Saturday, October 25, 2008
My Difficulties in English Writing
We may need a lot of writing in some of the modules we take. In the writing I find the biggest difficult I meet is that I can not master the style well. In most of my writing I find it is hard to make it like a academic level writing. Some of my sentances are more like everyday talking or translated from Chinese. I can express my meaning well, but it doesn't look professional enough. For example, when we did our project in GEM2901, there are two Singaporeans in our group. I did the second part of the project, after I finished the essay, I found it was not good enough since the language I used was too simple. So I asked the two Singaporeans to help me correct it. After they corrected the essay, I found it more professional and looked so good. Then I find that a effective way to improve my writing is to read more local students' essay. I find that local students' English writings are quite diifferent from most of our writings, in both language and organization. So I find it quite helps to read more local students' writings. Since we are facing the same writing task in our study, reading more of their writing is a direct help. Another way to improve my writing I find is that I can read textbooks more. I was wondering that why it was very hard to explain one thing clearly in English, which I can explain well in Chinese. When I read the textbooks, I find that it is quite clear. Then I find it is because of the language used. From the textbooks, I know better how to choose the word when I want to explain one thing. So this also quite helps. So I think the two points above can help my English writing a lot. If I keep doing these, my English writing will be improved, I think.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Summarization- Inroduction of the Grand Challenges for Engineering
Throughout human history, engineering has made great accomplishments to prosper the human civilization. Meanwhile, engineering still faces grand challenges in this century due to the increasing of population and the expanding of spiritual desire of people. According to the article, 14 most widely recognized grand challenges for engineering in this century fall into four main area of human concern: sustainability, health, vulnerability, and the joy of living.
The greatest concern is the future of human and the earth. The resources on the Earth are finite, but the nonrenewable resource, like petroleum is consumed by people at a constant or even increasing rate. Therefore, someday people will use them up. The challenges of sustaining civilization are urgent. To sustain human civilization ensure a bright future, engineering should accept the challenges of making solar energy economical, providing energy from nuclear fusion, developing carbon sequestration methods and managing the nitrogen cycle.
The second concern is related to personal and public health. The health threat in this century requires more effective treatment. The challenges in this area include providing access to clean water, advancing health informatics, engineering better medicines and reverse-engineering the brain.
The third concern is about vulnerability to biological disaster. To ensure the quality of life, engineering should accept the challenge of preventing terrorist attack. The more general challenge of improving life quality is to restore and improve urban infrastructure.
Last but not least, the joy of living takes a part in a high-grade life quality. There are two grand challenges in this realm including enhancing virtual reality and advancing personalized learning.
Moreover, there are barriers stop these grand challenges from being overcome, such as political obstacles, and the lack of understanding from public. Without conquer these obstacles the challenges are hardly solved.
In conclusion, the challenges engineering facing today is not unconquerable, as long as the public support is provided and the engineers from all over the world are standing together facing and solving them. Meeting all these challenges, our world will become a better place for living.
From:
National Academy of Engineering. (n.d.). Retrieved August 7, 2008,from http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9221.aspx
The greatest concern is the future of human and the earth. The resources on the Earth are finite, but the nonrenewable resource, like petroleum is consumed by people at a constant or even increasing rate. Therefore, someday people will use them up. The challenges of sustaining civilization are urgent. To sustain human civilization ensure a bright future, engineering should accept the challenges of making solar energy economical, providing energy from nuclear fusion, developing carbon sequestration methods and managing the nitrogen cycle.
The second concern is related to personal and public health. The health threat in this century requires more effective treatment. The challenges in this area include providing access to clean water, advancing health informatics, engineering better medicines and reverse-engineering the brain.
The third concern is about vulnerability to biological disaster. To ensure the quality of life, engineering should accept the challenge of preventing terrorist attack. The more general challenge of improving life quality is to restore and improve urban infrastructure.
Last but not least, the joy of living takes a part in a high-grade life quality. There are two grand challenges in this realm including enhancing virtual reality and advancing personalized learning.
Moreover, there are barriers stop these grand challenges from being overcome, such as political obstacles, and the lack of understanding from public. Without conquer these obstacles the challenges are hardly solved.
In conclusion, the challenges engineering facing today is not unconquerable, as long as the public support is provided and the engineers from all over the world are standing together facing and solving them. Meeting all these challenges, our world will become a better place for living.
From:
National Academy of Engineering. (n.d.). Retrieved August 7, 2008,from http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9221.aspx
Writing Assignment 1
Q1: One of the sub-challenges listed in [1] was overcoming people’s “resistance to new ways of doing things.” Understanding the reasons for resistance will very likely help engineers overcome it. Briefly explain why you think people resist new technology.
One of the main reasons that people resist new technologies is that they fear the “potential risk” of new technologies. “Potential risk” refers to the future danger or side-effects of a new technology. Public need time to accept a new technology. Moreover, to the public, a successful general application is also a basic element of a successful technology. People cannot forecast the future risk of using a new technology, so it usually takes a period of time for people to accept it. For instance, genetically-modified (GM) food has become a main source of food; however, some people still refuse to eat it. Conventional food is more acceptable for these people. One reason may be that our ancestors have eaten conventional food for centuries. People who consume GM food are alive and healthy now. But the people who resist GM food are worried about what will happen in the future. Therefore, people resist GM food technology because they fear its future risk. Moreover, a new technology needs to be used successfully by many people for it to be easily accepted by the public. For example, when the computer was invented in 1946, few people or companies wanted to buy it because people were concerned about the possible low reward for their investment in this new technology. With the development of technology, computers are now more have an increasingly wide application in all fields. Since computers have been accepted by the public and have become an irreplaceable part of our daily life. In conclusion, many people resist new technologies because they are concerned their potential risk. A new technology needs to be widely applied so that it would be more easily accept by the public.
One of the main reasons that people resist new technologies is that they fear the “potential risk” of new technologies. “Potential risk” refers to the future danger or side-effects of a new technology. Public need time to accept a new technology. Moreover, to the public, a successful general application is also a basic element of a successful technology. People cannot forecast the future risk of using a new technology, so it usually takes a period of time for people to accept it. For instance, genetically-modified (GM) food has become a main source of food; however, some people still refuse to eat it. Conventional food is more acceptable for these people. One reason may be that our ancestors have eaten conventional food for centuries. People who consume GM food are alive and healthy now. But the people who resist GM food are worried about what will happen in the future. Therefore, people resist GM food technology because they fear its future risk. Moreover, a new technology needs to be used successfully by many people for it to be easily accepted by the public. For example, when the computer was invented in 1946, few people or companies wanted to buy it because people were concerned about the possible low reward for their investment in this new technology. With the development of technology, computers are now more have an increasingly wide application in all fields. Since computers have been accepted by the public and have become an irreplaceable part of our daily life. In conclusion, many people resist new technologies because they are concerned their potential risk. A new technology needs to be widely applied so that it would be more easily accept by the public.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)