Item 4: What difficulties do you have writing in your engineering classes? You may use your work in MLE1101 to give examples. How do you resolve the d

Currently, there is limited writing in my engineering class as most of my modules are calculating- based. Most of my writing is done on EG1471 and on my CM1502 laboratory reports. Therefore, one of the difficulties that I have in my engineering class will be writing the laboratory report for CM1502. I could still remember how hard for me to write my first chemistry report because it is totally different from what I did during my junior college or secondary school years. During that time, our chemistry reports required only our experimental results and some simple deductions which we could conclude from the experiment. But now, there are many items that I have to include in my university chemistry report. Being exposed to this for the first time is a challenging task for me.
For each experiment, seven items need to be included into the laboratory report. These items are Aim, Introduction, Procedure, Data and Analysis, Discussion, Conclusion and Reference. In order to write a good report, every item in the report requires a higher level of detailed writing and good organisation skills. The ideas bring across in the report must be explicit so that my tutor can understand the report I wrote. Thus, to resolve the difficulties I faced in writing my laboratory report, I have to refresh on what I have learned in EG1471 and apply the writing skills on to my report.
Firstly, the Aim of the report acts like the thesis statement of an essay. It contains the main idea and the specific topic of what I am going to investigate in a very clear and brief manner. Secondly, for the Introduction of the report, it defines the subject of the report. It contains the relevant information to support the thesis and suggests ways to approach the experiment. The paragraph in the Introduction must be well linked with transition signals to ensure the flow of the report. Next, for the Procedure of the report, I can apply what I have learned for process essay using chronological order. This forms of writing able me to describe the procedure precisely. Therefore chronological order signal words are important to link the sequence of the steps clearly. For Data and Analysis, it only involves the calculating and plotting of graph or charts; hence not much of writing involves. After that, under the Discussion, I have to relate my data to the existing theory. Therefore, the data and graph serve as supporting details to support my hypotheses graphically. Furthermore, I have to organise my writing and sometimes, planning (brainstorm) is required which was taught by EG1471. Transition signals have to be used to ensure a logical flow in the discussions. In Conclusion, I have to reiterate the thesis of the experiment and summarise what I discovered based on the experimental results. Lastly, for Reference, I have followed the APA style given by EG1471 except that, for the report, in-text citations are not required.
Generally, writing a good report requires not only a good theoretical background, but also requires a good foundation in writing. It will be very disturbing for the readers or tutors to understand my work if the report is not well-organised and full of grammatical errors. With the help of EG1471, I am able to organise my ideas well. However, I found out that there is a lack in transition signals in my report and quite a few grammatical errors. Thus, these are two of the areas have to improve on to make my report a better one. This can be done by doing some grammars exercise in the SELF or read more English articles. I can also refer back to the EG1471 textbook to refresh on some of the transition signals which I can used.