Stereotypically, engineers and scientists do not write or speak well. “ ‘Most of us like to sit in our offices by ourselves,’ Finn said. But she said that’s not good enough anymore. Scientists have a responsibility in terms of ‘stepping up and conveying our science,’” (Carson, 2011)
Every engineering project is designed to serve people; we need to communicate with every stakeholder in each design and the public. Understanding the needs of the people who will ultimately use our designs means listening to them. Without the support of the community where these designs are implemented, they will never be effective. The city of San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico had a wastewater treatment facility built that was going to divert municipal wastewater from entering the river used to irrigate crops. This would prevent water-borne diseases that affect much of the city’s population. However, the city could not afford to maintain this expensive facility and it fell into disrepair. The river still stinks of wastewater.
The general public does not understand what goes into the design process; they know that there is a lot of math and physics and then engineers invent things. This creates the potential for misinformation. Most people do not know that with engineering design there is always a degree of uncertainty and that it is the engineer’s job to minimize the possibility of failure and maximized efficiency within constraints. They are unaware that much of engineering design is based on empirical equations that other people have done the grunt work for. The public is not privy to the amount of assumptions about current and future conditions that go into design decisions. “‘[People] are looking for absolutes. No scientific issue is ever closed,” Matson said. This can lead to a perception that if the scientific community does not have a solid answer, then it must not know what it is doing,’” (Carson, 2011)
These aspects of the design process that every practicing engineer is familiar with must be part of how projects are explained to the general public. This needs to be done clearly, in language they are familiar with, in terms that they can personally relate to. Moira Gunn of NPR’s Tech Nation makes this clear in her mantra that interviewees, mostly scientists and engineers, get “one weird word” per interview. Engineers must respect that we do not act in a vacuum; we design for people who deserve to understand what is happening.
I am making it my business to communicate well as an engineer. Tailoring language to different audiences is something I am constantly examining and tweaking. How technical of an audience is it? Is this only directed at other engineers within a specific discipline or is this directly at a general science audience (like the ESF community)? If I am communicating information to a non-technical audience, which words must be defined and which concepts should be left only in layman’s terms? Using succinct arguments to illustrate my point is so satisfying. Language is a powerful tool.
SUNY ESF Environmental Resources Engineering Department has done very little about communication – besides constantly informing us that on the whole we do not write well – I pursued this independently. I suspect this is something many of my professors struggle with and are ill-equipped to address it. I intend to keep writing for publication and continue to receive feedback from editors and readers. I anticipate learning more about writing.
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