Complete Guide to a Writing a Civil Engineering Essay

Complete Guide to a Writing a Civil Engineering Essay Civil engineering is a combination of various professional skills, science, art, and engineering achievement which often depends on the ground on which its structures stand. Civil engineering discipline involves the development of architectural, structural, geotechnical, hydraulic, environmental transportation among other civil systems that focus on the infrastructural needs of the society. The planning and designing of these systems are often covered in courses and texts within various universities. Civil engineers have a duty to understand various disciplines as different projects involve different subjects. However, this cannot be achieved when the specific civil engineering learner does not have necessary essay writing skills. For civil engineering practices, essay writing takes an important role compared to other engineering branches. There is a lot of writing behind civil engineering projects, cost proposals, qualification proposals, memos, reports, scoping notes, reports for site visiting, e-mails, plan sheet notes, to name just a few. Civil engineering has certain writing needs with some other fields; for instance, companies do not stay in business in case they do not write effectively to win a contract. The consequences, however, of writing in civil engineering can be even more profound. Inaccurate writing can lead to harmful consequences, such as an increase in the liability for an organization and significant negative financial results. Also, lack of proper writing skills can lead to negative consequences for the organization. The importance of civil engineering essay writing is evident. Students have to acquire basic essay writing from the organization of the paper to its thorough conclusion in order to work within and outside the discipline. Notably, instructors focus on essay writing skills because they form a path for future proposals that are required in a workplace. Practicing engineers should take note of the importance of essay writing in order to advance their careers and for purposes of proper communication skills. Choose a Valid Topic in Civil Engineering: A Few Ideas from Our Writers For a civil engineering student, choosing a topic can be a difficult task because writing skills are required to be able to finish the related calculations. Therefore, there are specific factors that should be taken into consideration in order to select the appropriate topic for a civil engineering essay. It is often expected that the topic should be deep, interesting, and important for other people. The following illustrations should guide on how to choose on an appropriate topic: Focus on the topic of interest. Choosing a topic for the essay should be based on your preferences. If the chosen topic does not interest you, there will be a challenge in finding the appropriate research data to support the essay. However, if the topic is catchy for the leaner, the quality of work is more likely to be high. Have some knowledge on the topic. It will be almost impossible to write about something you don’t know completely. The writer must choose the topic he or she is confident about. People who choose topics that they have less knowledge about usually fail the research because of the time and expectations, plus the energy placed on research. Therefore, in order to complete the essay in less time with improved quality, the most appropriate choice is within the area of experience. Take the relevant field of experience. The field of experience should be relevant in order to avoid confusion when conducting research. If the chosen topic has no clear connection to the field of experience, the data acquired based on the topic might be limited due to the confusion. Choose a topic that is informative. Instead of focusing on making a discovery on something with low interest, it is important to consider something that is capable of captivating everyone but it also helps to think about limitations and capabilities based on the skills. Consulting journals and publications. Finally, a proper essay needs the research to look into professional journals and publications. It is important to look for articles that are interesting and the information provided to construct a topic. Examples of civil engineering essay topics include: Ways of Improving Water Management System in Urban Areas; Planning and Managing Energy Consumption: Ways of Gaining Maximum Benefit; Similarities and Differences Between Civil and Software Engineering; Geo-Technology Engineering; Effective Ways of Using Underground Resources. Get Ready to Writing a Masterpiece Writing a civil engineering essay can be an overwhelming task. The following prewriting tips will help you when writing an essay on civil engineering: Understand the task: before starting to write, it is important to spend time thinking of the content. The ideas retrieved at this stage should be written down in a free-form, coming up with a general outline that will guide the paper. Skipping this step places the writer at a risk of wasting time or dealing with something that goes against the professor’s expectations. Important: If there are problems with the chosen topic after going through the available content under the chosen topic, it is important to approach the TA or the professor and state clearly the issues being experienced. Reading with a purpose: before writing the essay, an important step to consider is gathering the information through reading. At this stage, the one important thing is to actively engage in the process of reading. Brainstorming: it helps in generating the ideas that will become the thesis of the essay and the points to support it. Coming up with a good thesis will assist in the writing process and will help in organizing the paper. Organization: After brainstorming, the next step should be categorizing the ideas and choosing an appropriate arrangement. As with various writing processes, the organization method, as well as the type of outline, will not be the same, they will have a difference based on the preference of the individual. Title → Thesis Statement → Body Paragraphs The title of the paper should present the whole piece. It should also be the one that provides an overview of the approach and analysis as well as highlights points that should be examined. The civil engineering curriculum involves a properly balanced coursework in basic science, mathematics, and topic related to engineering. The first important thing to focus on before beginning the essay is selecting a good civil engineering thesis. The thesis of the essay will provide a clear statement of the purpose to which the essay is meant to accomplish. It does not involve basically announcing a topic or posting a question or even a fact. Instead, the thesis statement should stand on its own expecting arguments supported by evidence. In this way, the structure of the paper will be outlined in the thesis, giving it a straightforward goal. The thesis paper needs to be properly organized: Choose a quiet and a conducive place to do the essay because it is important to be concentrated; Have a lot of material that will enable as much information as possible to be retrieved for the thesis; There should be rough copies made of the research and the notes combined together. The thesis paper should have the proper structure: A properly structured paper will enhance the essay for better grades; The thesis statement should have a present knowledge, a brief review and should be on point. The body paragraph should be logically connected with the emphasis on relevant ideas. The paragraphs need to follow specific principles beginning with broader statements and becoming more detailed until the specific problem is finally identified in the paper. The first paragraph of the essay should introduce the reader to the paper by grabbing the reader’s attention. The paragraphs should also end with general issues addressed in the essay. For a greater impact, the first sentences are supposed to be broad in scope and should attract the attention of the reader. The sentences that follow should narrow the topic. Such sentences normally should have citations and should build a certain lack of knowledge which results in creating problem statements in the essay. Mind that the body paragraph should have in-text citations. The middle paragraph goes after the introduction paragraph. It is several paragraphs which function as the review. The aim is to provide a citation for the articles addressed. The other paragraphs need to focus on the state-of-art-knowledge. The citations provided in the middle paragraphs should focus on journal articles to the possible extent. The Concluding paragraph is the last paragraph that outlines the other sections; it is the summary of the paper. The last paragraph can either have a general outline of the references or a specific section. These paragraphs have two important roles. The first role is that it completes the contribution of the article within the previous contributions, hence focusing on the extent of contribution. If the conclusion paragraph is not clear, the essay will be formed on a weak foundation. 5 Questions You Have to Answer in the Outline A properly written civil engineering essay takes time; therefore it is important to do some groundwork properly. Even pressed for time, it is always recommended to organize and provide an appropriate structure to the essay. The ideas should be organized in an outline: a point by point sequence of ideas, phrases, and keywords. This will assist in organizing the structure and identifying the relevant and also irrelevant parts of the essay. The outline takes a form of a summary in bullets that will eventually be developed into paragraphs. The essay should be arranged in a logical structure and developed in the form of key sentences. In case the outline is convincing, the success of the article is high. A weak outline, on the other hand, cannot be saved by good writing skills. The outline should ask the following questions: What subject is given for the essay? Identify background data, definitions, or contexts which requires to follow in the paper. What is the thesis of the paper? Identify the organization strategy that will effectively convey the point. What important ideas should the reader learn from the essay? Do they have implications? Post-Writing Tips: How NOT to Make a Mess The key to revising the essay is being able to approach the writing from a different persons perspective. Even though the process is normally not easy, the following civil engineering essay tips will help in editing the essay. Give yourself time for revision; Break down the reviewing process in different stages; Read out loud. Revising the essay allows the writer to analyze the paragraphs of the essay in order to make changes to the draft as well as to make sure the essay is structured in a logical way that supports the claims and the purpose. The first steps involved in revising the paper is making sure that the essay serves the outlined purpose in the introduction part. Editing and proofreading the essay involves questioning and analyzing sentences and correcting errors (if any). For the civil engineering essay, all the sentences should be read carefully and the functions of the paragraphs should be identified during the editing process. A good essay, especially a technical essay is to have the necessary amount of details. After completing the essay, the following proofreading strategies will help: Read all the sentences out loud while inspecting the structure of the sentences and the spellings; such a way of reading allows the writer to come across some mistakes that can remain unnoticed during the silent reading; Let a friend go through the essay to look for additional errors; outside readers can spot some mistakes missed during the writing process; Take short breaks while proofreading in order to add a fresh perspective to the essay. Finally, the reference section has to include the relevant sources that the writer consulted while writing the essay, even if the material was not quoted directly. The format of the paper will either be in APA, MLA, or Chicago. The reference cited in the paper should follow the formatting rules as well. Books, journal articles, and research articles are normally favored over less consistent sources for a civil engineering essay. So, when you are assigned a civil engineering essay, follow this civil engineering essay guide to make sure you are going to earn a reasonable grade.