Assignment 1.3 – Definitions

To: Dr. Erika Paterson & The TechniWriters
From: Samuel Kobierski
Date: January 18, 2019
Subject: English 301 – Assignment 1:3 – Definitions

To Whom It May Concern,

This assignment introduces the value and place definitions have in technical writing. The intended audience for this is for first-year engineering students who may have some knowledge of mathematical expressions. Following this assignment, you should be able to appreciate technical writing that is well defined and clear and develop the ability to use the right amount of detail in the right situation. This is accomplished by defining a relatively complex term in three different manners, a parenthetical definition, a sentence definition and by composing an expanded definition with at least four expansion strategies. I will be using, “MATLAB,” for my definitions below.

PARENTHETICAL DEFINITION:

MATLAB (mathematic computation tool) can perform complex calculations.

SENTENCE DEFINITION:

MATLAB is a computer program that allows the user to solve complex mathematical equations. This program is a powerful tool that allows engineers and other scientists to perform calculations that are impractical to do by hand.

EXPANDED DEFINITION:

What is MATLAB?
MATLAB is a computer program designed especially for engineers, that allows users to program in the MATLAB programming language, develop algorithms, analyze data and create models and applications (“MathWorks,” n.d.; Moore, 2015). MATLAB is easy to use, and one can perform many programming tasks with it (Moore, 2015).

History of MATLAB?
MATLAB was first developed by Cleve Moler, of the University of New Mexico in the 1970s (Cleverism, 2019). MATLAB stands for Matrix Laboratory, and it gets its name from excelling at performing matrix math calculations (Moore, 2015). An example of a matrix equation is seen below in figure 1 (Unknown, n.d.), with a matrix equation defined as where a variable is replaced with a matrix, essentially a grid of numbers, rather than writing multiple equations.

Figure 1: Example Matrix Equation (Kobierski, 2019)

What does MATLAB look like?
The MATLAB program interface appears as is shown in figure 2 below, and this is what the user sees when they open MATLAB on their computer (Bower, 2017). This program is made up of five subwindows as well as the Editor window, which is used to develop algorithms (Bower, 2017).

Figure 2: MATLAB Integrated Development Environment (Bower, 2017)

Example MATLAB Program?
An example MATLAB program is shown below in figure 3. This is a simple program that solves a differential equation, a complex mathematical equation, outputting a plot or graph of the solution. These programs are written by the user.

Figure 3: Example MATLAB Program (Kobierski, 2019)

REFERENCES:

Bower, T. (2017). Retrieved from
http://faculty.salina.k-state.edu/tim/DAT/matlab/environment.html

Cleverism. (2019) MATLAB. Retrieved from
https://www.cleverism.com/skills-and-tools/matlab/\

Kobierski, S.M. (2019). MATLAB [computer software].

Unknown (n.d.) Matrix by vector multiplication example. Retrieved from
http://www.cjump.com/bcc/common/Talk3/Math/Matrices/W01_0060_matrix_by_vector_mult.htm

Moore, H. (2015). MATLAB for Engineers. Salt Lake City, Utah: Pearson Education, Inc.

What is MATLAB?. (2019) Retrieved from
https://www.mathworks.com/discovery/what-is-matlab.html