance” is a little off in my opinion. I suggest that they follow each other in that order because they are very closely related, as depending on how satisfied you are with your job, changes how you perform day to day.  The rest of the order of the overall article makes sense. There are hypotheses present before the research and data, and the discussion and conclusion of the data then come, and the article ends with some analysis of the limitations of the research and some future research suggestions.

               After looking at the context of the article, the details show that the authors have extended knowledge in the field and vast experience in management over the years. This article is also supported by the many references in the back of the article that were used to help with the research and findings. All of the supporting evidence is shown with internal citations in the paper, which shows the reader that the information is legitimate and can be trusted.

               In conclusion, the article was well written in all aspects of analysis. To some people, the context and information provided might be analyzed, but the topics covered are really up to the authors and what they want to include in the article. Other than that, the topics and goal were accomplished well through the writing, and gave the reader a good overview and in-depth look at  the effects of leadership on engineers and the evidence behind the reasoning.  

Textual Rhetorical Analysis Article Source

Effects of Leadership on Engineers: A Structural Equation Model

Visual Rhetorical Analysis

John Lauer

ENGL 250

Visual Rhetorical Analysis Paper

2/11/14

Smart Fortwo Tridion Commercial

               Visual communication is present everywhere in our lives. You can literally “see” it everywhere, such as in ads, commercials, shows, billboards, restaurant menus, etc. Our society is very visual with a lot of our choices and influences, so companies now integrate their products in a way that is pleasing to the eye and produce visual pictures and videos that persuade their customers to buy what they have. All companies when deciding how to market their product have to think about the intended audience who will be purchasing it. For this example, the intended audience is mostly adults who can afford a vehicle and could be looking for one at the time. So for a lot of visual communication, the main objective to accomplish is to make what your marketing look damn amazing and only focus on the positives of the product. A lot of commercials strive for that output and the commercial I analyzed did a really good job of that, but I will also analyze the down sides to the it and how when the public does an internal visual rhetorical analysis of the commercial, it really shows if they are impressed with the product or not. The Smart Fortwo Tridion commercial is what I’ll be looking at and seeing how Smart used the features of its product to successfully communicate the reasons to consider the car as a future investment.

               Now let’s dive into the commercial itself. The video ad can be viewed at the link below and was produced at the beginning of 2013, but the main basis of it is that the new Smart Fortwo Tridion is a new, small in size, smart car that has many new features that make it very safe, even though of its light and small. The commercial mentions the car comes with eight air bags, a crash management system, and the world’s only Tridion safety cell which can stand over three and a half tons. The phrase at the end that ties it all together is, “Small in size, big on safety.” So obviously the commercial is focusing on the safety of the vehicle even though it is light and small. Not many people know what tridion is or how strong it is, and people also don’t know how three tons compares to what a regular car can withstand. And I don’t know about you, but what does the crash management system actually do? How can a car manage a crash? All these things might be pondered in your head if you were actually going to think critically about this commercial. But most of the time, you won’t.

               One great thing about this commercial, and what most commercials that have an emphasis on engineering try to do, is to keep things simple for the viewer, so that they can fully understand the content. All companies know that including detailed drawings of the engineered parts of a system, or physics diagrams of how a part can support weight and pressure, is not needed and will actually make the ad or commercial less appealing to viewers and turn them away from paying attention. Keeping the information presented straight forward and to the point make an ad believable and interesting along with the visuals presented.

Most people watch the commercial and are amazed by the facts put in front of them, along with the visual part of the commercial which is when they show the Tridion safety cell frame holding up a black Ford Excursion.

This is the main visual of the commercial that really sells the car. The commercial starts with what looks like the full smart car under the SUV. Then the small car drives away revealing just the frame of the car actually holding up the Excursion. That’s the whole commercial, but gives a good emphasis on how simple, yet at the same time powerful this idea is. To get an idea, the SUV is 7000 pounds that the safety cell is withstanding when put on top of it. This is the “coup de grace” of this commercial, convincing people that this vehicle must be a great car with an emphasis on safety. Smart nailed this one on the head in my opinion, but there are also some aspects of the commercial that don’t really speak completely and if you’re analyzing it, you can tell that maybe the car isn’t as safe as you first thought it was.

               While there were a lot of pros to this commercial, there are also some loop holes. Many people don’t know the specific mechanics of cars, but rely that everything a commercial says is correct. Well when looking into what the car offers, it’s not that incredibly safe. First off, the eight airbags that are in the car are not that impressive. Most cars have ten or more airbags. This is a small car so you can’t fit as many airbags in it, but those are standard and should be part of the vehicle anyway. Along with that, the management system is just like any other system that releases airbags on impact and has an anti-lock breaking system. So this car is still not that impressive. The tridion safety cell is the one thing that actually does a new and improved job to keep passengers safe. Tridion is a reinforced, steel alloy that it very strong. This would be used for other cars, but it is very expensive to use. So it makes sense that it would be used on a small car that would use less steal to make. This is a big bonus to the car, but there is one more problem with the commercial.

The Ford Excursion is just sitting on the top of the car. It’s not being dropped on the car or crashed into it; it was just lightly set on the smart car. This is a problem and mostly ruins the commercial for people who know how physics works. The problem is that most people know that the effect of a car being set on another and a car hitting another at 65 mph is way different. That’s where the loop hole comes in. Some people realize this and know that the car is still not as safe as what they are trying to portray on the commercial. Most people know that even though the smart car has stronger steel, it is still way lighter than most cars, and in a crash will be flung way farther as being the smaller and lighter of the crash. This is almost an unavoidable problem, but the makers of the commercial did a great job in convincing and showing that the car can withstand large amounts of weight in case of another car being on top of it. So even though the commercial had some pros and cons, they still presented the information well and made it visually appealing, but for the rhetorical visual analyzer, the commercial didn’t quite cut it.

               In the end, visual communication is a key part of industry and retail today, but not all ads are done perfectly or even well. The overall idea of commercials is to persuade the consumer, not necessarily give him all the facts or maybe even stretch the truth a little. I guess one important lesson to learn from this analysis is to not let yourself be tricked into visually appealing ads or commercials. Instead let the rhetorical analysis side of your brain do the work and make a good, calculated decision about the truth behind the story, or in another sense of reading between the lines. This is always good practice for later in life when you have to make big, investment decisions and decide which one is really the better deal. Research is key and analyzing is just the beginning. 

Works Cited

Radu, Mihnea. "Smart Fortwo Tridion Safety Cell Supports an SUV [Video]." Smart Fortwo Tridion Safety Cell Supports an SUV [Video]. Autoevolution, 5 Nov. 2012. Web. 12 Feb. 2014 <http://www.autoevolution.com/news/smart-fortwo-tridion-safety-cell-supports-an-suv-video 51425.html>.

Smart, USA. "High Strength Steel Safety Cage -- 2013 Smart Car Safety Features - Smart USA. YouTube. YouTube, 10 Sept. 2012. Web. 12 Feb. 2014. <http://www.youtube.com/watch v=7VqHEGsB2iA>.

Varela, Kristin. "How Many Airbags Are Enough?" - KickingTires. Cars.com, 19 June 2013. Web. 12 Feb. 2014. <http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2013/06/how-many-airbags-are-enough.html>.

Visual Communication

In this picture, there is a smart car holding up a very heavy SUV that is probably around three times its weight. This commercial is used to promote the liability and safety the Smart Fortwo Tridion has. This picture is intended for anyone who can buy a car and who wants to buy one. This picture is trying to convey that this new smart car is very safe, as it has a strong and supportive frame that seems very trusted sense it had hold so much weight. This picture is related to my major because this body design was created by engineers, along with the whole car.

Rhetorical Analysis Story

John Lauer
ENGL 250

Rhetorical Analysis Story
2/5/14

Analyzing Without Knowing

               When prompted with this assignment, it was hard for me to think of what to actually write about, and I’m still not exactly sure what kind of story the teacher was thinking was going to come out of this. All I can think of is what is the broad definition of “rhetorical analysis”? I would say that an easy definition is just the process of reviewing and judging someone’s work. Looking at all different aspects of their work and saying what is good and what can be improved on.

Some small examples on this in my life was when I was in speech class, and the teacher had us evaluate each speech that was given by other students and say one good thing about the presentation and one thing that they could improve on. This was just a small exercise but was exactly what rhetorical analysis is! Another example was when you would read over peoples essay drafts in English class, and give them critiques and ideas of what could improve their paper.

Maybe a more abstract example of when I used rhetorical analysis and I didn’t know it was when I was in the marching band. I was in band for six years starting in 6^th grade and I was in marching band all through high school. I was a section leader for two of those years, and part of leading the section was making them better by critiquing them and analyzing how to make them better. This was more of a physical way of keeping their posture perfect, their tone beautiful while wanting a strong sound and having them pay attention in rehearsals. This was more of a leadership opportunity than rhetorical analysis, but music and marching can always be improved on, so as a leader, I would judge and review a marcher, and give them tips to improve their performance.

These are all simple examples of rhetorical analysis and give a little insight to how different it is to judge someone’s work in all kinds of situations.

Summary Reflection

John Lauer

ENGL 250

Summary Reflection

2/3/14

My Reflection

               This assignment was a little different than the papers we wrote so far this semester. Instead of pondering ideas and information that you could use for a paper, all of the material was right in front of you in the article. And the order of the paper was guarded by how the article was written. When it comes to summaries for me, I have a natural knack for writing them.
               Usually the process starts by first reading the article and highlighting as I go to mark the main, important information in it. After, I start with an introduction to what the main premise of the article is and other small information like the authors. Then I summarize the article from the main points I marked and add more information as I go.
               The hardest part to writing a summary is paraphrasing all the information in the writing. Sometimes it seems like the author created a really great sentence with the information he needed to say, but you have to change it so it’s not plagiarism. It is also very hard to read scholarly articles and translate all the information inside. Most of the reading is quite wordy and can get overbearing. The easiest part of writing a summary is finding the important information and topics. Usually they are spelled out in the title or sub-headings. I wish I would've had the authors of the article next to me when I wrote it so they could've helped me process the information and write an accurate summary of their work.
                The most important thing I observed and learned is how people write in my field. Though it was a thirteen page article, every paragraph was chalk full of information, and every sentence was informative and direct. That is one skill I will have to work on over the next years of college and I already have had much exposure to it in my classes so far.
                 In the end, this summary was a great exercise for me to see some research by real engineers and practice interpreting that information into my own piece. 

Final Summary Paper

John Lauer

ENGL 250

Summary Paper

1/24/14

Connecting Product Design, Process and Supply Chain Decisions to Strengthen Global Supply Chain Capabilities

By Erika Marsillac, James Jungbae Roh

               This scholarly article starts with an overview of the key concepts related to products, processes, and supply chains for worldwide companies. Each of these concepts is covered in depth and specifically analyzed. The focus of the paper is the concepts behind the relation between product design and how it changes process and supply chain practices on a local and global scale. This was analyzed through using a 3DCE theory base. This approach helped with comparing and contrasting the relationships and dependencies of product, process, and supply chain behaviors and capabilities. This article includes a review of all the terminology later used in explaining the data, along with a research methodology of multiple companies, an analysis of the data, and a conclusion to sum up the study and lead future researchers in the right direction.

               In previous research, many companies have emphasized the importance of product design as a large contributing factor of the total cost of making and transporting products. This is so important because it affects so many processes, such as the cost of making a product, what equipment is needed to make it, how will it have to be marketed, what transportation will it need to get to stores, etc. All of these factors are the reason why companies are working day after day to maximize profit and minimize cost.

               This study was executed using the 3DCE system or the three dimensional concurrent engineering system. This process was introduced by Fine in the late 1990s. 3DCE addresses product, process, and supply chain development and design and is used to examine the influences of each area in relation to the other. The process can be used to determine how those areas develop and evolve over time and most importantly, 3DCE explores how those areas can be leveraged and changed to improve international and global behavior among supply chains.

               In the meat of the article, there is the research and the case analyses of the study. All of the research was gathered from multiple case studies. The results were derived from adopting firms and reviewing reports of current and expected future numbers outcomes and benefits. Many cases were reviewed and in each case, three categories were focused on which included: major changes in product design, the scope and scale of process and supply chain modifications, and the relationships between product design changes and process and supply chain modifications. Each of these areas was analyzed among four companies and for the sake of space, the findings will not be reviewed in this paper, but are very interesting to read and review.

               After all the results were observed, many if the findings were related to each other. There were eight propositions they came up with. Starting with proposition one stating that, “Product design changes that are more substantial and complex, generate more substantial and complex changes in the process of supply chain systems.” If you think about it, this makes a lot of sense. If you create a more complex product, then you will have to make more changes to the supply chain system so that you can make the product correctly and manufacture it in a systematic way. That was just an example if one of them and you can find the other seven in the article, but they all relate product design to competitive companies and how they react to changes and implementation throughout their processes.

               Some of the findings were actually very straight forward. For instance, process changes were found to be particularly influenced be the number of product design changes with some change also being extended to manufacturing lines. In relation to supply chain behavior, the influence of product design was connected to the level of product design change implemented. The complexity of the supply chain and product design makes it more challenging to manage and carry out production in a company in a cost effective way.

               So for this matter, we turn to the question of,” Who is this information for to use?” All of this information helps managers make the big decisions, the people who practice these measures, and the researchers who continue the analysis of the topic. These results provide those people with the knowledge to better understand and make operational decisions when determining courses of actions in a functioning production chain. Although these results are only samples, they have the potential to lead companies in the right direction for success.

               The aftermath states that there are many relations between product design, process, and supply chain decisions that affect global supply chain capabilities. Future research may expand this investigation and further better describe and illustrate the design nature for operations planning. It may also bring about more practical applications for the research. The authors thank the case study company representatives, anonymous reviewers for their time to improve the article, and you, for absorbing the article and using the information.

Works Cited

Marsillac, Erika, and James James Jungbae Roh. "Connecting Product Design, Process and Supply Chain Decisions to Strengthen Global Supply Chain Capabilities." International Journal of Production Economics 147 (2014): 317-29. Sciencedirect.com. Science Direct, Jan. 2014. Web. 31 Jan. 2014. <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925527313001758>.

Memo Assignment

John Lauer

ENGL 250

Memo Assignment

1/29/14

DOG

In this scenario, my company is based off the already existing company Caterpillar Inc. or CAT. So I’m a worldwide, multi-million dollar tractor company. Caterpillar is a huge industry that emphasizes engineering greatly, so this definitely relates to my field.

Memo

January 29, 2014

To: All DOG Employees

From: Chief Executive Officer Lauer

Subject: New Worldwide Partner, Communication Ethics Standards to be followed by All Employees

Beginning this new quarter, there will be a new company working for us run by CEO Chairman Ms. Rachel Smith. Her company designs and builds small stock cars for racing in worldwide events. There company is booming and they need our help to improve industry and take their company to the next level. Some of you will be working and communicating with employees of her company so you need to know the proper measures to take when talking with her staff.

First off, her company is very close to ours in that it has the same standards and engineering background that we have kept with for years, so as always, keep communication brief and to the point. Long emails are not effective emails if they waste time with unneeded extra explanation. Her team is here for answers and effective time management over the next quarter. She is trying to boost industry capacity and production tenfold, so be professional as always and keep to direct conversations. She is also our business partner, so don’t be afraid to be blunt about circumstances and speak forward to improving her company.

In the end, you’re all adults and know how to talk in a professional manner to fellow business partners so this is just a friendly reminder.

Regards,

John Lauer

Summary

John Lauer

ENGL 250

Summary Paper

1/24/14

Connecting Product Design, Process and Supply Chain Decisions to Strengthen Global Supply Chain Capabilities

By Erika Marsillac, James Jungbae Roh

               This scholarly article starts with an overview of the key concepts related to products, processes, and supply chains for worldwide capabilities. Each of these concepts is covered in depth and specifically analyzed. The big thing that is the focus of the paper is the concepts behind the relation between product design and how it changes process and supply chain practices on s local and global scale. This was analyzed through using a 3DCE theory base. Comparing and contrasting the relationships and dependencies of product, process, and supply chain behaviors and capabilities.                              

Writing in my Field (Engineering)

When looking and how my field in particular writes, I have to think about some different aspects of what my field does in there job and what they will be communicating to others. For instance... in an engineers day at work, they work on several projects and go to meetings and discuss ideas and plans. When writing in a field like this, everything must be concise and correct all the time. It must be easily read and interpreted. So big words or lengthy explanation is not the answer in most cases, unless something needs to be further explained in depth.
My classes have showed me through what my teachers want us to turn in for assignments and how writing should be executed in those situations. A lot of what engineers do has final, concise answers so it makes sense that writing has the answer and precise explanations.
As for finding really what writing is like in my field, I should ask real engineers how they write and maybe even job shadow one.

Scholarly Sources

Retail Channel Structure Impact on Strategic Engineering Product Design

by Nathan Williams, P. K. Kannan, and Shapour Azarm

http://ejournals.ebsco.com.proxy.lib.iastate.edu/Direct.asp?AccessToken=3PXMXX181TQ2STSQ0E1SEONOQNEZ8LD-M&Show=Object&msid=941693160

Connecting product design, process and supply chain decisions to 
strengthen global supply chain capabilities
by Erika Marsillac, James Jungbae Roh

http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0925527313001758/1-s2.0-S0925527313001758-main.pdf?_tid=0df9dbd6-820c-11e3-a767-00000aab0f02&acdnat=1390247583_8a759485cd61387501f2fa545b8e9452

Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources

John Lauer

ENGL 250

Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources

By Karen Rosenberg

Thought Piece

My Thoughts…

               My first thought… wow that was a long article. But guess what?! All Scholarly sources are on the longer side and may be even longer then twelve pages, so I need to get used to longer readings. I have never liked reading books or any long text. Non-fiction, such as scholarly sources, has always been more enjoyable for me to read than fiction. Things that are of real life always make more sense to write about because they actually affect us and they matter for the betterment of the world. I enjoy them more because it seems more useful to read something that was worth telling people about than reading about Jimmy, the magical seahorse, who saved his pet dragon from the ferocious Snow Leopard of Gonovan City. Even though those kinds of stories are fun, they don’t help advance the world’s technology, assist with national crises, or keep the neighbor from killing your family.

               Now this article covered a lot of good ideas about what you should look for in scholarly sources and how to read and analyze them. It was quite helpful and insightful to read, but what I thought was most interesting about the article was the idea of reading academic texts like you are entering a conversation. When I read this, I couldn't help but stop and think about what that might actually mean. Whenever I read something, I usually try to absorb the main points and ideas from the writing, and then I go on to figure out how I use that information. The bad thing is that a lot of the time I don’t like to read. So when I do, I sometimes start “blankly reading”, which means I read the words, but don’t understand or absorb anything from the text. This causes me to go back and reread the material. How can I fix this? Well for the longest time I figured I would always be this way because I never would like to read. But when this idea of a “conversation” was presented, it made me think of something. What if while I read an article, I also stopped at points in the writing and had a conversation with the text in my head about what I was reading about? Then I would reiterate the ideas and it would help me remember the information better. This could help my comprehension skills in doing my homework and learning in classes. Having a conversation with the text is simply responding to the ideas and information you are reading about and talking about it in your head to yourself. This is a simple concept, but not many people do it because it takes more time and it feels weird talking to yourself while reading a book. Most of the time I just want to rush to get through the reading so I can do the assignment and do something more fun, but if I take the time to try to improve my writing and be a better reader, then I can see myself improving in my studies in college.

               When I think about myself as a reader, I usually don’t put my skills very high. Since I have never liked reading, I have never worked to get better at it. I have always struggled reading long, boring text, but if I start conversing with the writing while I read, I might be able to improve my reading and start enjoying it. Since I’m in college now, I will be reading more of what I’m interested in, so this is the perfect time to start diving in to my major and be proactive in what I want to learn. When you go to college, a lot of what you do is study, so why not make it worthwhile, go the extra mile, and really indulge in reading. Plus most of the material professors give is usually good, unlike high school teachers who just cover the anonymous basics of subjects.

               This paper overall gave me a good look at what scholarly sources look like and how to interpret them. So now I am better prepared for finding good information when I need it. Thanks!

J-Lauer out.