David F. Beer (512) 471-4756 E-mail: dbeer@uts.cc.utexas.edu

In 1985 the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering asked Dr. David F. Beer to transfer from the English Department to set up a technical communication program for its students. Since then he has organized and taught the junior-level required course, EE 333T (Technical Communication), and has instituted the writing component of EE 464K/H, the Senior Projects lab course. He also teaches EE 360W, an independent study course involving engineering writing. In 1989 he was awarded the General Dynamics Departmental Teaching Award for Excellence in Engineering Teaching.

Dr. Beer has served on several departmental committees, and has chaired the College of Engineering's technical writing committee. He is chair of the ECE Department's Technical Communication Committee. As a senior member of the IEEE he actively participates in the IEEE's Professional Communication Society.

He has frequently given presentations at the International Professional Communications Conference and is an active book reviewer for three publishers. He has published papers in IEEE and ASEE journals, and is the editor of Writing and Speaking in the Technology Professions, IEEE Press, New York, NY, 1992 (the best-selling IEEE Press book for 1992). His book, A Guide to Writing as an Engineer, co-authored with David McMurrey of IBM, was published by John Wiley in August, 1996.

He is often asked to consult with high-tech industries on writing and editing matters, and gives workshops on technical communication on a regular basis in some of these companies. One of his key areas of interest and research is in making highly technical subjects accessible to non-technical audiences.

Experience in Higher Education

Senior Lecturer, ECE Department, The University of Texas at Austin, 1985-present
Assistant Professor/lecturer, English Department, The University of Texas at Austin, 1977-85
Fulbright Visiting Professor, National University, Benin, West Africa, 1976
Assistant Professor, Haile Sellassie I University, Addis Ababa, 1972-75
Teaching Assistant in English and EFL, The University of New Mexico, 1969-72
Director of Writing Program, English Department, University of Colorado, 1966-69
Teaching Assistant, English Department, Arizona State University, 1963-65

Education

B.A. in English/Education (1963) The University of Arizona
M.A. in Linguistics (1965) Arizona State University
Ph.D. in English (1973) The University of New Mexico
M.A.R. (1979) Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest

From the first chapter of A Guide to Writing as an Engineer:

1. Engineers and Writing

Communication skills are extremely important. Unfortunately, both written and oral skills are often ignored in engineering schools, so today we have many engineers with excellent ideas and a strong case to make, but they don't know how to make that case. If you can't make the case, no matter how good the science and technology may be, you're not going to see your ideas reach fruition.

George Heilmeier, corporate executive of Bellcore, in "Educating Tomorrow's Engineers," ASEE Prism, May/June 1995, p.12.

Many engineers and engineering students dislike writing. After all, don't we go into engineering because we want to work with machines, instruments, and numbers rather than words? Didn't we leave writing behind us when we finished Freshman English ? The blunt fact, however, is that to be a successful engineer you must be able to write (and speak) effectively. If you could set up your own lab in a vacuum you might be able to minimize your first-hand communication with others, but all your ideas and discoveries would remain useless if they never got beyond your own mind.

If you feel you haven't mastered writing skills in college, the fault probably is not entirely yours. Few engineering colleges offer adequate (if any) courses in technical writing, and many students find what writing skills they did possess are badly rusted from lack of use by the time they graduate with an engineering degree. Ironically, most engineering programs devote less than five percent of their curriculum to communication skills-the very skills that many engineers will use some twenty to forty percent of their working time. Even this percentage usually increases with promotion, which is why many young engineers spend the first five years of their careers wishing they had taken more math in college, and the second five wishing they had taken more writing courses.

But rather than dwell on the negative, let's look at the needs and opportunities that exist in engineering writing, and then see how you can best remove barriers to becoming an efficient and effective writer. You'll soon find that the skills you need to write well are no harder to acquire than many of the technical skills you have already mastered as an engineer or engineering student. First, here are four factors to consider.

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