Engineering What are engineering reports and why are they so extensive?

[torquemada]

I've seen a few times people talk about big papers or write ups for their engineering coursework - what exactly is this referring to? Obviously you aren't studying literature, history, or philosophy, but those are the only topics I can think of which demand very wordy papers and papers in large quantities. thx

 

[danago]

I'm not sure about other universities, but at mine we are required to do two major research projects. In the final and penultimate years we need to select a topic related to out engineering disciplines and then find an academic who is willing to supervise the project. The final year project can be completely different to the 3rd year project or it can be a continuation. I'm not at that stage yet, but i believe the projects are supposed to take just under a year each and require an extensive report to be submitted at the end. Perhaps this is what you are referring to?

 

[AlephZero]

Obviously you aren't studying literature, history, or philosophy, but those are the only topics I can think of which demand very wordy papers and papers in large quantities. thx

Really? You heard the old joke about designing planes, that "the plane is safe to fly when the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the plane"?

Well, the joke is that it's not a joke. Real world engineering isn't so much about solving exam-type questions with a few lines of math, as about making an argument to convince other people you have the right answers.

You are right about "wordiness" for its own sake having no value, but sooner or later you need to learn how to organize a lot of technical information into a 100-page or even a 1000-page report.

 

[Jokerhelper]

I sort of used to think the same until I took my first year design course. By then of it, I was surprised at how our group had come up with a 35-page report, without even including drawings and calculations included in the appendix. And this was for a quite simple project, too.

 

[bklynkenny]

My senior design project in college for the design of a 4 story building was approximately 200 pages, with appendices. On the project I am working on now (in the professional world, not in academia), the building specifications is probably around 6000 pages and the contract drawings are approximately 1000 pages. That doesn't include any calculations.