Engineer ethics essay
Length: 1,700 words This is the required word count of the entire submission, including essay title, references, bibliography, and any footnotes you may choose to include. A leeway of 5% either side is permitted, but anything outside of this range (i.e. from 1,615 to 1,785 words) will incur penalties.
Essay topics:
Answer one of the following topics. Clearly identify your chosen essay topic in the header of your essay submission.
Topic #1 Bagus is an engineer with a very large mining company. Upon hearing that the Australian Government will ban the extraction and sale of coal in 2030 due to its contribution to human-made climate change, his company has tasked Bagus with designing a new method of mining that will triple the volume of coal his company can extract and sell before the 2030 embargo. Ethically speaking, should Bagus accept the design brief? Why/Why not?
Topic #2 Do the professional duties of an engineer go beyond conscientiously and effectively carrying out the instructions of their employer? If so, why and how? If not, why not? Your answer must make direct reference to the relevant tenets of the Consult Australia Code of Ethics and provide a real-world example of a large scale engineering project to support your claim.
Marking Criteria In marking an essay, there are three basic criteria that are relevant to your mark. These criteria are taken with permission from Jim Pryor’s helpful website: http://www.jimpryor.net/teaching/guidelines/writing.html
1. How well do you understand the relevant concepts, issues, ideas and arguments you are writing about?
2. How good are the arguments you offer? Are they clearly stated and supported by sound reasoning?
3. Is your writing clear and well-organized?
We do not judge your paper by whether we agree with its conclusion. In fact, we may not agree among ourselves about what the correct conclusion is. However, we will have no trouble agreeing about whether you have done a good job arguing for your conclusion. More specifically, we will be asking questions like these:
• Do you clearly state what you are trying to accomplish in your paper? Is it obvious to the reader what your main thesis is?
• Do you offer supporting arguments for the claims you make? Is it obvious to the reader what these arguments are?
• Is the structure of your paper clear? For instance, is it clear what parts of your paper are expository, and what parts are your own positive contributions?
• Is your prose simple, easy to read, and easy to understand?
• Do you illustrate your claims with good examples and relevant case studies? Do you explain your central notions? Do you say exactly what you mean?
• Do you present other authors’ views accurately and charitably? Do you engage with counter-arguments or opposing evidence?
• Have you consulted and understood any of the suggested resources relating to your topic? Have you done independent research that has enriched your understanding of the topic?
• Is your writing well edited and polished, with correct punctuation, appropriate paragraphing, and correct spelling?
• Have you appropriately and consistently referenced the sources of your claims?
• Have you included a bibliography providing the details of all the sources you have referenced in the main body of the essay?
