Extended abstract: Using project workflow to teach engineering communication

The conventional approach to teaching engineering communication focuses on engineering communication genres - reports, memos, proposals. These important genres are, however, often divorced from the professional workplace contexts that influence both their content and their production. In this presentation, we introduce the document workflow approach that is the focus of the forthcoming IEEE Guide to Communication (IEEE Wiley 2016). Grounded in interviews with working engineers, we show how introducing students to the concept of workflow provides them with a richer, more nuanced understanding of the documents and communication contexts they will encounter when they enter the engineering workplace.