The Challenges Faced by Engineering Students to Write Effectively-The Teacher’s

Perspective

The abstract of this study states that it focuses on analyzing the errors made by
engineering students when they write situational essays and descriptive paragraphs. The study
aims to improve the writing skills of these students through a process-oriented approach and
random sampling method.

The paper suggests that engineering students can improve their writing capability through a
process-oriented approach. Also, the paper utilizes a random sampling method to gather samples
for the study.

In the article, Selvi & Kumar (2019) state that writing effectively can improve the
communicative skills for the engineering students and so, the researchers focus on the pre-final-
year engineering students who often struggle with technical writing due to a lack of writing
practice. Selvi & Kumar (2019) also come up with a problem statement in this paper is twofold:

1. Pre-final year engineering students may not possess the necessary writing skills to cope with
their studies.
2. Engineering students find it very difficult to write essays and paragraphs on situational topics.
From their schooling, they are taught and practiced product method of writing. They struggle
with writing essays and paragraphs on situational topics, as they are taught and practiced a
product-oriented method of writing, which limits their freedom to think and write on their own.

Additionally, engineering students make a lot of errors in subject-verb agreement, which

affects the meaning and structure of their sentences. This lack of writing skills and grammatical
errors hinder their ability to score high marks in their writing assignments.

Next there is section called “Hypothesis” which is a forecast about what the investigation
will uncover. This is also an untested preliminary response to a research question. However, no
such thing is explicitly found in this particular section. Selvi & Kumar (2019) state that ‘The
process-oriented approach differs from the traditional methods of teaching writing’ (p. 1211). So,
the authors talk about the process-oriented approach involves five stages: pre-writing, writing,
revising, editing, and final. Each stage follows a number of processes, such as brainstorming
ideas, planning, organizing, selecting ideas, getting feedback from the teacher, exchanging drafts
with peers, and making corrections like adding, removing, or changing sentences. Hence, the
hypothesis, implicitly, suggests that by engaging in this process with the teacher and peers,
students can produce effective texts and improve their writing skills.

The researchers’ major focus was to analyze the errors in subject-verb-agreement in the
students’ writing samples which were mostly essays and paragraphs as well as to find ways to
avoid the errors in writing. In this regard, they came up with the process oriented approach of
writing and quoted Emig’s (1977) statement that says that at various phases, writing is a
cognitive process. Writing is best viewed as a collection of diverse mental processes that writers
orchestrate to organize when producing. Writing is the creation of a distinct verbal constant that
is visibly documented.

Data collection method: Quantitative (the tasks) + Qualitative (discussions with the
students after they got their work back)

1. Random sampling method was used to collect 50 samples of essays from engineering
students.
2. A pre-test was conducted, where students were asked to write a paragraph of 100 words
to assess their entry level.
3. The teaching approach included various stages, such as pre-writing, where learners
brainstormed ideas and planned their organization.
4. Collaborative work was encouraged, allowing students to include their ideas in the texts.

NO EXPLICIT RESEARCH QUESTIONS!

Results: The research found that subject-verb agreement was an important aspect of grammar
and that a lot of irregularities were found in this area.

Limitations: The paper does not discuss the specific criteria used to identify and analyze
subject-verb agreement errors in the essays, the paper does not provide a detailed description of
the methodology used for data collection and analysis. The research focuses primarily on
subject-verb agreement errors and may not address other important aspects of writing, such as
coherence, organization, and content development.
 The conclusions from the paper include the focus on subject-verb agreement challenges,
the use of a process-oriented approach, the aim to improve writing capability, the need for a
different perspective, and the insights for teachers to support students in writing effectively.