Communication of your ideas and results is a very important aspect of engineering.
Many engineering students picture themselves in professional practice spending most of
their time doing calculations of a nature similar to those they have done as students.
Fortunately, this is seldom the case, as it would be very boring. Actually, engineers spend
the largest percentage of their time communicating with others, either orally or in writing.
Engineers write proposals and technical reports, give presentations, and interact
with support personnel and managers. When your design is done, it is usually necessary
to present the results to your client, peers, or employer. The usual form of presentation
is a formal engineering report. Thus, it is very important for the engineering student to
develop his or her communication skills. You may be the cleverest person in the world,
but no one will know that if you cannot communicate your ideas clearly and concisely.
In fact, if you cannot explain what you have done, you probably don't understand it yourself.
To give you some experience in this important skill, the design project assignments
in later chapters are intended to be written up in formal engineering reports. Information
on the writing of engineering reports can be found in the suggested readings in the
bibliography at the end of this chapter.