Teacher Comments: The Importance of WID Writing as Career Preparation

Patrick Fitzhorn, Mechanical Engineering: There's another audience group that our students should know about and that's the people who are more technically astute than they are: the bosses and project managers. The more experienced engineers. Writing in academia is practice for these audiences. . . . There are going to be decision makers in the audience who are going to want that fire hose turned on as fast as possible . . . maybe the more experienced technical professionals.

Dave Alciatore Mechanical Engineering: Sometimes managers aren't more technically astute so you have to present an executive summary type of presentation where the people that you're presenting to are higher level and you still have to [make sense].

Patrick Fitzhorn: Or marketing and . . . .

Dave Alciatore: Or manufacturing people who aren't good with analysis and understanding but they're very good with the hands-on and the visual, so. . . . I think more often than not an audience is the peers, but sometimes we have to present to totally different audiences. . . .