Talk:List of basic engineering topics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This list is part of the Lists of basic topics WikiProject. We need your help! We are seeking new members to help create, maintain, and improve basic topic lists. Together, these lists are growing into an outline of human knowledge, to serve both as a learning aid and as a table of contents system for Wikipedia. Come on and join, and help build this cool navigation system. We're mapping out Wikipedia so its readers can more easily see what knowledge it has to offer!

	This article is part of WikiProject Engineering, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to engineering on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, join the project, visit the project portal, and contribute to the project discussion.
List	This article has been rated as List-Class on the quality scale.
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance.

[edit] Cleanup issues Feb 2007

I think the first, hugely-long, list (List of basic engineering topics#Fields of engineering) needs serious attention. Many of the items are duplicates. Others might best be grouped into sub-lists, for example, all the pages having to do with surveying and geodesy. This raises another serious topic: merging of related pages that are found in this list. How is this list defined? What exactly is a "basic" engineering field, so that it will be listed here and not just on the list of "all" engineering topics? It needs to be spelled out in the main article namespace so that all editors will know what they should and should not add to the list. Cbdorsett 07:38, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi Dbdorsett, this list is definately too long. However, many fields of engineering are multidisciplinary and overlap. Biochemical may overlap with civil in environmental remediation, or overlap with chemical engineering. Electrical engineering and petroleum engineering cross paths in well-logging. You get the picture. I think there is some overlap in the entries themselves. However, these could probably be subdivided reasonable well into the same kinds of groups you would see in college degree plans. The down side is someone is almost certainly going to be unhappy when their field is tucked next to such and such discipline. Just off the top of my head, I might put them into general categories of chemical/biotech, civil/environmental, computer/electrical, industrial/process, mechanical/materials, military science, and oceanographic/petroleum. Liberal Classic 08:00, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

This is a great improvement. I understand that many fields of engineering overlap, so some duplication can't be avoided. However, having similar topics grouped together as you have done will simplify the task of identifying those that truly are duplicates. Thanks for your good work. Cbdorsett 06:05, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New field?

I think you forget the "Information Technology Engineering field"... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.96.208.130 (talk) 13:31, 8 February 2008 (UTC)