In pieces of scholarly writing, the reader may find
countless reasons in which they successfully understand or grasp the main ideas
in the paper. The writers of these particular pieces use many tools to do
so. In “Construction Engineering Today,”
by Robert McTavish and Robert Stallard, there are many ways they successfully
inform and educate the audience of the dynamics of the construction world, but
the most influential aspect is the structure of their paper.
To accomplish the purpose of this piece, the authors used
many different structural methods of writing. The first instance the reader
will come across is a well-thought out thesis and introduction. These two parts
engulf the purpose and the topics the paper will later go in detail to explain.
Another primary example of this journal’s structure is how the two authors
split the piece up into multiple sections and subsections. These are often
headed with bold or italicized titles and subtitles that notify the reader of changing
topics. This is a very important factor in educating the reader because the
authors, many times will leave out conclusion statements in the paragraphs
located within the subsections. The authors do this to save time and refrain
from being repetitive. This also helps to prevent from being over explanatory
with their supporting details in these sections, which might detract from the
major points they are trying to reinforce.
In addition, the literature makes use of new
paragraphs that exclude indentation. This structural tool is found during the
course of this work, and is used to introduce new or additional pieces of
knowledge to main points already that have been previously stated. Along with
this, there are photos and added descriptions of the specific scenarios from
the U.S. Highway 90 project that the authors worked on. These additional
descriptions aid by giving the reader a specific, real life application of the
topic being defined. Later in the paper, when introducing the work plans and
other key aspects, bullet points were used to show sequential order of the
ideas and makeup of this construction tool. All of these factors are important
in how the authors successfully educate their audience about the present day
construction world via the literature’s structure.
I find the authors to be very successful in their work to
educate and inform their readers at the Construction Engineering Conference in
Seattle, where the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) publishes these
research articles to their journals. These journal’s articles are created to
inform and educate readers on the latest discoveries and other relevant
information for builders throughout the world. The way McTavish and Stallard
organize and fill their paper with knowledge, along with the fact that ASCE
chose to publish this paper are primal reasons I find them successful. By organizing their work in such a way as
stated above, the information the authors are giving you seems to be more comprehensible.
By
splitting the paper up into many sections and subsections, it came off of the
page much more fluently. I was able to get the gist of the paper, and digest
most of the information. I am no expert in construction engineering yet, but I
had very little problem following along with all they had to tell me, other
than the specific terms sometimes used with the U.S. Highway 90 examples. There
was no issue of jumping around from thought to thought and no trouble in
following the sequential order of ideas. The specific bold titles were very
helpful in deciphering between the focal points and other supporting ideas.
This, in turn, helped me to grasp the purpose and main ideas of the literary
work. In the work plans section, the bullet points were vital in understanding
their makeup, and their general purpose. Being among the intended audience as a
future builder, I find the authors successful in accomplishing their purpose of
informing and educating me and many others about the changing world of
construction we work in.
In Robert Stallard and Robert McTavish’s article, the
structure of their paper makes their thoughts and ideas most easily
comprehended by readers. Though there are many aspects to writing that help writers
get there points across to readers, the authors of this literary work focused
on structure and arrangement to educate the builders that will be reading their
paper.
Bibliography
McTavish,
R. and Stallard, R. (2011).
”Construction Engineering Today1.” J. Constr. Eng. Manage. 137, SPECIAL
ISSUE: Construction Engineering: Opportunity and Vision for Education,
Practice, and Research, 724–729.
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