Posted on March 4, 2025 (week 6)

I chose the podcast with Joe Brinton because I was curious to learn about what a geological engineer does. The podcast did not significantly change how I think about the role of writing in engineering. Instead, it confirmed what I already believe about it: Writing plays a surprisingly large role. As Brinton discusses, a strong writing skill has two core benefits: it allows people to communicate accurately and precisely with others from different backgrounds and it allows people to share their ideas and findings with the world. 

Many engineering roles require large amounts of communication work with both technical and nontechnical individuals, in Brinton’s case communication between engineers, regulators, lawyers, insurance people, and government agents. Successful communication between these different actors requires understanding the rhetorical situation (with an emphasis on the audience), allowing specialized pieces to work together smoothly.  

Brinton says, “You can’t be a successful engineer or a scientist without the ability to communicate what you know to others.” His words directly relate to the significance of our lab report assignment. Lab reports share important information with the world. They document processes and ideas. Importantly, they also work to convince readers of the authority of the experiment/study and define platforms for discussion, critique, and further exploration.  

A lot of important tech work requires sharing information through writing. For example, for software engineers to use programming languages, libraries/frameworks, and developer tools, they need to be thoroughly documented. The internet and web heavily rely on written documents called standards or specifications. These documents lay out how important protocols and languages (such as TCP/IP, HTTP, SSH, HTML/CSS, and ECMAScript) work, allowing computers to communicate over networks! Another specific example of an influential written piece in the tech/finance space is the Bitcoin white paper. It described an idea, a system. Today, tons of developers work on programming and maintaining the tech behind Bitcoin. But it all started with sharing an idea through writing.  

While writing the lab report, I tried to keep my writing clear, precise, and concise, which are all points that Brinton makes in the podcast. Brinton also notes that brevity should not come at the expense of important data or rhetorical content. It just means culling the irrelevant in a specific rhetorical situation. One thing Brinton mentioned that I did not consider for my lab report was writing for an international audience or an audience for whom English is not the first language.