ECE 582: Electrical and Computer Engineering Design I Documentation, Teams, and Team Writing

Goals for this lecture Documenting Sources Discuss important issues in Team Writing  Understand how to make it work Discuss teamwork experience to date

Documenting Sources Chapter 14 in “Pocket Book of Technical Writing” by Finkelstein.

Documenting Sources When to document sources  Information is not common knowledge  Idea used that you did not create Why document?  Give formal credit  Legal requirements  Academic Standards  Establish credibility

How to Document Sources Parenthetical documentation  Source citation in parenthesis/brackets The development of a requirement specification described in [2] allows engineers to create products based on clearly defined criteria rather than whimsy.  List of references at the end  Correspond to citations  List of sources at the end  Not cited, but used to develop ideas

Examples IEEE Journal Standards

Teams Work Groups Share space, interact frequently, get personally acquainted Low interdependence to get work done Meetings focus on:  Sharing information  Perspectives  Best practices  Discussing problems

Team Writing Requirements  Determine what has to be done to solve the problem  Ascertain what kind of document will be needed  Specify document themes and organization

Team Writing II Preliminary actions  Designate a leader, and provide adequate authority and responsibility  Determine what specific resources will be needed (skills, data, materials)  Assign teams and/or individuals to provide these resources

Team Writing III Document Production  Define specific writing responsibilities and schedules  Task team members to produce draft inputs for their area  Edit and revise inputs as neeed for overall effectiveness of the document  Conduct a final review of all aspects of the document, and deliver.

Teamwork Discussion What has been effective? What problems have been encountered? How were you able to resolve problems?