CHAPTER 4
The Social Nature of Representational
Engineering Knowledge
Wolff-Michael Roth
What we call “descriptions” are instruments
for particular uses/applications. Think of a
machine-drawing, a cross-section, an ele-
vation with measures, that an engineer has
before him. Thinking of a description as
a word-picture of the facts has something
misleading about it: One tends to think
only of pictures, as they hang on our walls;
they appear simply to portray how a thing
looks like, what it is like.
(Wittgenstein, 1953/1997, p. 99,
my translation)
Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to articu-
late a perspective on the nature of rep-
resentation in engineering that has been
developed on the basis of ethnographic and
sociological studies across science and tech-
nology. It is a sociocultural and cultural-
historical perspective that has some decided
advantages over the “cognitive approach” for
the teaching of engineering, an approach
that has an exclusive focus on what goes
on in the mind and hidden from view.
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Consistent with the social-psychological dic-
tion that all higher cognitive functions are
societal relations that come to shape those
who participate in them (Vygotsky, 1989),
this chapter focuses on the social dimen-
sions of representations because these are
the origin of anything that we may attribute
to the mind. But because these social dimen-
sions are what we subsequently attribute to
mind, the perspective developed here also
is a cognitive one. However, rather than
speculating about hidden mental processes,
this approach allows us to study psycho-
logical functions in the very public arena
where they originate. We may express this
fundamental fact in the following apho-
rism: engineering representations are in the
mind because they are integral to the societal
relations engineers entertain. Among those
who study representations-in-use, the term
“inscription” tends to be employed. Inscrip-
tions include diagrams, photographs, for-
mulas, and tables, that is, anything other
than language that features in scientific
research and communication. In this chap-
ter, I move from the term representation
to inscription, because the latter allows us
67
 68 cambridge handbook of engineering education research
to eschew the frequent confusion between
“internal” and “external” representations. I
present some of the advantages for engineer-
ing education that come with this way of
thinking about representational engineering
knowledge.
Ours is a visual culture – the adage “a pic-
ture is worth a thousand words” is but one
indication of the truth of this phenomenon,
even though, as the quotation suggests,
there is something misleading about equat-
ing words and images. The visual nature of
knowledge is especially evident in the nat-
ural sciences and engineering, where many
forms of representations of nature other
than text abound. In fact, the sciences and
engineering would not exist in their present-
day aspects if it were not for visual represen-
tations (Edgerton, 1985); engineering prac-
tices, whether oriented toward the design
of general application or specific scientific
applications, are essentially predicated by
the relations between image and logic (Gali-
son, 1997). External representations (inscrip-
tions), especially in this age of computer-
aided drafting (CAD), are the predominant
means of going about designing and simulat-
ing the production of future artifacts (e.g.,
Christensen & Schunn, 2009), doing reverse
engineering (Mengoni, Germani, & Man-
dorli, 2007), and the teaching of engineering
practices (Ibrahim & Rahimian, 2010). Visual
aspects embodied in external representa-
tions epitomize engineering vision as pro-
cess: both as a way of seeing the world and of
envisioning alternatives (Bucciarelli, 2004).
Thus, specifically the development of figura-
tive representations during the Renaissance
and the subsequent Industrial Revolution
enabled the taking off of all formal, scientif-
ically managed cultural practices (Foucault,
1975). Visual representations make possible
the objectivity of the sciences in the face of
the inherently subjective nature that comes
with the individual execution, enactment,
and application of discipline-specific knowl-
edge (Husserl, 1939). These representations
allow knowledge to be “handed down” and
associated practices to be reproduced at
will in and by future generations of scien-
tists and engineers. That is, engineers do
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visualize and use gesture in their commu-
nication so that representation may be said
to be both internal and external: representa-
tions generally and mathematical represen-
tations specifically lie at and constitute the
interface of body and culture (Roth, 2009).
Historically the development of a more
scientific approach to some specific prac-
tice coincides with the adoption of, and
focus on, forms of representations that for-
malize the existing, experience-based prac-
tical knowledge. The full split between dis-
ciplines, however, sometimes had to await
more modern times, such as that between
scientists, architects, engineers, and master
builders (Garrison, 1999). For example, a
historical study of the emergence of archi-
tecture shows that prior to the construc-
tion of Gothic cathedrals, much of the
knowledge required existed in the embod-
ied skills of the master builders (Turnbull,
1993). They worked with plumb line, ham-
mer, and templates to produce wonderful
buildings many of which have lasted to the
present day through wars and punishing cli-
mates. The success of any such construction
depended on the actual presence of these
master artisans, who, with these very sim-
ple tools, did all of the design work. But
with the increasing size of the cathedrals,
the structural knowledge embodied in the
craft knowledge came to its limit. A split
occurred in the profession leading to master
craftsmen heading the work at the construc-
tion site, on the one hand, and to architects
concerned with design and structure, on the
other hand. Work with diagrams, which can
be sent to the different work sites, means the
presence of the architect at the construc-
tion location no longer is required. His or
her ideas could be made present again, re-
presented, and stored (archived) indepen-
dent of the individual using them.
By the time of the Renaissance, the
use of visual representations became more
widespread and allowed, as apparent in the
drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, more formal
investigations in proportions, structures, and
design of artifacts (Kemp, 2007). His draw-
ings on paper, the epitome of external rep-
resentations (i.e., inscriptions), served as a
 the social nature of representational engineering knowledge
primary tool for analyzing complex relations
in a variety of contexts that today would be
attributed to design and engineering (tech-
nology). Thus, among Leonardo’s famous
drawings are those that pertain to flight gen-
erally and the study of wings more specifi-
cally. This split of thinking practices from
material practices has paid off:
There are fewer boiler explosions than for-
merly, now that the thickness of the walls no
longer is determined by feeling but by making
such-and-such calculations instead. Or since
each calculation done by one engineer got
checked by another. (Wittgenstein, 1958/1997,
p. 134)
The very fact that engineers work with
external representations, mathematical or
otherwise, allows checking by others whose
practices, public as those of a third or fourth
engineer, also can be checked for consistency
with those practices of engineering more
generally.
Survey
As a way of exemplifying the pervasiveness
of visual representations (inscriptions) in
engineering – anything other than text, gen-
erally including numbered equations – I con-
ducted a survey of engineering journals from
the eighteen fields listed in Thomson ISI
Web of Science with the term “engineering”
in the name (e.g., agricultural engineering,
engineering: aerospace, engineering: electri-
cal, or metallurgy & metallurgic engineer-
ing). For each of these fields, I produced
a list sorted according to the impact fac-
tor for 2010. I randomly selected one of the
top five journals for inclusion in the survey
(as long as my library had electronic access
to the journal) and then randomly selected
one article from the most recent of the 2011
issues available to me. I used a classification
scheme developed for the analysis of visual
representations in scientific journals and sci-
ence textbooks (Roth, Bowen, & McGinn,
1999) to establish their frequencies in differ-
ent categories. The total number of pages
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69
includes the reference section and abstract
(but excludes any table of contents).
The 18 randomly chosen journal articles
amounted to 327 pages of text, ranging from
a minimum of 5.25 to a maximum of 93.5
with a mean of 18.2 pages per article (SD =
20.4). In these pages, there are a total of 855
labeled visual representations (or numbered
equations) yielding a mean of 2.61 per page.
The unweighted mean, which gives equal
weight to the mean inscriptions of short
and long papers, amounts to 3.07 inscrip-
tions per page (SD = 1.65). This is higher
than the 1.46 mean number of inscriptions
per page reported for the study of ecology
journals (Roth et al., 1999) and more sim-
ilar to the 3.95 reported for Physics Review
Letters or the 5.4 inscriptions per page in Sci-
ence (Lemke, 1998). By far the largest fre-
quency of representations fell to the cate-
gory of equations (Fig. 4.1). This number
is heavily biased by one very long paper
(N = 93.5 pages) with a total of 125 equa-
tions averaging 2.3 equations per page; 7
articles had no equations at all but 5 arti-
cles had between 15 and 47. However, this
trend is similar to that observed, for exam-
ple, in a selection of ecology journals in
which the mean number of equations per
page ranged from about 0.02 to 0.60 (Roth
et al., 1999). A comparative study in the
field of physics shows that the frequency of
equations is much higher and equivalent to
that in the extreme paper in this review;
thus, in the journal Physics Review Letters,
the average number of equations per page is
2.7 (Lemke, 1998). In mathematics-intensive
engineering journals, there are 3–4 equations
per page, whereas the survey of technical
articles in Science reveals 1.9 equations per
page.
In the engineering journals I surveyed,
there is a large number of scatter plots and
line graphs compared to the remaining types
of inscriptions (Fig. 4.1). The frequency of
the photographs, micrographs, and drawings
hides the fact that micrographs often come
in plates with several images side by side
or as inserts. This frequency is much higher
than that reported for the ecology journals
(Roth et al., 1999).
 70 cambridge handbook of engineering education research

Figure 4.1. Frequency of different types of inscriptions per page in

eighteen randomly chosen articles from 18 high-impact engineering
journals.

This brief overview shows how impor-
tant inscriptions are, even though the pre-
cise number and type of these may vary
across journals and articles and their focus
on empirical results and theoretical devel-
opments. For a comparison, I randomly
pulled an issue of Science, Technology, and
Human Values off my bookshelves, a jour-
nal in which authors would write about
knowledge construction in engineering and
technology. I found 4 representations in
190 pages amounting to 0.02 representa-
tions/page. Similarly, I pulled 2 issues of the
Journal of the Learning Sciences, a journal
in which authors might write about learn-
ing through engineering design activities in
middle and high schools. Here, I counted
a total of 49 representations (28 drawings,
photographs, and diagrams and 21 tables)
in a total of 322 pages, which amounts to
0.15 representation/page. These numbers are
similar to those that have been reported for
the Journal of Research in Science Teaching
(Roth et al., 1999). That is, there is an order
of magnitude of difference between the per
page frequency of visual representation in
engineering and those social science jour-
nals reporting about the psychological and
social aspects of learning in the areas of sci-
ence, technology, engineering, and mathe-
matics. This may even point to an essen-
tial gap between social science and (systems)
engineering, formality and informality, and
prescription and negotiation (McCarthy,
2000). We may conclude that representa-
tions constitute a large part of what counts as
knowing in engineering. At the same time,
these representations do not go by them-
selves, but rather they come with a large
amount of language-based presentation.
From Representations to Inscriptions
The term representation literally means
“making something present again” when it
is in fact absent. Without this ability to
make present something that was or will
be present again no cognition of the kind
that distinguishes humans from other forms
of life would be possible: there would be
no memory of past events and no anticipa-
tion of and planning for the future (Husserl,
1980). There is some confusion around the
term, however, because representations may
be thought of as something in the mind
or as a text or visual encoding in some
medium (e.g., stone, tablets, paper, or mon-
itor). To allow making clear and unambigu-
ous distinctions between the two, the term
inscription has been proposed: it denotes all
those external representations that are not
text – including graphs, tables, lists, pho-
tographs, micrographs, drawings, diagrams,
spreadsheets, and equations (Latour, 1987).
Inscriptions are characterized by dif-
ferent levels of abstractness along a sin-
gle dimension that has the real world as

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 the social nature of representational engineering knowledge
one extreme and language as the other
(Latour, 1993; Roth, Bowen, & Mascio-
tra, 2002). The resulting quasi-continuum
forms, within a particular research project,
a cascade of related inscriptions. Such cas-
cades come about as researchers – mid-
dle school students (Roth & Bowen, 1994)
or research scientists (Latour, 1993; Roth
& Bowen, 1999b) – interact with the nat-
ural world in some way to generate data
(points), which then are transformed into
graphs and equations. On the other hand,
a cascade may come about as design engi-
neers go from some rough and barely
articulated idea – for example, building
a device that accomplishes a particular
task – through design drawings, prototypes,
and established applications (Roth, 1996a).
That is, the work of generating knowledge in
the sciences and engineering tends to move
from the real world in the direction of the
production of graphs, equations, and text
(concepts, theories), whereas in engineer-
ing and technology, designs tend to move
from the state of general ideas through vari-
ous inscriptional phases (e.g., drawings, dia-
grams) to working prototypes to the final
product in the world (Fig. 4.2). In the exam-
ple depicted, the purpose of the aerospace
engineering project is the production of the
satellites depicted in the photograph with
software that allows two of these to fly in
tandem. From the initially vague idea, the
researchers use mathematics to develop the
computer code that will control the flight
formation. The more abstract an inscription,
the more it tends to be able to summarize
and compact information. Thus, it is evi-
dent that the presentation of a scatterplot
is a more economical presentation than a
table of values; the means with standard
deviations (error) or regression equations are
more economical (e.g., in terms of space on a
page of printed paper) than tables or graphs.
The very advantage of abstraction in
terms of generalization also comes with a
price: it leaves out the contextual particulars
that any practical engineering application
has to confront – there are many examples
in which something that worked on paper
either does not work in the world or that
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71
collapses under certain environmental con-
ditions, as the infamous Tacoma Bridge or
the nuclear reactors of Fukushima in Japan
show. Sometimes, engineers get an appli-
cation to work a first time but then find
themselves unable to replicate it on a sec-
ond attempt (Sørensen & Levold, 1992). At
each stage of going from a more abstract
inscription to a more concrete inscription,
additional contingencies enter on the tra-
jectory from engineering design to full-scale
application (e.g., Bucciarelli, 1994). Theo-
retically, there is a gap in kind – in tech-
nical terms, an “ontological” gap – between
any two inscriptions. (In mathematics, the
relation between the domain and the co-
domain of a function constitutes a mapping,
not a self-identity.) This is especially the
case when two neighboring or consecutive
inscriptions compared are of different kind,
such as a line graph with slope 1 through
the origin and the function f(x) = x. This
gap exists even though competent practi-
tioners see a perfect equivalence between
graph and function. This equivalence is in
fact hidden in and embodied by their prac-
tice (i.e., in the mapping process), but it
does not exist for the novice, whose training
consists precisely in the process of making
the relevant connections. That there are dif-
ferences between naturalistic drawings and
photographs of the same natural objects has
been shown, for example, in studies of field
guides, where, interestingly enough, the for-
mer provide greater classificatory help to
new ornithologists than the latter (Law &
Lynch, 1990). Because there is no natural
continuity but an ontological gap between
any two inscriptions, work is required to
bridge any two inscriptions said to belong
to each other. The example from ornithol-
ogy also allows us to understand why and
how opportunities arise for teaching “repre-
sentations” by focusing on the social aspects
of inscriptions rather than on supposed
(hidden) mental processes.
Properties of Inscriptions
Research conducted in a variety of con-
texts including engineering bureaus has
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72

Figure 4.2. Inscriptions can be classified along a scale of abstractness, which ranges from the real world, on the one end, to conceptual language, on the other
end. Any two related inscriptions are separated by a gap. (Inscriptions used with permission of R. E. Zee & N. H. Roth, UTIAS Space Flight Laboratory.)
 the social nature of representational engineering knowledge
identified at least eight characteristics com-
mon to inscriptions. First, because inscrip-
tions are expressed externally in material
form, they are mobile: inscriptions can be
sent easily using mail, courier, facsimile,
or computer networks (e.g., Star & Griese-
mer, 1989). Second, in the displacement pro-
cess, inscriptions are immutable: they do
not change their properties or internal rela-
tions during transport (e.g., Latour, 1993).
Photographs, diagrams, or formulas sent via
e-mail from one end of the country to
another – including those used in this chap-
ter – remain the same, though their signifi-
cation may be different in the new context.
Digital images can be made available, with-
out alterations, at any location where there
is electronic access (e.g., Lynch & Edgerton,
1988). Third, inscriptions are easily incor-
porated into different contexts, including
this chapter. They contribute to the multi-
plication of signification, which arises from
the presence of different forms of inscrip-
tions (Bastide, 1985; Lemke, 1998). Fourth,
inscriptions are easily rescaled to produce
larger or smaller images without changing
their internal relations (Latour, 1987). A
photograph, such as the one of the CanX-
6 satellite (Fig. 4.2), may appear in larger
format in a report and then appear in minia-
ture format in a chapter of representation
in engineering. Fifth, inscriptions are easily
combined and superimposed (Star, 1995). A
grid can be drawn on top of a photograph
of the bubbles on the interface between
two media, thereby allowing precise loca-
tion of the measurement sites; or diagrams
of atoms at aluminum and fluorinated car-
bon interfaces may appear in scatterplots
of data, allowing the coordination of mea-
surement and structure information. This
leads to the heterogeneous and composite
nature of layered inscriptions (e.g., Fig. 4.2).
Sixth, inscriptions are reproducible at low
cost – from economic, cognitive, and tempo-
ral perspectives. Thus, the lecture notes for
an engineering course are readily distributed
using electronic means almost instantly to
all students of the course. Seventh, inscrip-
tions can be merged with geometrical infor-
mation. Thus, the imposition of a grid over
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73
the photograph of the bubbles on a mate-
rial interface provides a territory with geo-
metrically delineable shapes wherein the
object under study can be seen to move
through time and across space (Lynch, 1990;
Suchman, 1993). Eighth, inscriptions are eas-
ily translated into other inscriptions that
are again translated, forming the aforemen-
tioned cascades of inscriptions (e.g., Fig. 4.2).
Conscription Device
The focus on inscriptions also allows us to
understand and theorize the collaborative
nature of the work of engineers (e.g., Such-
man, 1990); this collaborative context of the
work also constitutes an important site for
the enculturation of new engineers (e.g.,
Ibrahim & Rahimian, 2010). Thus, rather
than having to rely on guesses what the par-
ticipants in a design session have in their
minds, participants to the session can gather
around inscriptions and discuss or argue
alternative understandings and perspectives
(e.g., Ehn, 1992). In this manner, inscriptions
are understood to function as conscription
devices (Henderson, 1991): they enlist and
gather collaborators, focus their attention to
a joint object, and thereby organize their
joint work. The inscriptions become the
focal artifacts that allow engineers to hold
each other accountable for their expres-
sions and thoughts (Suchman, 1993). There
is no difference then whether we look at
the designing activities of children, of high
school or university students, or at prac-
tical engineers (Roth, 1998). Take the fol-
lowing example from an upper elementary
classroom where students were learning a
variety of scientific concepts through engi-
neering design projects. The fragment from
the videotape followed a tug of war in
which, mediated by a block and tackle, the
teacher won the competition against twenty
sixth- and seventh-grade students. The dis-
cussion concerned the design of devices that
give a mechanical advantage. There had
already been a number of students on the
chalkboard providing alternative designs and
arguments for why the students lost and for
how to redesign the situation.
 74 cambridge handbook of engineering education research
Episode 1
01 Teacher: and where do YOU pull.
02 (1.58) (Several students chuckle.)
03 Shamir: and there is anOTHer bANister
04 (1.05) (Several students chuckle.)
05 here
06 (0.61)
07 and we pull
08 (0.81) (Writes “class,” Fig. 4.3a)
09 here.
10 (2.71) (Several Ss clap.)
11 Student: oh yeah.
12 Shamir: <<p>you khh is> (Gestures as in Fig. 4.3b,c)
13 Student: uhhh.
14 (0.57)
15 Aslam: but then mister doctor roth has nothing to PULL at
16 Shamir: thats just it.
In this situation, the participants to the
design situation – students and teacher –
hold each other accountable in and through
the design drawings that emerge on the com-
mon representation medium, including the
force arrows and magnitudes that they layer
upon the design itself. In fact, the group has
decided to use the chalkboard because they
no longer understood each other and there
was a conceptual confusion as long as they
were just talking (Roth, 1996b). In the end,
the chalkboard was littered with alterna-
tive designs, some of which were discarded
as viable options including the one that
Shamir was proposing. Aslam realizes (turn
13) that in the design Shamir has proposed,
the class is pulling against the wall and the
teacher (Roth) does not have to pull to hold
his own.
The presence of the pictorial inscription
of the design provides opportunities (affor-
dances) to the manner in which speakers
articulate pertinent issues – even if, and
especially when, the participants to the set-
ting represent different communities and
different levels of understanding (Ehn &
Kyng, 1991). For example, Shamir points
(Fig. 4.3a) with his hand and fingers (tech-
nically, he uses a deictic gesture) to a partic-
ular location in the design, thereby increas-
ing the definiteness of the topic of talk and
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decreasing the amount of interpretive flexi-
bility that his listeners can attribute to what
he is saying. Perhaps even more interesting,
Shamir uses a hand gesture that moves along
one of the “ropes” in the pulley configuration
he designed (Fig. 4.3b, c). The movement of
this gesture is in the direction of the “pull,”
that is, the force that acts in the system. The
movement therefore bears an iconic rela-
tion to the direction of the force. We may
say that he enacts the (mental, embodied)
schema that goes with and underlies the ges-
tural movement (e.g., Núñez, 2009). As a
reified whole, the gesture is an iconic signi-
fier that stands for the rope (the signified).
The presence or creation of pictorial inscrip-
tion, and the gestures it affords, contribute
to the emergence of culture and engineering
language (Roth & Lawless, 2002).
As conscription devices, inscriptions pro-
vide an (external) focus of attention to inter-
action participants. Here they may function
as topic (e.g., when Shamir talks about the
design) and as ground of the discussion (e.g.,
when Shamir expresses himself with a ges-
ture the signification of which comes from
its iconic relation to the figure). Inscriptions
therefore serve a double function: they rep-
resent the content of the issue at hand, and
they serve as the context that is required for
the constitution of the sense of the text.
 the social nature of representational engineering knowledge 75

Figure 4.3. One of a number of students has come to the chalkboard as part of a discussion about
the affordances of a block and tackle in a particular design situation. He labels a diagram to show
where certain forces act (a) and uses gestures (b, c) to show the direction of forces and where in the
design this act.

ferent (disciplinary) practices into alignment

Boundary Objects
The preceding example also exhibits an-
other important concept: inscriptions func-
tion as boundary objects that coordinate peo-
ple who have qualitatively different under-
standings of the situation (Star, 1989). In
the example it is the difference between
an everyday understanding of the forces in
a system brought by the children and the
understanding of a physicist with a gradu-
ate degree. A typical example of a boundary
object exists in the design drawings of an
airplane used in a manufacturing company
(Henderson, 1991). The same set of engi-
neering design drawings is used in different
departments of an airplane manufacturing
company including the shop floor, engineer-
ing design studio, accounting department,
inventory management office, and struc-
tural engineering bureau. That is, bound-
ary objects allow the sharing of knowl-
edge across knowledge boundaries (Barrett
& Oborn, 2010). But this does not mean that
inscriptions are used in the same manner
when they cross from one disciplinary prac-
tice into another: they are used differently,
which is to say that the associated prac-
tices also differ in the different departments.
Boundary objects, therefore, allow the man-
agement of institutional and disciplinary dif-
ferences that interdisciplinary work brings
with it (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011). They
constitute a normative force that brings dif-
(Star, 2010). This is especially true for those
instances in which scientific and engineer-
ing consultants work with their clients with
very different knowledge profiles and disci-
plinary practices (Hall, Wieckert, & Wright,
2006). Those individuals with competencies
in more than one domain, who appropri-
ately use inscriptions within two or more
very different technological contexts, obtain
wizard or guru status (Star, 1995). Some-
times they are referred to as boundary span-
ners: individuals who serve as the inter-
mediaries between developers and users of
open source software (Barcellini, Détienne,
& Burkhardt, 2009).
Those who envision some interdisci-
plinary collaboration involving designers or
engineers but who do not yet have a shared
language may also produce boundary objects
(Broberg & Hermund, 2007). Thus, in the
design of new workplaces, the system engi-
neers spent three weeks with the future
users; they jointly produced inscriptions and
built mock-ups (Ehn & Kyng, 1991). In the
course of their collaborative work, the engi-
neers and the future users established a
common language anchored in and on the
inscriptions and artifacts that they were
building together. As a result, they were able
to overcome the gaps that naturally exist
between the languages of their respective
communities: jointly produced inscriptions
supported the building of bridges. Their

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 76 cambridge handbook of engineering education research
function is to articulate and coordinate the
very different practices of engineering and
user communities. That is, in such studies,
the participants come to see the points of
view of the members from other commu-
nities and practices, which therefore high-
lights the reflective and reflexive nature of
inscriptions when they function as bound-
ary objects. Thus, as one study in the field
of process control shows, boundary cross-
ing and change in perspectives occur when
boundary “objects facilitate communication
between different activity systems by mak-
ing explicit the knowledge and assump-
tions mobilized in the interpretation of the
object” (Hoyles, Bakker, Kent, & Noss, 2007,
p. 335).
Cartography of Inscriptions:
A Framework for Producing,
Reading, and Teaching Inscriptions
Inscriptions do not come alone but are inte-
grated into what is generally referred to
as the main text. It is certainly the ear-
lier cultural-historical origin of language that
makes text the dominant form to estab-
lish signification generally and the signi-
fication of inscriptions more specifically.
Based on several studies of scholarly, edu-
cational, and popular scientific texts I estab-
lished what we might call a cartography of
inscriptions (Pozzer & Roth, 2003; W.-M.
Roth, 2010; Roth, Bowen, & McGinn, 1999).
These studies show that there a multi-
ple ways in which different parts and
kinds of text and inscriptions come to be
related in explicit ways and by means of
explicit markers. To understand an engi-
neering text, students and other newcomers
to the field need to be able to understand
this cartography (even if in an imminent
way) or they would be lost in the reading
much in the same way that a hiker or a
tourist might be lost without a map of the
novel terrain they enter. I work out some of
the relations in the following example from
a master’s thesis in aerospace engineering
entitled Navigation and Control Design for
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the CanX-4/-5 Satellite Formation Flying Mis-
sion (N. H. Roth, 2010).
As readers know from their experience,
orientations for reading a particular piece –
and, with it, for reading the inscriptions
it comes with – is provided by the title
of a piece of work (book, journal article).
This title organizes the reading of the text
such that reading will approach the thesis as
an example of an engineering genre rather
than another literary genre (poem, scien-
tific novel). I use the term reading rather
than reader, because it is in any case an
anonymous culturally enabled reading prac-
tice that comes to be enacted in any particu-
lar situation in which an individual engages
with a text. This text in turn has motivated
the title. The title already orients readers
toward specific parts of the main text (Fig.
4.4). We therefore understand “target atti-
tudes” or “predicted and actual attitude tar-
gets” in this aerospace engineering context
rather differently than if the context had
prepared us for reading an experimental psy-
chological text or in an educational text on
teaching method, in which “target attitudes”
have very different significations (attitudes
toward something that are to be studied
or attitudes toward something that need
to be changed). Individual readers do not
even have to think whether they are reading
an engineering text, an online news feature
reporting a new engineering feat, or a poem.
This is so because the cultural forms of read-
ing that we embody have devices built in
that orient the process differently as a func-
tion of the particulars of the text at hand
(e.g., Livingston, 1995; W.-M. Roth, 2010).
The main text and graphs are linked
in multiple ways. For example, the phrase
“shown in Fig. 5.3” directs readers to look
for a figure with the number “5.3.” This is
important, for there could be multiple fig-
ures and the one appearing on the same page
as the index may not be the one indexed by
the representation “Fig. 5.3” – in the present
instance, the figure in fact appears on the
following page. The main text also provides
a description of what the reader is to look
for and how to read “Fig. 5.3.” For exam-
ple, the text describes: “each line denotes
 the social nature of representational engineering knowledge 77

Figure 4.4. Main text, Cartesian line graph, and associated caption from a master’s thesis in aerospace
studies and the associated caption. (From N. H. Roth, 2010, pp. 61, 62. Used with permission.)

the normalized component of the com-
mended attitude vector in the GCI frame.”
The main text further describes what would
be ideally found (“the blue lines would be
straight or mildly kinked”) – thereby com-
paring what is presented to an absent norm.
It also describes what each jump represents.
The text then orients competent reading to
spikes, which, when it moves to the cap-
tion, it finds again: “Attitude spikes result-
ing from the prediction scheme” (Fig. 4.4).
This repeated description also constitutes an
instruction for the reading to orient itself
toward the spikes rather than toward the
other, minor differences between the red
and blue curves. That is, whereas the spikes
may not be immediately salient in the read-
ing, the repeated description/instruction ori-
ents the process in such a manner. This
difference turns out to become especially
salient when the reader comes to the point
where the red lines are described as denoting
“a spike-free series of targets.”
The caption is not a superfluous phe-
nomenon that we could get away with leav-
ing out. This is so because any inscrip-
tion potentially can be read in multiple
ways – even highly educated and success-
ful individuals from the same discipline
read graphs from undergraduate textbooks
in different, often incongruent ways (Roth &
Bowen, 2003); and professors may talk about
inscriptions during lectures that are clearly
incorrect (Roth & Bowen, 1999a). Thus, it is
precisely in the contrast of the caption open-
ing “Attitude spikes resulting from predic-
tion scheme” and the closing sentence “The
red lines denote a spike-free series of targets”
that readers can find the pointer to the
spikes as the phenomenon of interest. The
caption then has at least three important
functions. First, it describes precisely those
features that are relevant to the overall argu-
ment that the authors make in the main
text. Scientists tend to do a tremendous
amount of work so that their readers find
in an inscription precisely what the authors
intend for them to find (Bastide, 1985). Sec-
ond, and at the same token, the caption is
an instruction that guides reading what to
look for in the inscription and how to go
about finding it. Third, by looking at the

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 78 cambridge handbook of engineering education research
visual aspects, competent reading finds the
spikes. That is, the figure thereby authenti-
cates what the text is describing.
The caption and inscription thereby
relate back to the main text in multiple
ways. First, they validate, in a visual form,
what the main text claims: variations, which
the author attributes to “the variation due
to real-time updates of the commanded
attitude.” The caption marker “Figure 5.3”
allows readers concerned with these inscrip-
tions first to find the relevant information in
the main text. Main text and caption there-
fore “collaborate” to establish the salience of
a particular perceptual feature, and this fea-
ture, once discovered by the reading process,
validates (reinforces) in a different manner
what the text has directed it to look for.
Advantages of a Social
Psychological/Pragmatic Approach
For us, to speak about the external process
means to speak of the social. Any higher psy-
chological function was external; this means
that it was social; before becoming a func-
tion, it was the social relation between people.
(Vygotsky, 1989, p. 56)
When discussing knowledge, psycholo-
gists tend to focus on mental representa-
tions. The problem is that no researcher
has direct access to mental representation,
what it might look like, and how it might
be used. A practice approach to scientific
representation therefore is especially useful
in teaching and learning at all levels of the
formal and informal educational processes
(Roth & McGinn, 1998). The introductory
quotation to this section provides us with
help here, as it suggests that any higher psy-
chological function initially is external; it is
not just found in external form, such as,
for example, a diagram that engineers might
also generate – in less elaborate form – in
their mind. Indeed, the quotation suggests
that the higher function is a social relation
first. It is therefore not surprising to find that
a text on how to follow engineers around
in their work suggests examining “first the
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many ways through which instructions are
gathered, combined, tied together and send
back . . . before attributing any special qual-
ity to the mind or method” of the engineers
(Latour, 1987, p. 258). Only when there is
something left unexplained do we have to
draw on hidden variables (cognitive factors)
to explain the work of engineers.
This position that moved the discussion
from internal representation to inscriptions
has shocked quite a number of scientists and
engineers when initially formulated. But it
actually provides us with some advantages
for thinking about what we might want to
teach in engineering and how we might go
about it. This is so because if anything we
wish an engineer to do and think is exter-
nal first, then we do not have to theorize
how we get something into his or her mind.
All we need to do is allow future engi-
neers to encounter inscriptions and engage
in relations where they are used; and we
need to assist those on a trajectory into
an engineering field to become competent.
The real training in engineering is at the
advanced levels of graduate work, which is
precisely what has been reported for sci-
ence (Traweek, 1988). It is quite evident
that up until the undergraduate levels and
even into graduate school, newcomers are
left on their own, to study and memorize
engineering inscriptions and practices rather
than experiencing them first hand at the
elbow of someone who already is competent
in their use or in groups of engineers using
inscriptions. Use is important, as it rather
than some mental “meaning” is the pertinent
and defining aspect of a representation/word
(Wittgenstein, 1953/1997). A special orien-
tation to the reasoned use of inscriptions
may foster learning environments in which
students’ competencies to produce, ana-
lyze, and interpret increase. Thus, one study
showed that eighth-grade students – who
designed and conducted investigations and
reported them for the purpose of convinc-
ingly reporting their findings to their audi-
ences – outperformed, at statistically signifi-
cant levels, pre-service science teachers who
had already obtained either a bachelor’s or
master’s degree in science (Roth, McGinn,
 the social nature of representational engineering knowledge
Figure 4.5. Example of static structure with forces in a mechanical
engineering course.
& Bowen, 1998). The eighth-grade students
used more abstract inscriptions – includ-
ing plots, line graphs, and statistics – than
the future teachers who, less than a year
after the study, took positions of teaching in
middle and high schools. Detailed quantita-
tive and qualitative analyses of the inscrip-
tion use among these eighth-graders exhib-
ited the tremendous inscription-related
competencies in contexts that push them to
mathematize their experience (Roth, 1996c;
Roth & Bowen, 1994).
A very simple example of focusing on the
external aspects of learning engineering is
through the teaching by examples. Thus, an
engineering lecture on forces in structures
might present two equations, one for forces
(1) and another for the moments (2):
F = Fx i + F y j + Fz k
Mi = Fi di
The lecturer might present a third equation
for a static two-dimensional system that is
in equilibrium:

n 
n 
n
F x,i = 0; F y,i = 0;
i=1 i=1 i=1
Rather than letting the students do prob-
lems on their own, the lecturer might actu-
ally “apply” the equations to a real, concrete
situation. Thus, he or she would exhibit
what an engineer does with these equations
given a concrete example. Such an approach
has been successful for teaching mathe-
matics at the undergraduate level, for it
makes explicit what expert practitioners do
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79
and how they think (Schoenfeld, 1985). For
example, a configuration of some forces
around specific points in a structure may
be given (Fig. 4.5). The lecturer then takes
the students through the example in a step-
by-step fashion. This is important because
the whole point is the showing, the relation
that is thereby established between the lec-
turing engineer and his or her students –
who should be encouraged to ask ques-
tions because this furthers the level and
intensity of their interaction. It is pre-
cisely in the sequentially ordered interac-
tion that the relation exists of which L. S.
Vygotsky speaks in the introductory quo-
tation. The demonstration involves further
inscriptions, which exist in shared space
and really precisely because of their mate-
riality (talk alone would be more ephe-
(1)
meral).
(2) The lecturer might point to the symme-
try of the system, which therefore consti-
tutes an equilibrium condition. For point B,
we can therefore apply the first of the three
sums in (3):
Mi = 0 
3
F x,i = 141.4 cos(45◦ )N
i=1
(3)
+ 0N − 141.4 cos(45◦ )N = 0 (4)
Because we now think in terms of relation
involving lecturer and students, the lecturer
must not leave implicit anything that appears
to go without saying, because it is precisely
the objective presence in public of every-
thing that we later want to be the higher psy-
chological function that counts. Thus, some-
times lecturers might leave out the fact that
the three “i’s” refer to the A, B, and C points
 80 cambridge handbook of engineering education research
where there are forces. Thus, Fx,1 is the force
at A along the x-axis. It also has to be made
explicit that there is a negative sign in the
third force, which indicates that it points in
the opposite direction.
This simple example is provided to high-
light the fact that inscriptions do not have
inherent “meaning” that students can some-
how pick up or make in their minds.
From the social psychological perspective
articulated here, every higher psychologi-
cal function first exists in the form of a
concrete relation in material life. From a
pragmatic perspective in L. Wittgenstein’s
language philosophy, use is what matters;
and use is experienced in concrete relations
rather than existing in ephemeral “men-
tal frameworks” and “mental constructions.”
One set of lecture notes that I saw makes
explicit the fact that some textbooks leave
implicit certain ideas by discussing examples
of “Why didn’t the book just say that . . . ?”
(Ronney, 2010, p. 24). That is, the nature of
engineering knowledge, which relies heav-
ily on inscriptions (visual representation),
makes it ideal for teaching and learning
purposes.
Conclusion
Visual representation (inscription) not only
is a faddish sign of our times but also is a
constitutive feature of engineering knowl-
edge. This essentially external aspect of engi-
neering knowledge constitutes an advan-
tage both for teaching engineering and for
doing research in engineering education. It
allows teachers and researchers to focus
on the use and transformations of inscrip-
tions. This makes it possible for us to fol-
low engineers around at their work rather
than having to try and enter the realm of
their private thoughts. Inscriptions allow us
to study engineering in action, whereby the
point is to do so before knowledge is black-
boxed into the common sense of engineering
culture or in following the controversies dur-
ing which established knowledge and norms
come to be challenged. Engineering educa-
tion research therefore is much better situ-
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ated to capitalize on the possibilities arising
from the social perspective on representa-
tion than other fields, where knowing is rele-
gated to the mental sphere alone. The nature
of engineering knowledge of being contin-
ually present in inscriptions provides us
with affordances that other fields where the
prevalence of inscriptions is much lower –
social sciences, humanities – just do not
have.
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