Topic: Engineering Essay for Illumin
INTRODUCTION
Illumin, an online magazine published by the USC Viterbi School of Engineering’s Engineering Writing Program, is now seeking article submissions. Illumin contains articles explaining the relevance of engineering practice to everyday, non-engineering activities and features multimedia graphics and illustrations.
Illumin’s audience will be those interested in such publications as Discover, Scientific American, or Popular Science as well as those who have an interest in science-related topics. This audience covers a broad demographic of ages and backgrounds, and includes those with and without technical knowledge.
Specifically, Illumin seeks articles that:
Identify and discuss the influence of engineers
Illuminate the engineering underlying daily experiences
Identify recent events that have been or could have been influenced by engineers
Keep readers’ attention and interest
Translate technical information and concepts to non-engineers
Offer rich, visual content and encourage multimedia features
Include creative presentation of information
Direct the reader to sites or books containing more information on that topic
Articles should find unique insights into engineering that would interest a wide range of readers. Submissions should avoid topics already published unless a new perspective is added.
ARTICLE TOPICS
The possible range of article topics is wide since Illumin seeks to connect engineering with other disciplines. Everything – from arts to sports, public policy to world hunger, fuel efficiency to space exploration, the environment to the future – is influenced by what engineers do. Articles should creatively explore this influence and offer detailed insight.
Selected articles have included:
Mommy, I Want a Jetpack
Engineering Snow
Ion Propulsion: Exploring Space in the 21st Century
Collaborative Engineering at the Port of Los Angeles
Cotton Candy: Carnival Snack to Medical Wonder
The Petronas Towers
The Beauty of Science: New Techniques in Art Restoration
Roller Coasters
The Engineering Behind Disney Hall
A Chemical Engineer’s Guide to Cleaning Just About Anything
Virtual On-the-fly Hardware Swapping
These articles have already been selected for publication. Illumin’s editors are seeking a wider variety of topics and approaches to articles. For example:
Articles that use a current event as a starting point and go on to show engineering’s influence. Example: Hurricane Katrina revealed many engineering-related issues and problems. Articles could examine discipline-specific responses.
Articles that explore the history of an engineering technology or figure. Examples: Articles could compare environmental engineering efforts 100 years ago with those today, especially considering the differing pollution sources. Or articles could profile a prominent engineer or applied scientist and how that individual’s work has affected society.
Article topics do not have to be confined to the author’s major. The only restriction is that the topics fulfill Illumin’s mission of explaining the everyday application of engineering.
Authors should avoid using brand names (Nike, Apple, etc.) if possible to avoid inadvertently or directly endorsing a product.
REQUIREMENTS
The articles should be at least 1500 — 2000 words in length. In addition, authors should:
Double-space and use 12-point font
Document the use of all sources using the IEEE Citation Style.
Do a careful fact-check to ensure that articles contain correct information. (This is especially important since Illumin submissions are potentially read by a large number of people.)
Include abstract.
Include at least three visual aides/graphics, at least one of them original.
Include a list of terms and definitions for inclusion in a glossary, if appropriate.
Include a brief, two-line biography of the author.
All articles will be checked with databases to ensure no plagiarism has occurred.
Prior to compiling and writing your draft article, you will first conduct your research. Learn as much about your topic as you can. The paper must contain at least 10 reputable sources and must include at least one of each of the following: general interest magazine article, science magazine article, newspaper article, and website. The entries should be presented in IEEE citation format.
No. of Pages: 7
