Assignment Design

Assignment Design

The most updated lab writing instructional modules are available: engineeringlabwriting.org

Learning Objectives

Although all engineering instructors “know how to write”, they may struggle with assigning writing projects to students. Well-designed writing assignments lead directly to student learning. Traci Gardner from National Council of Teachers of English identifies three goals for a writing assignment:

1. Define the writing task.
2. Explore the expectations.
3. Provide supporting materials and activities.

In the context of lab report writing, engineering instructors need to address the following to students as explicitly as possible when preparing lab report assignment:

1. Definition of the lab report writing task.
   • The audience (Specific people like instructors? engineers? peers? public?).
   • The pedagogical purpose of the lab report (Why is the assignment given?).
   • The “fictitious” professional purpose of the lab report (Why is the assignment given?).
2. Expectations for the lab report writing task
   • Specific requirements (if there are any).
   • Checklists or Presentation Expectations (format, submission, deadline, etc.).
   • Assessment rubrics (or any type of grading guidelines): The details of assessment rubric design and development are introduced in the Lab Report Assessment Rubric Module Assessment Rubric Design.
3. Support and explanatory materials
   • Acceptable sample reports with or without addressing the standard conventions of finished and edited texts.
   • Unacceptable sample reports with or without addressing the standard conventions of finished and edited texts.
   • List of recommended reading resources.
   • Other resources to assist students’ writing process.

Sample 2: Lab Report (as a Research Paper) Writing Assignment

Assume you are an engineering intern working at the product design group of a company in the automotive industry, which may be similar to ABC Motors, City. Your boss, Ms. Boss, assigned you to conduct research on the mechanical properties and hardness of the materials used in a future project. Note that she is not asking you to pick the best material. All of these materials will be used for future vehicles because there are many parts and components. She will eventually share your report’s technical information with other engineers and/or people in the organization. For the project, three different material types such as 1018, 1045, and 4140 steels are considered. This means that you are assigned to write a lab report as a research paper primarily based on the testing results from the lab. This lab will provide you with the opportunities of reviewing knowledge on the mechanical properties and strengthening mechanisms of engineering materials (textbook chapters 6 and 7), conducting additional uniaxial tensile tests as well as hardness tests, conducting a comparative analysis with the obtained experimental data, and discussing the analysis with the outside sources or references in order to advance your knowledge.

In this experimental research paper, you can conduct a comparative study to compare three different steel samples in many different ways (e.g. 1018 vs 1045 to see the effect of carbon contents). In order to write a good research paper, you need to have good research questions to discuss. Your engineering team and organization might have the following questions:

• Any technical questions from your own.
• What would the effect of the carbon and/or alloying element contents have on the mechanical properties (strengths, ductility, etc) of the samples?
• Does the fracture look ductile, brittle, or moderately ductile for each coupon?
• Which sample does have the highest yield strength and/or UTS, ductility, toughness, hardness, etc. values? Why?
• What are the average hardness and standard deviation values of each coupon? Is there a visible deviation in the measurement? What are the possible sources of errors?
• Textbook page 179 shows the relationship between the tensile strength and the hardness values in HB for most steels. Is this formula accurate?

In order to write a good report or earn high scores, you do not need to answer all of these questions and/or come up with difficult-to-answer questions. A good lab report possesses well-defined questions and well-developed answers supported by both your experimental data (primary sources) and further research results using the internet or reference books (secondary sources). A good report has a well-defined introduction, body, and conclusion. In the introduction section, write about what you want to discover in the report. The objectives provide guidance on what you are going to say to your audience (your boss and engineering team in this case) throughout the report. In the body section, you summarize the experimental methods so the audience can confirm your testing was sound. You present the experimental data clearly and discuss them to follow your objectives. In the conclusion section, you need to summarize the main points of the lab along with a very brief restatement of the objectives and lab procedure.

Please submit your completed lab report in PDF on the course website by the due.

Sample 3: Lab Report (Memorandum or Letter as a Format) Writing Assignment:

Prepare a technical memorandum for your submission. The content of most memoranda to the technical audience can be organized into four main parts: heading, introduction, body (methods, results, discussion), conclusions, and closing. Depending on the intent and length of the memo, each part can be as short as a single phrase or as long as several paragraphs. Most memos are less than two pages. The following elements should be included

• Letter/Memo Heading – TO: (readers’ names and job titles), FROM: (your name and job title), DATE: (complete and current date), SUBJECT: (subject of the lab).
• Introduction – Objective and overview. Within the first two sentences, the purpose of the letter or memo is clearly stated. Provides background context for the discussion and educates the reader so they can understand the discussion.
• Body – Methods, data presentation/analysis/interpretation. Include a brief description of the methodology, relevant findings, interpretation of data, and other significant items, including a brief explanation of significant errors.
• Conclusions and Recommendations – Should recapitulate results and conclusions and recommend future work or action.
• Courteous Closing (Includes your contact information).
• References – Should be of sufficient quantity and quality, and cited properly within the text. Bibliographic information is included as a footnote.

Additional information to the written text is often required. Typical attachments include:

• Attachment 1* – Results (If only one or two small figures or tables are required, they may be embedded in the letter/memo, if they are large, they should be an attachment). Tables and figures:
  • All figures and tables discussed in text, but self-explanatory.
  • Numbered and properly titled, contain units, and axis labels.
  • Referenced (if information not created by author).
  • Appropriate to communicate effectively.
• Attachment 2* – Test Set-up: clear and self-explanatory, photos, sketches…
• Attachment 3* – Data: self-explanatory data sheet; proper symbols and units.
• Attachment 4* – Calculations: clear and self-explanatory, sources cited.
• Additional attachments as required

Submit the lab report to your TA by the due.