This document provides guidance on the format and expectations for short-answer questions on exams in a philosophy of engineering ethics course. Students will be given a set of potential questions before each exam and must answer two of the four questions that appear on the exam. Answers must be three sentences long, with one sentence explaining each concept and the third sentence connecting them. Providing a concise yet comprehensive three-sentence answer that demonstrates understanding is emphasized over simply restating information. Sample questions and answers are provided to illustrate the desired format and level of analysis.

1. A guide to the short-answer questions
PHIL385: Engineering Ethics
1 Format of the short-answer tests
You will answer TWO short-answer questions on each exam.
Before the exam you will be given a “superset” of short answer
questions. (Note:
the superset of questions is just a question for each quad title
asking you to explain the
topic of that quad.) A set of four questions appears on the exam,
randomly chosen from
the superset. You then ANSWER ONLY TWO from the four
short answer questions
which appear on the exam.
The test is timed, but it is also open-book. Have your short-
answers prepared in ad-
vance. You can even send me drafts of your answers for
comments. Time-permitting,
I will help with as many drafts as I can.
2 Format of the short-answer answers
Your answers to the short answer questions are REQUIRED to
be THREE sentences
long. One of the three sentences is essentially given to you in
the question sentence.
This leaves you two sentences to demonstrate understanding
which meets the goals of

2. the question.
A short answer question will usually ask you to explain the
connection between two
concepts or ideas. The most straightforward approach is to use
one sentence each to
explain each concept. The third sentence will then state the
connection. But your two
sentences must make that connection obvious. Ask yourself if
someone else would
understand the connection, given that all they had were your
three sentences?
In preparing your answers then, first, make sure you know the
precise meanings of the
terms.
Then, focus on the connection between those terms about which
the question asks. This
is what your answer is supposed to show you understand.
Example:
E.g.: Ethics is integral to Engineering.
Why is it integral? What was the point made in lecture? Here is
an example answer —
but this is only an example, which you cannot use.
Engineering requires value judgements and value judgements
require ethics.
Anything which is required for a thing is integral to the thing
requiring it.

3. Therefore, because engineering requires ethics, ethics is integral
to engi-
neering.
This is a good answer, but it’s not great. It leaves a couple of
questions open and unex-
plained (e.g. how does engineering require value judgments?
how do value judgments
require ethics?) This answer is also slightl inaccurate. ‘Integral’
means more than
merely required. (Ethics is an inherent part of engineering; you
cannot do engineering
without doing ethics. It is an unavoidable part of the activity.)
Your grade on the short answers is 1 point for each accurate
sentence, and then up
to 2 more points for how clearly you connect them, and how
well your sentences go
together. If you don’t correctly identify the concepts, or cannot
connect them, then you
will score less than 3 on the question. So it’s most important to
get that part first.
If a short answer question only mentions one concept explicitly,
you should still be
thinking in terms of a 3 sentence answer. The concept
mentioned will connect with at
least one of the themes of the course. Your three sentences will
show that you know
what the concept / term means, you know a theme which it
connects with, and you can
explain that connection.
Example:
Question: What is the engineering advantage?

4. Answer: Engineering is the art of problem solving but all
problem solving requires
value judgments. An engineer who is both good at the technical
side of problem solving
but also at the normative side will be able to make important
contributions to solving
grand challenges (because those problems are complex, involve
many stakeholders, and
therefore require many value judgements.) The combination of
technical and normative
problem solving is called the engineering advantage.
[NOTE: this is not a complete answer! It leaves a couple of
questions open, and it
says things that are not entirely accurate (does ALL problem
solving require value
judgments? What is it about engineering problems that means
they do require value
2
judgments?) It must be improved upon. Not only that, but you
CANNOT simply copy
and paste this answer as your own. The goal of the exercise is to
demonstrate your
understanding and your ability. If all you show me is that you
can copy and paste then
1. you deserve zero on the assignment and 2. it’s actually
academic dishonesty, turning
in as your own work something you’ve copied from someone
else.]
3 Rubric

5. This was mentioned above already, but just to be explicit:
• 1 points for each accurate sentence. (Including the sentence
which merely re-
peats the thing you’ve been asked to explain, if that’s how your
answer goes.)
• up to 2 more points for how well your sentences “go together”.
I.e. how good
your argument / explanation is. An explanation is an argument.
It should per-
suade the person of the truth of the thing you are explaining.
(e.g Ah, I get it!
Ethics IS integral to engineering.)
There is also a grading rubric on Blackboard.
If you’re not sure of how persuasive or complete your answer
is, trying keeping your
two sentences the same, but “flip” the conclusion. Instead of
concluding, for instance,
that ethics is integral to engineering, change your conclusion to:
ethics is NOT integral
to engineering. Then read your answer again. If what you have
is not an obvious or
blatant contradicition, or you would have to say more to explain
why those reasons
“don’t go” with that conclusion, then you have more work to do.
Those further reasons
should go in the answer.
And also, first and foremost, make sure that each sentence you
give is actually accurate.
So question them as well.

6. 3
1. Ethics is integral to Engineering
COLLAPSE
Top of Form
1.1 Introduction
This quad may be the most important quad of all. It presents the
over-arching theme of the course, what I'm calling the master
narrative.
A narrative is a story, and this is the story around which the
course is based. Everything we do --- the other quads, the
assignments, the questions --- are related to this story, and
provide some detail to this story.
The master narrative is a story about engineering and ethics:
about how ethics is integral to engineering.
Let's look a little more closely at that claim:
ethics is integral to engineering.
This claim involves two key concepts --- ethics, engineering ---
and it makes the assertion that the things described by those
concepts have a particular relationship. Namely, one is
``integral to" the other.
An explanation of that claim then, will say something about
what ethics is, what engineering is, and what it means to say
that the one is integral to the other.
In the next three sections of this quad, that's what we're going
to do. I will give explanations of the two concepts, and how
they are related. All of the quads will have that structure. The
first one will introduce a claim to be explained, and the rest of
the entries in the quad will give the explanation. In the rest of
the course will be looking at that explanation in more detail, in
other ways.
Notice that this is a good example (in fact, an actual example)
of what I'll be asking for in the short answer questions. As a
short answer question it would look like the this:
Explain: ethics is integral to engineering.

7. Your task is to understand the explanation given in the quad and
boil it down to a 3-sentence answer, as described in the Short
Answer Question guide. A strategy is to use one sentence to say
something about ethics (one concept), and the second sentence
to say something about engineering. Do that in a way which
makes plain what it means to say, and how it is the case that,
the one is integral to the other. (Again, you'll do this in the 3-
sentence format described in the guide.)
So, just to recap.
The master narrative of the course is that ethics is integral to
engineering, not just something you do after the engineering is
done, or something someone else can do.
If you're doing engineering, you're doing ethics, whether you
know it or not. And you're a better engineer if you are aware
that you're doing it, and if you can do it well.
Bottom of Form
1.2. Engineering is an art for solving problems
The first step in explaining how ethics is integral to engineering
is to ask, you can probably guess, what is engineering?
Maybe you've never asked yourself this question before. Even
though you're an engineering major it might never have come
up, or occurred to you to reflect on what engineering actually is.
Usually you're too busy just trying to get the homework done,
or pass an exam.
At the University of British Columbia, where I studied
electrical engineering, the engineering faculty wasn't called the
faculty of engineering, it was called "applied science". Not
everyone in the faculty was happy with that. Some thought it
made engineering sound like it was secondary to science.
But there is something important in thinking about engineering
as applied science. Engineering does, in fact, involve applying
science --- but applying how, and to what?
The definition we'll use is that engineering is an art for solving
problems. Engineering uses science, technology, labour for
solving problems. In that sense engineering is applied sci ence.
It's the application of expertise, to be more general.

8. We'll have more to say about problems and problem-solving
coming up, but for now we can say that it's not so simple as just
taking your expertise and applying it to a problem.
The problems which require an engineering solution are real
world problems. Not laboratory problems, not theoretical
problems. This is also what applied means: engineering
solutions occur in real world applications.
Another way in which engineering problems are different is
signalled by labelling engineering an art.
We can think of engineering as an art in three ways:
1. Engineering is creative. There is no engineering crank you
can just turn, or an algorithm you follow.
Solution
s to engineering problems are not obvious, are not right in front
of you.
2. Engineering is subjective. Differetn engineers will arrive at
different solutions to the same problems. They will make
different, personal choices. Every engineer has their own
preferences, their own values.
3. Lastly, engineering is meaningful. It literally changes the
world we live in --- the world we interact with, what it's
possible for us to do, and how we do it.
The world we live in has been created by engineers. It reflects
choices by engineers about what the world ought to be like,
from the shape of the chair your sitting in, to the interface of
your smart phone, the mileage of your car, the height of your

9. ceiling, the traffic patterns you drive in, and on and on and on.
Engineering involves creative expertise and value judgments,
just like art, and it informs the world, it changes the meaning of
our lives.
Just like art, good engineering --- thoughtful, reflective, aware
engineering --- can be taught, and it can be learned.
1.3. Ethics is expertise in normative decision making
We're trying to understand what engineering ethics is. In the
2nd part of this quad we defined engineering as an art for
solving problems. In this part we're going to ask:
what is ethics?
Generally speaking, ethics is the study of the good. It attempts
to answer questions of what is right, what is wrong; how should
we live, and what is the good life? It considers, in various
situations, or simply generally speaking, what we ought to do,
or what ought we not to do.
So, studying ethics gives us expertise in the good or the right,
and how to act in accordance with the good or the right. Ethics
is expertise in a particular kind of decision making.
To understand that better it's useful to make a distinction
between descriptive and normative claims.
Descriptive claims state what is the case. they are `is' claims
Claims about what the strength of a material is, for example, or
the weight, or how a piece of equipment will behave in certain
conditions, are descriptive claims. Descriptive claims are

10. technical claims
But we can also make claims about what ought to be the case,
what's right, or wrong, or best.
a part might have a certain strength --- that's a descriptive
feature --- but whether that's the right strength or not, whether
that's the strength it ought to have is a further question.
ought claims are normative claims. normative claims go beyond
what is the case.
thinking about those questions, the normative questions, is a
different kind of expertise from the technical expertise you're
gaining in all of your other engineering classes.
There are many different kinds of ethics, many theories of
ethics, and they can be grouped as kinds of theories. we'll look
at few specific ones later in the course
but for now, we can say that we'll focus on a branch of ethics
that is called normative ethics.
Normative ethics is ethics about actions. about what we ought to
do, choices we ought to make.
having expertise in this area means we'll be better able to make
good choices, but also better able to justify our choices: explain
why we thought they were best.
1.4. Engineering problem-solving requires normative decision
making
In part 2 of this quad we said that engineering was an art, that it
required creativity and subjective choices. And we said that

11. engineering problems are real world problems.
The thing about real world problems is that they do not have
perfect solutions. An engineering problem will have many
solutions, and all of them have flaws as well as strengths. Any
solution is a kind of compromise. Choosing a solution is
choosing a compromise: what to give up, what the right balance
is.
For example, there are trade-offs like time vs budget,
performance vs risk. There are facts about the budget, risk,
length of a project these are descriptive claims, but whether
those facts are acceptable, whether they represent the best
combination of factors, requires a normative assessment. Which
is to say, choosing a solution to an engineering problem is
making a value judgment.
What you're making a judgment about are values. how much do
you, or does your client, or the public care about a quick
solution, as opposed to a cost effective one? How much time or
money are they willing to put in in order to minimize the risk?
How much risk is acceptable?
These are all questions about values, how much value is placed
in different features, like safety or price, or aesthetics, or
reliability. Deciding on a solution is deciding on one among a
set of value judgements. When you solve an engineering
problem you are making a normative decision. To repeat:
choosing a solution to an engineering problem is making a

12. normative choice; solving an engineering problem requires a
normative choice.
So, since normative decision making is such a crucial part of
engineering you have an obligation as an engineer to reflect on
that part of your job; to understand your normative decisions
and be able to justify them, just like you would any other choice
as an engineer.
When we talk about ethics in the context of engineering ethics,
what we mean is the expertise required to think through the
normative choices you make as an engineer solving problems.
This kind of ethics is therefore integral to engineering. You
cannot do engineering without doing ethics. You have a
responsibility to try to do it well.
2.1. Introduction
This quad addresses the question: what is problem solving? The
answer it presents is: problem solving is making a question
precise.
This is an important question since we've defined engineering as
an art for solving problems, and we're unpacking that claim,
along with my argument that normative decision making is
integral to engineering. The argument in brief will be:
engineering is problem solving of a particular type, and
normative decision making is integral to solving problems of
that type. Therefore, normative decision making is integral to
engineering. To fill in the details of that story, an obvious

13. question to ask is: what is problem-solving?
In this quad I'll first talk about what a problem is. I'll define a
problem as a how question, and present a schematic of a
problem. (You should also read about problems and problem
solving in the course handbook.)
In that schematic we'll see that the problem already contains its
solution, though the solution in its first firm is almost never
precise enough. The solution isn't precise enough in that it
doesn't give a reliable description of the steps it would take to
actually make the solution happen.
Since the solution is in the question though, when we make the
solution precise we are making the question precise, and vice
versa.
Intuitively the idea is that solving a problem is mostly just
figuring out exactly what the problem is; what needs to be done.
What is the how question?
It's worth pointing out again the value of philosophy to
engineering. Engineering is about problem-solving, problem-
solving is about asking precise questions, and philosophy is the
skill of asking clear and precise questions.
2.2 A problem is a how-question
We can't understand what problem-solving is, or what it means
for a problem to be solved unless we have a clearer
understanding of what a problem actually is.
So, take a moment to think about this question: what is a

14. problem? Think about what makes something a problem, and
also about what kind of thing that something is. Jot down a few
ideas you associate with the concept problem.
You may have said things like: a problem is something
undesirable, something you want to change. Or, a problem is
maybe a flaw, a limitation, something to overcome.
It's clear that when we think of a problem we tend to think of it
as something negative, something undesirable, which is why a
problem is something which needs to be solved.
But this is pretty vague, especially the "something" part. What
kind of thing is a problem? Is it a thing in the world? Is it a
property of something in the world? Some way the world is?
If it is a fact about the world, what makes it negative? Facts
aren't negative or positive, they just are. This is our descriptive
/ normative distinction again. [Problems are normative. States
of affairs are descriptive.]
As an example, let's say you're asked to increase the efficiency
of a particular process. The current efficiency is a descriptive
fact. It's neither positive or negative on its own. It just is.
What makes the efficiency problematic is that it's not what we
want (or what the client wants, or the senior engineer, or it
doesn't meet some code or regulation.)
But it's not the state of affairs itself. It's that the state of affairs
doesn't measure up in some way.
If you think about it, what the problem really is --- what it is

15. that you have to solve --- is HOW to CHANGE the efficiency
from what it is now, to some other, higher value.
When you've figure out how to do that, how to bring about that
change, you will have solved the problem.
What this suggests is that the problem is actually that how
question.
This is the definition we'll adopt. A problem is a how question:
how to bring about a change in the world; how to change the
current state of affairs to one which is better, preferred, more
valued.
To go with this definition, we can represent a problem as a
schematic.
[How: X --> X'?]
The X --> X' we call the transformation clause. That's the
transformation you want to bring about. X is the current state of
affairs; X' would be the improved state of affairs.
So, to return to our example, X could be the process and it's
current efficiency. X' would be the new process with its
improved efficiency.
Solving the problem then amounts to figuring out how to bring
about that transformation.
2.3 A problem contains its solution
Have another look at the problem schematic
[How: X --> X' ?]
The problem is to bring about, in the world, the transformation

16. X --> X'
If that can be done, then the problem is solved.
So the problem already points to it's solution, and the schematic
already contains the solution. It is the transformation from X to
X'. The transformation clause is a description of the solution.
But of course, as they say, the devil is in the details.
So, sure, if my problem is: How do I improve the efficiency of
this process? an answer would be: Transform it from the
efficiency it is now to something better.
Or
How do I improve my GPA? Answer: Transform it from what it
is now to something better.
These are answers to the problem question, they are solutions to
the problem, they're just not very satisfactory solutions. They
don't tell us how to actually do what's asked. They don't provide
the detailed steps one would have to carry out to accomplish the
desired solution.
And this is how things go with problems. When a problem is
presented to you it won't be given with all of the details. The
person for whom you are solving the problem --- the person who
is coming to you with a problem they need you to solve ---
won't have the expertise (or the time) to give you all of the
details. If a problem is presented to you fully spelled out then
noone will need you to solve it.
Your job, as the problem solver is to recognize what's being

17. asked for, and to figure out how to accomplish that. In
particular, you need to recognize the objectives of solving the
problem.
So this should remind you of what we said in quad 1 about
alignment. When someone gives you a problem --- whether as a
student, or an engineer, or any other context --- they're asking
for a certain outcome.
The closer you get to bringing about that outcome, the better
your solution is.
In the last part of this quad we'll talk about problem-solving as
filling in the details: making the question precise by making the
transformation clause precise.
2.4 A problem solution is a reliable prediction
So now we know that a problem is a how question. And solving
the problem involves making that question more precise,
figuring out precise steps to bring about the transformation.
Solving the problem means making the description of the
transformation more precise.
This is an interative, reflective process. To put it in terms of the
schematic, you go back and forth between filling in the details
of the Xs, and of the arrow. You need to understand:
· the process as it currently works, and why it has the efficiency
that it does (that's the X)
· you need to think about what the new process might be like,
what would have to be different to make it more efficient (that

18. would the X')
· and then you should think about how to go about actually
changing the process, to adapt it from what it is now to what it
could be. (that's the arrow)
· but as you think through the arrow you'll probably realize you
need more specifics about the process. How much of the tooling
will need to be re-done? Can you use the same power supply?
These questions will mean you have to go back and refine your
endpoints some more. Then you'll have more questions about
the arrow, etc. etc..
This is what thinking through a problem solution is: you ask
questions about answers to questions about answers to
questions.
When does it all end? When do you have a solution? You can
consider a problem solved when you have a reliable description
of the steps to carry out.
You can't go on forever --- the transformation clause won't spell
out every single step in minute detail. whoever carries out the
solution will have to fill in some details on their own.
But the details left out shouldn't matter. Which means the
person following your instructions, assuming they are
reasonable and competent, can fill in the steps as they see fit
and the solution will still succeed. It's more or less what we
mean by "fool proof" --- except that, in this case, it is expert
proof.

19. Your responsibility as an engineer won't be to come up with
fool proof solutions. But you are responsible if a detail is left
out and something goes wrong because of it.
3. Expertise is if-then knowledge
COLLAPSE
Top of Form
1. Introduction
In this quad we're going to talk about the idea that expertise is
if-then knowledge. Now in one sense that's just how we're
defining expertise. You could just memorize: expertise is if-
then knowledge. And so it would follow from that definition
that if one has expertise in a particular area, or a particular
domain, then one has if-then knowledge in that particular area
or domain.
But rather than just assert this definition, first we're going to
see how we know, or why we would think of expertise as if-then
knowledge. What do I mean by that definition? What does it
mean to say that expertise is if-then knowledge.
That has to do with the role that expertise plays in problem-
solving. In quad 2 of this unit we began to talk about how
problems are how-questions, and that problem-solving means
making that how-question precise. In particular, it's making the
transformation clause more precise. The engineering expertise
you have is your ability to make problems precise; to fill in the
details of the transformation clause.

20. Expertise allows you to make a problem precise. gives you the
tools to make a transformation clause precise by making the
steps in the transformation precise.
Your precise solution will be a prediction about how things are
going to go when certain steps are carried out. The knowledge it
takes to make such predictions is if-then knowledge.
After that, we'll discuss what it means to say one has if-then
knowledge in a particular domain. What is that if-then
knowledge about? If-then knowledge is "in" a particular
domain, because it is if-then knowledge about what we'll call
entities and activities in that domain. The entities are the things,
and their activities are how they behave under various
circumstances, as well as how they interact with one another.
Put simply, you need to know stuff about things to be able to
solve a problem. And particular kinds of problems (electrical
engineering problems vs. chemical engineering problems vs.
biomedical) require knowledge about particular kinds of things.
It makes sense that expertise and problem-solving would be
connected in this way. Which problems you can solve depends
on the expertise you have. Engineering codes will always
specify that a professional engineer has an obligation to only
take on projects which are within their expertise.
And as a final point, notice that expertise determines what you
can explain to others, and what can be explained to you by
others; expertise determines the range of what you can

21. understand, and what you can understand is a measure of your
expertise.
When you're explaining something to someone else --- like your
proposed solution to a problem --- you ought to think about
their expertise if you want to be understood. When you're
working in a team, which you will almost certainly do a lot as
an engineer, the people on your team will have expertise
different from you. Working together means explaining things
to one another, understanding one another.
You will be better at that if you reflect on your expertise and
the expertise of others.
Bottom of Form
3.2 Expertise allows you to make reliable predictions
The point I'm going to make in this part of the quad is that
expertise allows you to make reliable predictions. This is the
first step in connecting expertise with what we're calling if-then
knowledge.
The link is going to be through the role which expertise plays in
problem solving.
Problems are solved by applying your expertise, or by applying
the combined expertise of a team.
A problem is solved, we said, once we've given enough detail to
the transformation clause, once we've made the transformation
clause precise enough.
So it must be that applying our expertise is what allows us to

22. make a problem more precise; expertise allows us to give
enough detail to the transformation clause such that it provides
a solution to the problem.
Now, enough detail means that your solution provides: an
understanding of the steps to be carried out, and the confidence
that carrying out those steps will, reliably, result in the outcome
you wanted. The steps as described in your solution will
reliably result in the desired transformation taking place.
In other words, this means that a problem solution is also a
prediction. A problem solution is a prediction that specific steps
will lead to the predicted outcomes. By proposing a solution to
a problem you are predicting that those steps will lead to that
outcome.
And you are relying on your expertise to make that prediction.
So this tells us something more about what expertise is like. If
we think a little more about what is needed to make a reliable
prediction, we can learn a little bit more about what expertise
must be like.
That's what we're going to do in part 3. We'll talk about what
reliable prediction requires, at least when it comes to
engineering and engineering problem solving.
3.3 Reliable prediction requires knowing how things respond to
conditions
What does reliable prediction require? At least when it comes to
engineering and engineering problem solving.

23. The reason for thinking about this question is that we know that
expertise is what we use to make reliable predictions in the
context of engineering problem solving. So it's expertise that's
providing what we need to make reliable predictions. If we can
figure out what that is, we will learn something more about
what expertise is. And as we've already said¸ reflecting on
expertise will make us better problem-solvers, and better
collaborators and team members.
Problem solutions are predictions because they describe a set of
steps to take which should bring about the transformation asked
for in the original problem. So the solution is a commitment
about what is going to happen as the result of those steps.
It is, in other words, a prediction about what is going to happen
from those steps.
Those steps will involve tools, or apparatuses. They might
involve chemicals or other materials, pieces of equipment, other
kinds of technology, machines.
It's your expertise, your training, which tells you how these
things are going to behave, how they ought to respond, what
they will do when the steps are carried out.
What kinds of things we're talking about will depend on the
kind of engineering you are doing. It will depend on the kind of
engineering you can do, what expertise you have.
The important thing is that it is your expertise you are relying
on in making your predictions about outcomes of actions. Your

24. predictions are as reliable as your expertise is good.
And the more you know about how the relevant equipment,
technology, materials etc. are going to behave, the better your
expertise is.
Some of this will come from your university education, and
from theory. Most of it, the best of it, will come from hands-on
experience.
But what it is, wherever it comes from, is knowledge about how
things will respond or behave under different conditions, or
when used in certain ways.
That's the expertise you rely on in predicting your solution will
work.
That's the expertise which makes your prediction a reliable one.
COLLAPSE
Top of Form
3.4 Knowing how things respond to conditions is if-then
knowledge about entities and activities.
So, in the previous two parts we've established that it's your
expertise you rely on in to give details to a problem solution;
and it's your knowledge about how things will work or behave
or respond that makes that proposed solution a reliable one.
Here, in part 4, we'll introduce a couple of new concepts in
order to make talking about and thinking about expertise a little
more convenient.
Again, the point of this, as always, is to give you things to think

25. about so that you can be a reflective engineer. It's easy to s ay
things like: "to be a better engineer you should think about what
you're doing." But think about what exactly? And more
importantly, think how? Having some ready concepts, and some
ready questions, will make it easier for you to do your due
diligence as an engineer. The right concepts will make it easier
to reflect on what you're doing.
And just to be clear, you should know that, even if you start by
pausing to think about concepts like expertise or transformation,
it's not necessarily those concepts which will matter. The point
is that by thinking at all, about something, about anything, you
have a much much greater chance of noticing something else
which does matter, something you might not have noticed. You
have a much much greater chance of catching some mistake
before it happens.
So, back to our topic. Expertise allows you to make reliable
predictions, and its knowledge about how things will respond to
conditions.
In part 3 of this quad, we went through a list of things you
might use in solving an engineering problem: tools, apparatuses,
chemicals or other materials, pieces of equipment, other kinds
of technology, machines, etc.. We can sum these up with the
term entities. Which is just a fancy word for things. Every
domain of engineering, every domain of expertise, will have its
own entities.

26. Those entities have characteristic behaviours and properties.
Electrons have their charge; they have their mass; they respond
to electric fields. We can calculate their trajectories from their
charge, mass, velocity and the strength of the field.
The field is another entity. It has a direction and a strength.
So in addition to the entities and the properties we can know
about them, there are also their behaviours, particularly their
interactive ones. The field causes the electron to travel in a
curving trajectory. The chemicals will react with one another;
the catalyst will cause the rate of that reaction to increase.
The stuff that entities do, and the way they interact, we can sum
up as activities.
So expertise is knowledge about the entities and activities of a
domain. If you have expertise in biology, then what you'll know
about are entities --- things --- like genes, or eukaryotes, or
cephalopods. You will know about activities like, if a gene is
subject to certain environmental stresses then it is more likely
to mutate.
The more that you can say about the trajectories, the reactions,
the causes, and the properties those activities involve; the more
precise and detailed you can be about those activities, the
greater your expertise is. The greater your understanding is.
You can say "react", or "makes it speed up"; or you can say
"oxidizes by transferring electrons", or "introduces a ready
supply of radicals needed for the second stage of the process".

27. The words you use matter. Expertise is being precise. The
sentences you use matter.
And sentences are the subject of the last point of this quad.
At the end of the day what your expertise boils down to is the
set of if-then claims you can make. Knowing how things will
responsd to conditions --- which is what you need to …