E295.

14: Efficient Communication (Communications for Engineering Leaders)

Fall 2021

Instructor: Mark Bauer

Email: markbauer@berkeley.edu
Office hours: Monday 1:00-2:00 pm and Thursday 11:00 am-12:00 pm in 312 Shires

GSIs and office hours:

Andre Montes (amontes@berkeley.edu): Tuesday 10:00-11:00 am in 312 Shires
and Zoom ID 985 8128 0129

Samantha Serafica (samantha.serafica@berkeley.edu): Tuesday 2:00-3:00 in 312 Shires

and Zoom ID 957 0681 5596

Course Description
This course is dedicated to producing succinct, effective writing and presentations by
focusing on core sets of audience concerns. It has three related goals:
1) To develop a set of writing and presenting skills that will help students on their exams
within the program and in a professional environment
2) To find, digest, and repackage information about important events and trends within
students’ subfields
3) To use these skills to develop materials that students can use to present themselves as
members of a larger professional community
These goals point the course in two directions. They encourage students to look outward toward
the broader context of their chosen subfields and industries, but they also ask students to think
deeply about their own role within these larger contexts so that they can begin to formulate
professional personas. The course’s written materials and presentations reflect these twin
orientations, all with the aim of preparing students to perform the necessary task of presenting
themselves as informed and integral members of their industries in professional contexts that
range from social media and networking to cover letters and job interviews.

Additionally, the E295 course series is designed to fulfill the following objectives:
Students will communicate clearly, professionally, and persuasively:
○ Extemporaneously frame, engage, and solve engineering problems in front of technical
and non-technical audiences
○ Use clear, concise, meaningful, and persuasive language to share technical knowledge
with stakeholders in varied cultural and organizational settings
○ Convey technical expertise with enthusiasm, confidence, and sincerity necessary to
build long-term professional relationships
○ Communicate with a “bias to action,” focus on the why as well as the how, inspire and
persuade others, and propel meaningful change
Assignments
Reading and writing assignments for this class will be short, but something will be due
each week (see calendar below). Expect to spend between two and three hours on each
assignment. Readings will be available on our bCourses site or through library links—there are
no required texts. The Mayfield Handbook of Technical and Scientific Writing will be a useful
resource for much of the course (Perelman, Leslie C., James Paradis and Edward Barrett, The
Mayfield Handbook of Technical and Scientific Writing. (Mountain View: Mayfield, 1998).
Available online: https://www.mit.edu/course/21/21.guide/).
Electronic copies of assignments should be submitted to our bCourses site—see specific
assignments for details.

Assignment Calendar

Date Topic What’s Due

August 26th Part I: Introductions
Syllabus; Professional Bios
September 2nd Part II: What Are Your Options? Bio Blurb
Career Goals and Presentation Basics;
Blurb Workshop

September 9th Informational Interviews; Career Odyssey

Career Odyssey Presentations

September 16th Finding Articles: Research Methods In your notes: List of possible
industries, companies, or
people to request informational
interviews with

September 23rd Synthesizing Industry Trends; Industry trends annotated

Paragraph structures bibliography

September 30th Synthesis continued Industry trends paragraph

October 7th Part III: What’s Your Vision?
Argument; Science Op-Eds;
Thesis statements; Executive Summaries
October 14th Op-Ed strategies;
Executive Summary workshop
Industry Trends Synthesis
Science Op-Ed Executive
Summary

October 21st Statements of Purpose; Science Op-Ed

Op-Ed workshop
October 28th Informational Interview
Reflection Presentation
November 4th IV: How Can You Refine That Vision? Statement of Purpose
Principles of Revision;
 Statement of Purpose Workshop
November 11th No Class—Veteran’s Day Sign up for a time to meet with
an instructor and your writing
group this week.
November 18th Final Presentation:
Choose either Op-Ed or SoP
November 25th No Class—Thanksgiving No assignment
December 2nd Comprehensive exam strategies and in- Final Paper Revision:
class writing Choose either Op-Ed or SoP

There is no final exam for this course.

Teaching Team and Daily Class Structure

This class consists of two components: lecture and breakout sessions. These sessions
offer time for delivering presentations, conducting writing workshops, and performing other
tasks that are best handled in a smaller class format.
The course is team taught by me (your professor) and two graduate student instructors
(GSIs). I’m in charge of lectures and one of the three daily breakout sessions, while the GSIs
facilitate the other two. All of us are responsible for grading and one-on-one support. We will
all use the same set of guidelines for grading, so there’s no reason to assume that I as professor
have greater insight about the grade than any of the GSIs. If you have questions about specific
grades, it is best to take them up with the person who graded that particular assignment.

Grades
Papers/Writings…………………………………………………….65%
Bio Blurb (3%)
Industry Trends Annotated Bibliography (7%)
Industry Trends Paragraph (5%)
Industry Trends Synthesis (10%)
Science Op-Ed Executive Summary (5%)
Science Op-Ed (10%)
Statement of Purpose (10%)
Final Paper Revision (15%)
Presentations………………………………………………………..20%
Career Odyssey (5%)
Informational Interview Reflection (5%)
Final presentation (10%)
Participation……………………..……………………………...…..15%
In-class discussions and other activities (5%)
Writing group activities and meetings (10%)

Note: In keeping with Fung Institute policies, final grades may be subject to curving. Your final
grade may be higher or lower than your individual assignment grades would lead you to expect.
This class does not use the bCourses gradebook to calculate course grades.

Letter Grade Conversions and Grading Scale

Conversions: Scale:
A 95 B 85 A 100-92 B+ 89-88
A- 91 B- 81 A- 91-90 B 87-82
B+ 89

Attendance
Each student is allowed one absence with no questions asked. If you miss additional
classes for reasons other than medical or family emergencies, your overall course grade will be
reduced by 1⁄3 of a letter grade for each missed class beyond the first (e. g. the second missed
class drops the possible course grade from an A to an A-). Exceptions may be made for
important professional development activities like job interviews; just let me know beforehand.
If you are feeling sick, please do not come to class. Follow university and public health
guidelines around self-isolating and testing until you know it’s safe to return to campus. Let me
know where you are in the process and we’ll excuse the absence(s).

Technology and Participation

Participation is key in this class. It includes making comments and answering questions
in class, working toward assigned in-class activities, and submitting informal assignments to
bCourses. The most important element of this class is the chance for you to develop and test
skills and ideas with your classmates, and the participation grade is designed to reward your role
in that process.
Technology—laptops, tablets, phones—is welcome if it is used in ways that help you
engage more fully with the class, including such tasks as note-taking, looking things up, and
referring to reading assignments. That does not, however, give you license to play games, listen
to music, text/chat, or surf the Internet during class. As long as technology can be used
responsibly, it is welcome; if it becomes a distraction, it will not be. You will need pen and
paper at every class for informal writing assignments.
Using your electronic devices for tasks not explicitly related to work for this course will
lead to a 1⁄3 reduction in your participation grade for that week’s class. Repeated instances of
this usage will lead to a reduction of your overall course grade by one letter grade (e. g. from an
A to a B).

In Case We Cannot Meet (Instructional Resilience)

For reasons beyond our control, this class may need to move online on short notice. If
that happens, I’ll email with instructions and a Zoom link if necessary. BCourses will be our
primary means of relaying this information, so be sure that you check your linked email account
regularly and are able to receive notifications.
Late Work
Papers not posted to bCourses by the stated deadline will receive a 1/3 grade reduction
per day they’re late (so an A paper that was due on Monday and turned in on Tuesday could
receive no higher grade than an A-). An extension to a written assignment’s due date may be
granted once per semester with 24 hours’ notice. For scheduling reasons, extensions cannot
be granted for presentations, and presentations will only be permitted to be made up after
absences related to a legitimate medical or family emergency, or for documented technological
problems (e. g., internet outage or broken computer).

Disability, Religious Accommodations, and Inclusion

If you need disability-related accommodations, or if you have medical considerations I
should be aware of, please let me know as soon as possible, either after class or in office hours.
If you need to miss class because of a religious holiday, let me know well in advance of the
absence.
This class will adhere to University public health policies (e. g., wearing masks in indoor
spaces), and we will expect students to do the same. If for some reason you need an exception to
these policies, please let me know.
The Fung Institute is committed to creating a learning environment welcoming of all
students. To do so, we intend to support a diversity of perspectives and experiences and respect
each others’ identities and backgrounds (including race/ethnicity, nationality, gender identity,
socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, language, religion, ability, etc.). To help accomplish
this:
● If you feel like your performance in the class is being impacted by a lack of inclusion,
please contact the instructors, your ESS advisor, or the departmental Faculty Equity
Advisor (list and information at: https://diversity.berkeley.edu/faculty-equity-advisors).
An anonymous feedback form is also available at
https://engineering.berkeley.edu/about/equity-and-inclusion/feedback/.
● If you have a name and/or set of pronouns that differ from your legal name, designate a
preferred name for use in the classroom at: https://registrar.berkeley.edu/academic-
records/your-name-records-rosters.

Citation, Academic Integrity, and Plagiarism

All written work submitted in this course, except for acknowledged quotations, is to be
expressed in your own words and using your own framework (organization, sentence/paragraph
structure, etc.). If you quote from another source, you should cite that source using either the
Chicago Manual of Style author-date format and internal/parenthetical citations (not footnotes)
or MLA format. The CMOS 17th ed. is available here:
https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html. It’s worth taking the time to cite your
sources as they nearly always bolster your credibility. More important, if you use something
without citing it, you’re plagiarizing.
The Berkeley Campus Code of Student Conduct defines plagiarism as “the use of
intellectual material produced by another person without acknowledging its source” and
stipulates that plagiarism includes:
1.) Copying from the writings or works of others into one’s academic assignment without
attribution, or submitting such work as if it were one’s own;
 2.) Using the views, opinions, or insights of another without acknowledgment; or
3.) Paraphrasing the characteristic or original phraseology, metaphor, or other literary
device of another without proper attribution.
Unacknowledged use of the words or ideas of others from any medium (print, digital, or
otherwise) is plagiarism. The submission of plagiarized work will, under University rules, render
the offending student subject to an F grade for the work in question or for the whole course, and
will also make him/her liable for referral to the Student Judicial Affairs Office for further
disciplinary action.
All work for this class needs to be original to this class. That means that you can’t
recycle assignments or writing done for previous classes or at other institutions. You’re always
welcome to revisit ideas that you’ve had before, but they need to take a different form than they
might have assumed in the past. Feel free to talk to us about ways to use your own previous
work responsibly.

If issues surrounding the problematic use of sources arise, our policy is as follows:
First time: The paper gets a C. You should talk to your grader about the issue, and you
have the option to rework the sections for possible full credit. If the problems
have not been resolved on resubmission, the C stands.
Second time: The paper gets a D. You should talk to your grader about the issue, and
you have the option to rework the sections for a one letter-grade penalty (so an A
paper would get no better grade than a B). If the problems have not been resolved
on resubmission, the D stands.
Third time: The paper gets an automatic F.
We retain the right to give no credit to overtly or intentionally plagiarized papers.

General Campus Resources

Center for Access to Engineering Excellence (CAEE)

The Center for Access to Engineering Excellence (227 Bechtel Engineering Center;
https://engineering.berkeley.edu/student-services/academic-support) is an inclusive center that
offers study spaces, nutritious snacks, and tutoring in >50 courses for Berkeley engineers and
other majors across campus. The Center also offers a wide range of professional development,
leadership, and wellness programs, and loans iclickers, laptops, and professional attire for
interviews.

Disabled Students' Program (DSP)

The Disabled Student’s Program (260 César Chávez Student Center #4250; 510-642-0518;
http://dsp.berkeley.edu) serves students with disabilities of all kinds. Services are individually
designed and based on the specific needs of each student as identified by DSP's Specialists. If
you have already been approved for accommodations through DSP, please know that DSP is
ready to quickly adjust your accommodations if your situation changes.
Counseling and Psychological Services
University Health Services Counseling and Psychological Services staff are available to you at
the Tang Center (http://uhs.berkeley.edu; 2222 Bancroft Way; 510-642-9494) and in the College
of Engineering (https://engineering.berkeley.edu/students/advising-counseling/counseling/; 241
Bechtel Engineering Center), and provide confidential assistance to students managing problems
that can emerge from illness such as financial, academic, legal, family concerns, and more. Long
wait times at the Tang Center in the past led to a significant expansion to include a 24/7
counseling line at (855) 817-5667. This line will connect you with help in a very short time-
frame. Short-term help is also available from the Alameda County Crisis hotline: 800-309-2131.
If you or someone you know is experiencing an emergency that puts their health at risk, please
call 911.

The Care Line (PATH to Care Center)

The Care Line (510-643-2005; https://care.berkeley.edu/care-line/) is a 24/7, confidential, free,
campus-based resource for urgent support around sexual assault, sexual harassment,
interpersonal violence, stalking, and invasion of sexual privacy. The Care Line will connect you
with a confidential advocate for trauma-informed crisis support including time-sensitive
information, securing urgent safety resources, and accompaniment to medical care or reporting.

Ombudsperson for Students

The Ombudsperson for Students (102 Sproul Hall; 642-5754;
http://students.berkeley.edu/Ombuds) provides a confidential service for students involved in a
University-related problem (academic or administrative), acting as a neutral complaint resolver
and not as an advocate for any of the parties involved in a dispute. The Ombudsman can provide
information on policies and procedures affecting students, facilitate students' contact with
services able to assist in resolving the problem, and assist students in complaints concerning
improper application of University policies or procedures. All matters referred to this office are
held in strict confidence. The only exceptions, at the sole discretion of the Ombudsman, are cases
where there appears to be imminent threat of serious harm.

UC Berkeley Food Pantry

The UC Berkeley Food Pantry (#68 Martin Luther King Student Union;
https://pantry.berkeley.edu) aims to reduce food insecurity among students and staff at UC
Berkeley, especially the lack of nutritious food. Students and staff can visit the pantry as many
times as they need and take as much as they need while being mindful that it is a shared resource.
The pantry operates on a self-assessed need basis; there are no eligibility requirements. The
pantry is not for students and staff who need supplemental snacking food, but rather, core food
support.
Bio Blurb Assignment

Write a short biographical paragraph (100-200 words) detailing your professional background,
achievements, and interests. As part of the Fung community, you should use our staff bios to
guide you in selecting the kind of information to include. You can find them here:
https://funginstitute.berkeley.edu/programs-centers/full-time-program/leadership-
development/engineering-leadership-teaching-team/

Some guiding questions include:

 What would prospective employers and coworkers want to know about me?
 What skills and experiences can I bring to their projects and teams?
 What interests motivate my work in this field?

Your blurb will be due to bCourses by class time on September 2nd.

Please use 12 pt. Times New Roman font (or equivalent) and double space your text.