Commonly, assignments of business communications focus students' attention on four types of learning tasks:

• • analyzing and organizing information for ones' self,

  • communicating information to an audience in writing, including visual aids,

  • generating an entire document in a prescribed format, and

  • perhaps, designing and delivering a related oral presentation.

The list below includes a number of different types of business communications that are common for engineers to use as they practice engineering.

Ideas for Technically-based Business Communications

• • Memo

  • Executive Summary

  • Cover Letter for a Report or Proposal

  • Briefing Paper

  • Business Plan (for a Project or Start-up Company)

  • Consultant's Report to a Client

  • Expert Witness's Report

  • Test Plan (or Design of Experiment)

Making Scoring/Grading Useful for Assessment

• • General principles for making scoring/grading useful for assessment (rubrics)

  • Attributes of engineering writing that could be used to construct a rubric

  • Example rubrics

    • • For persuasive writing

      • For a writing assignment #1

      • For a writing assignment #2

      • For a writing assignment #3

      • For a writing assignment #4