In this document the author uses the interrelatedness of theory and practice as a means of analyzing the writing of engineering students and uncovering some definitive traits of engineering communications. He brings theories of composition and rhetoric from the humanities into the context of engineering writing and identifies engineering discourse, with its emphasis on clarity, objectivity, and brevity, as a product of Current –Traditional approaches to composition.

The document is the Ph.D. thesis of Thomas S. Bowers titled "Making the Writer the Expert: The Importance of Composition and Rhetorical Theory to Writing in the Disciplines" written in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree in English, with a specialization in Rhetoric and Composition. While he pursued this degree, Bowers was a writing consultant in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department’s Writing Center, a Gateway-supported project that has since been institutionalized as the Professional Communications Center of the University of South Carolina College of Engineering and Information Technology.

This document is one in a series of Monographs in Engineering Education Excellence edited by Edward Ernst, University of South Carolina and resulting from work supported by the Gateway Engineering Education Coalition.