I’ve just completed reading the drafts of the term projects/papers that you submitted. There was a great range of length from two who turned in nothing to a lengthy document with full citations in many areas. Some were still outlines in format and others were nearly finished documents. As such there is nothing to say that applies to everyone. Here are some comments that apply to at least several of the projects.
Numbers
Engineers love numbers because they quantify and make it easy to compare things as well as judge capacity, cost, consistency, strength etc. Far too many of you left your numbers on the computer and not in what you wrote. An engineering topic deserves engineering support.
Citations
If you make an assertion that something is true that isn’t common sense or textbook material in a required course then you’re expected to cite the source so the reader can check it for themselves and make their own judgment of its validity. Too many of you ignored this requirement.
Overly Long Introductions
A number of you wrote long introductions that were out of proportion to the main topic of the paper, several times causing truncation of the most important part. Watch for balance in the paper. I’d argue the introduction should be no more than 10-20% of the total.
Cohesiveness
Several of the papers were clearly composed by group members who hadn’t agreed on an effective division of labor. The papers read as though they were by different authors on different topics. The paper should read like the work of one person pursing a logic progression through their material.
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