Ashton Petersen

A guided tour of three revised projects, seven blog posts, and a final reflection

Writing as Part of Engineering

Project 1: Learning Through Research

Learning to Write Like a Materials Researcher: An Analytic Narrative

This analytic narrative examines the research report I wrote after my Spring 2025 internship at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. While working on self-reinforced polyphenylene sulfide composites, I initially treated writing as a way to record every experiment in chronological order. Through mentor feedback and revision, I learned to identify the larger research question, select the details that mattered, and explain how unsuccessful trials led to later decisions.

The project demonstrates that a research report is more than a record of completed work. It is a structured explanation of how methods, observations, visuals, limitations, and data support a scientific conclusion.

Project 2: Designing Information for Use

How to Write an Engineering Technical Guide

Project 2 turns the lessons from my research experience into practical guidance for another writer. It explains how to create technical documentation that a student, technician, intern, or early-career engineer can quickly understand and apply.

The guide begins by identifying the reader, task, setting, and document limits. It then addresses organization, actionable instructions, safety warnings, visuals, verification points, usability testing, and document control. A fictional pump-inspection procedure demonstrates how these principles work together in an actual engineering document.

Project 3: Connecting Calculations to Decisions

From Calculations to Decisions

My third project expands from one technical genre to the larger range of documents engineers create. The style guide compares research papers, technical reports, design memoranda, procedures, proposals, presentations, and posters while explaining how the purpose and audience of each genre affect its organization and style.

Across these genres, the guide emphasizes traceable methods, meaningful visuals, precise terminology, measurable claims, appropriate uncertainty, and clear connections between calculations and engineering decisions.

The Blog Journey

Phase One: From Prediction to Experiment

Designing the Future Before We Build It

Introduces computational materials discovery and explains why simulations, databases, AI, manufacturing, and laboratory testing must work together.

Beyond the Simulation: How AI Labs Are Changing Materials Discovery

Moves from computer predictions to autonomous laboratories, emphasizing that a predicted material still must be synthesized, tested, scaled, and evaluated in the physical world.

Phase Two: Reliability, Trust, and Public Claims

Can Self-Driving Science Be Trusted?

Examines the reliability of AI-guided materials research, including validation, uncertainty, and the interpretation of complex experimental measurements.

Selling the Self-Driving Lab: A Review

Reviews public communication about autonomous laboratories, praising accessibility while questioning optimistic claims, scale-up, uncertainty, and human oversight.

Phase Three: Professional and Multimodal Communication

Engineering Trust: NIST Reports and Technical Writing

Shows how scope, standards, organization, cautious language, and acknowledged limitations build credibility in technical reports.

The Chemist Teaching Laboratories to Think

Profiles Alán Aspuru-Guzik and considers how researchers communicate work involving AI, chemistry, robotics, and distributed laboratories.

A Crack Has More Than One Voice

Demonstrates how photographs, graphs, acoustic recordings, tomography, and simulations provide different forms of evidence in failure analysis.

Final Reflection: What Changed

Learning to Write from the Engineer’s Side of the Page

My reflective post brings the portfolio together by showing how I came to see writing as part of engineering itself, rather than something added after the technical work was finished. I learned to focus less on including as much information as possible and more on choosing, organizing, and explaining evidence for a specific reader. I also began revising for purpose, clarity, and usability while recognizing that visuals, data, and sound can support an engineering argument alongside words.