ENN544-Sustainable Practice in Engineering

Task

Prepare a technical briefing paper on the chosen topic relating to sustainable development (from the selection provided), in the context of your project. You should explain the steps needed to achieve the objectives of sustainable development in relation to the selected topic. In the briefing paper, you should demonstrate your ability to read, review and reference academic and other literature, write in a manner suitable for a technical document and to structure and format the paper. Your intended audience is your profession.

Learning Outcome

1.Analyse environmental quality, including environmental sampling, analysis, quality assurance and control, and interpretation to inform an impact assessment

2.Exemplify an appreciation of sustainable development practices and ability to apply appropriate techniques

3.Competence in engineering investigation and reporting with particular emphasis on literature searching and review and communicating the various aspects of topic area in written form

Overview

This task requires you to select one topic from the list provided relating to sustainable development and to write a technical briefing paper on that topic. There is a limit of one student per topic, and if a particular topic has a full quota, you will need to select another option. You will draw heavily on the research and learnings from your other assessment items this semester, and the content provided during the lectures.

You will be required to draw on academic literature (i.e. journal and conference papers, books), government and industry reports, reference materials (i.e. books, magazines, guidelines) in order to write a paper that includes academic literature and demonstrates your understanding of the topic. You should assume that the audience is technical professionals (for example, that they have an engineering and/or design background), but are not necessarily experts in the exact topic that you have chosen.

Your paper should be formatted in the manner of a technical paper (i.e. title block, abstract, introduction, chapter headings & subheadings as appropriate in the main body, conclusions and references). 

What you will do

1. Select a topic from the list provided. Read the topic carefully, and work out what is being asked and if there are multiple parts to the topic that you should address.

2. Develop a preliminary overview of what you think are the key areas that you will cover in your paper, and consider what search terms you will use to find relevant information.

3. Review academic literature relevant to this topic and identify key sources that you will draw on

4. Read and summarise the information that you have identified, keeping track of the sources from which you will extract information.

5. Develop a structure for your paper, and put dot-points under each main heading and sub-headings of what you will discuss in each.

6. Write each of the sections, drawing on your notes that you have prepared having read the literature.

7. Review the preliminary overview of the paper that you have developed, and see whether you would adjust this at all now that you have read through more literature on that topic. 8. After further improvements, review your paper, ensuring that it flows well, responds to the topic and covers all key aspects. Ensure spelling and grammar and references are correct, and that the paper is properly formatted