The need to provide writing support for academic engineers

Academic engineers must write frequently on the job. But unlike others in academe, academic engineers have some writing problems that justify their receiving various kinds of writing support. The writing problems unique to academic engineers are that they often have little knowledge and experience in writing; they must produce a variety of documents, some of which affect not only their professional standing but also the academic standings of their engineering colleges; and some lack fluency and confidence in their writing because English is not their native language. The best solution for addressing the writing problems of academic engineers is to provide adequate writing training for engineering students. But given the already compacted curricula of engineering colleges, this solution is not realistic. The author presents some second-best solutions that can ease the writing problems of academic engineers