Yazeed K.

Abughaliah ALA Analysis Dec 12, 2013 ''Software Engineering'' ENG-121, AC2 Software Engineering Academic writing is always used by scientists and authors it is absolutely the most effective way that can make people learn about new information, and scientists also use it to express their feelings or ideas and explain them to the readers. Without any difference, the most effective ways for engineers to communicate is to use academic writing because it can demonstrate that they understand the materials with which they are dealing. For most of the time, engineers prefer to use specific structural and linguistic patterns in order to make their writing special and different from other academic writing patterns. In fact, there is an article that was written by an engineer entitled Software Engineering that proves to us engineers usually depend on a specific structural pattern to express and explain their ideas clearly. They also use a specific linguistic pattern to make their writing looks more professional. Software engineering article indeed has a specific structural organization that makes it look like an engineering article. First of all, it gives the readers a little basic information about the article such as when it was written, when it was reviewed, and when it was accepted. This important because nowadays everything is changing compared to how it was in the past, so the engineers provided some information about the dates and when the article was published because people now prefer to use current information to old information. Obviously, this makes their research more updated and more reliable, so people can learn from it without worries. After that, engineers provide some keywords to the audience to give a clue about the topic and to try to clarify their idea because this will make it easier to understand their points, and that makes the

audience keep up reading the article. Moreover, engineers usually provide an abstract about the article. This is important because engineering articles are long, and it is really hard to know the main idea of the article just by looking. Engineers use these patterns because they are very effective, and they provide the readers with preconceived information about the article. After that, engineers usually give an introductory paragraph about the article, which is important because academic writing does not look professional if there is no introduction, and it is also very important to guide the readers to start following the text. After engineers give an abstract and introduction about their article, they obviously start explaining and expressing their ideas and main points. The effective way for engineers to explain their main points is to arrange them in a specific pattern, which is to provide sub-titles for each main idea. Each sub-title is also divided into a number of sub-points. They initially start with a literature review about their project and give some information about the reliability of their work, so it is also very helpful and effective for the audience because that makes them more knowledgeable about the information they are gaining. After that, engineers tend to provide sub-titles about methodology. This point is important because engineers demonstrate to the readers the methods they used to collaborate and prove their hypothesis. This is important because they express the processes that they have been through to prove their hypothesis. Another thing that engineers usually cover in their writing as shown in ''Software Engineering'' is a sub-point about their investigations. As we know, after doing research about a specific hypothesis, it is really essential to demonstrate the final results. Engineers should do that in their academic writing because engineering is a very complex field that is full of problems that should be solved, so after they work to prove their hypothesis, they are required to show the results to the people. This is the most important part because if people read the whole research and do not find the overall results; there will be no

benefit of reading it. Another thing that engineers include when they write is some tables and numerical data. This is a sophisticated way of writing engineering research because engineering is a field that contains a lot of numbers and problems, so when engineers include that in their research, it might make it easier for the readers to follow and understand their points. Finally, something that I noticed included in an engineering article is a sub-point that is about discussions. The discussion main point includes the interviews that have been conducted with other people to know more about the topic. This is actually essential because it can strengthen the research, and engineers can get extra information from outside sources that can be helpful. Also, in the end, it included a main point under the name validity check to show the readers and researchers that all the information and data is correct. Finally, there was a conclusion and reference page. The conclusion is absolutely essential because it summarizes the main ideas, and it reminds the readers of the importance of the research. The reference page is also definitely important because people can refer to it and make sure about the information they are learning. While the structure of an engineering article is important to reflect the ideas that engineers have, the linguistic pattern or (sentence structure) is also a very important factor that can also make engineering writing distinguishable from any other writing. Engineers use a specific sentence structure that makes their writing more effective. As seen in the software engineering article, engineers tend to use a combination of simple, complex, and compoundcomplex sentences, but it is noticed that they use a very limited number of compound sentences. The authors of the article almost used an equal number of simple and compound sentences {17:18}, barely compound sentences {2}, and complex-compound sentences {9}. Simple sentences are the easiest sentences that most readers can understand because they introduce only one though that does not show any complexity, however; complex sentences provide further

details that need explanation, and they are important because they explain the ideas clearly. In the beginning and in the end of every paragraph, it is noticed that engineers rely on simple sentences and on complex sentences. They start with simple sentences to introduce a clear idea to the audience and conclude it the same way, but in the following sentences that are about the details, they use complex and complex-compound sentences because their details need to be explained in greater details. Also, when they use complex sentences in the beginning of some paragraphs, they usually use adjective clauses such as ''questions that asked how'' because this makes their information more clear and more specific, and that is what readers need when they read a scholarly article. This also allows them to include as much information as possible in just one sentence. Of course, their use of a good combination of simple and complex sentences make them more eligible to communicate with the audience and provide them with better information. Furthermore, the use of direct and indirect quotes is an element that contributes to writing effectively depending on the discipline of the field. For instance, as shown in the software engineering article, the authors used a bit more indirect quotes than direct quotes {9:5}. The use of indirect quotes comes when people believe that there is better and more clear explanation than what is said in the quote, so the authors used more indirect quotes because the quotes might not be that clear to the readers. They paraphrased them to convey better meanings. Additionally, the use of direct quotes comes when the quote is perfect or there is no better explanation for it. The author used a good number of direct quotes to vary their sentences. As mentioned earlier, the use of direct and indirect quotes can contribute to making the article more or less effective, so the writers demonstrated a good use of quotes, and that made their article better and variable in terms of the sentence structure.

In addition, there were some areas in the article that showed that the article is scholarly. There were many hypothetical neutral verbs like '' may, can be, could or might'' and that made them express their ideas in a way that is not biased. Also, in the article, the authors used some reporting verbs that are neutral in tone such as ''noted, expressed, and felt.'' On the other hand, there were some strong reporting verbs such as ''asserts,'' but this was not to biased, they used such these verbs to insure the audience that the result of the hypothesis is guaranteed. In conclusion, the article ''software engineering'' proves to us that scholarly article rely on a specific structural and linguistic patterns depending on the field or discipline they are discussing. This can be done by diving the research into many structural organizations such introductions, abstracts, conclusions, and sub-points. The linguistic pattern can organized depending on how many simple, complex, compound, and complex-compound sentences were used. Also, what makes the research unbiased is how well reporting verbs are used.

Reference Chen, C.-, & Chong, P. (210). Software engineering education: A study on conducting collaborative senior project development. The Journal of Systems and Software.