Omar (Adam) Elmaraghi 11/25/13 English 106 Michelle Parsons Academic Conversation In the field of mechanical engineering, the

majority of publications are articles as books are far less common due to it being very complex to write an entire book on one topic and too complex to write on the field as a whole. These articles are generally more collaborative than individual as they revolve around and rely on the data gathered from several people to lead to a conclusion. The majority of these articles have an abstract at the beginning and a summary at the end as most of these articles take on the format of something similar to a laboratory report. The citation formatting style that is more common in this field is APA as the majority of engineering disciplines follow this format. The overall writing style of most of the pieces of writing are highly impersonal and contain a plethora of qualitative and quantitative data to provide evidence for the conclusion they are attempting to make. The format of this first article takes on one that is very similar to a lab report with an abstract, summary, quantitative and qualitative data all included.1 The writing style is very impersonal, brief and to the point, as all reports of this style should be. The author of this article situates himself as a novice in the topic at hand in relation to others who have delved into the topic as well by first claiming centrality and referring to different pieces of research. The author

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then questions these pieces and establishes a niche before occupying one by providing his own research to prove his point. The format of the second article is virtually exactly the same as the first in terms of what is included in it and being similar to a lab report.2 The writing style is also impersonal and full of technical details. One difference between the two articles is that the author of the second situates himself as an expert by wildly disclaiming the data gathered from others and identifying his own niche before his own present research and principal findings. Reading this article influenced my understanding of the argument in the other by illustrating how situating yourself in the topic in relation to others affects the persuasiveness and tone of your work.

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Works Cited First article: Measurement of chemical and geometrical surface changes in a wear track by a
confocal height sensor and confocal Raman spectroscopy. (n.d.).Measurement of chemical and geometrical surface changes in a wear track by a confocal height sensor and confocal Raman spectroscopy. Retrieved November 26, 2013, from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/p

Second article: Shear deformation and failure of explosive welded Inconel-microalloyed steels
bimetals. (n.d.). Shear deformation and failure of explosive welded Inconel-microalloyed steels bimetals. Retrieved November 26, 2013, from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article