Chapter -1-

An
Introduction
to
Technical Report
(read – summarize- write )
 Objectives
You need to be able to:
• Know differences between academic and technical writing.
• Identify the characteristics of effective technical writing.
• Identify the steps in the writing process.
• Identify the components of good design.
• Identify the steps in organizing and writing instructions.
• Identify some tips to help your documents.

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Academic vs. Technical Writing

Academic Technical
Purpose: Demonstrate what you Getting something done
know about a topic
Less than teacher who is More than the reader
Knowledge of
evaluating them
Topic:

Audience: Teacher Several People

Criteria for Depth, logic, clarity, unity Clear and simple
Evaluation: and grammar organization of ideas

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 What is Technical Writing?
“Technical writing is the art, craft, practice, or problem of
translating that which is logical into that which is grammatical.
Technical writing forms a bridge between the logical (the
primarily binary concepts understood by computers, robots,
lawyers) and the illogical (the haphazard, inconsistent concepts
misunderstood carbon-based life forms, highly intelligent
computers, lawyers) via the medium of the grammatical, the
haphazardly logical system incomprehensible to both. The
practice of technical writing presupposes that you, the illogical,
actually want to learn about the logical subject, which of course
is in all cases false. This basis in a false presupposition makes
technical writing a pursuit typically favored by those with arts
degrees from obscure universities.”
- Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy
(The Movie and Book by Douglas Adams)

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 What is Technical Writing (really)?

“Technical writing conveys specific information about a

technical subject to a specific audience for a specific
purpose…The words and graphics of technical writing
are meant to be practical: that is, to communicate a body
of factual information that will help an audience
understand a subject or carry out a task.”

- Michael H. Markel
Director of Technical Communication, Boise State University

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 Types of Technical
Reports/Communication

Examples are:
• Annual Report
• Books
• Computer Hardware Guides
• Magazines
• Newsletters
• Organizational Manuals
• Scholarly Articles/Journals
• Software Guides
• Technical Reports 6
 Characteristics of Effective
Technical Writing

The four C’s:

• Clarity -- it is easily understood by your intended
audience
• Comprehensiveness -- all of the necessary
information is present
• Conciseness -- it is clear without excess verbiage
• Correctness -- it is grammatical and follows
conventions

7
 Theory of Design

Good design is:

1. Visually simple and uncluttered.

2. Highlights structure, hierarchy, and order.
3. Helps readers find information they need.

8
 Writing
• Write positive language.
Don’t use: Access to student information is not authorized for
any parties except Enrollment Services. Employees
who have access to student information are not
allowed to share that information with non- affiliated
third parties if you have not authorized it.
Do use: Access to student information is authorized only for
Enrollment Services purposes. Employees who have
access to student information are required to protect
and keep it confidential.

• Don’t write in upper case for more than A WORD

OR TWO.
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 Writing (cont.)
• Use lists whenever possible.

• Use the title to define the task.

• Use headings and subheadings.

• Label segments in away that reflects how readers

are likely to think about the operation or procedure.

• Don’t use: Components

• Do use: How to Check the Components

10
 Writing (cont.)
• Provide only one way to do something within a step.

• Be precise with your instructions.

• Use warnings.

• Write a conclusion.
Example: Congratulations! You’ve just created your first
document!

• Don’t annoy the reader.

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 Writing

• Chunk your information.

• Keep your paragraphs short.
• Less is better.
• Control the text width by using columns.

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 The Written Report: Why?

• You waste your time unless you can

communicate what you have been doing with it.

• The medium for most technical communication is

the written report, so you had better be good at it!

13
Some characteristics of reports

1. Everybody hates to write them,

2. Everybody hates to read them,
3. Almost nobody does read them,
4. They take a HUGE amount of time to write,
5. They are absolutely CRUCIAL to YOUR
success in engineering!

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Further characteristics of reports

They are also almost always:

6. Too long,
7. Badly organized,
8. Incomplete.

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Where to find materials to write the
report?
Examples are:
• Documents related to the project / work currently being done
• Google, Bing, Yahoo
• Google hacks/scripts (filetype, intitle, inurl, site)
• Journals (ex: Emeraldinsight.com, DOAJ.org, HighWire.stanford.edu)
• Scitopia.org
• Scirus.com
• Wolframalpha.com
• RSS readers – (Pageflakes.com)
• Newsgroup (Google Groups, Yahoogroups)
• Filesharing – Bittorent.com, Furk.net, Mininova.org
• Social site – Facebook, Myspace, Friendster
• Youtube.com, Metacafe.com etc.
• Reference, bibliography – Bibme.com
• Free Ebooks – Hongkiat.com - 20-best-websites-to-download-free-e-
books. OPPapers.com – Research Papers and Essays 16
 Basic Technical Overview

• Professionalism and ethics in reporting

• Knowing your audience

• Outline writing

• Report writing (rigid structure)

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 Professionalism & ethics in reporting

• Different individuals have different

personalities, and different modes for
communicating.

• If you apply a canned formula to your

technical communications, the result may be
awkward.

• Within the general structure of formal

technical communication, there is room for
your personality to show through.
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 Knowing Your Audience

• At the very beginning… think about your likely

audience.

• The word selection, level of motivation, and

background required for a report (or a presentation)
depends greatly on the background of the
audience.

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 Outline Your Writing Purpose

• Why am I presenting this work? What do I

want the audience to get out of this paper or
this presentation?

• Hint: formulate one or two simple "take-home

messages" that you will try to impart to your
audience.

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 Write the Report, but how long?
• The length of your presentation - either written
or oral - is often dictated by others.

• With respect to oral presentations, you will

often find yourself up against a strict time limit:
 Be sure that you can get your take-home message
across without hurrying

• Hint: carefully rehearse your talk with a stop-

watch in hand…

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 Common Report Formats
There are a number of accepted formats for any
type of document that you write, but…

The commonly accepted standard for engineering

reports is IMRaD - Introduction - Methods - Results
- and Discussion.

Note: Your reports do not necessarily need to

follow this format strictly, but should use this as a
guideline, and contain all of the information
discussed in the following paragraphs.

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How to read and summarize a
research article
 How to Summarize a Research
Article
• A research article usually has seven major sections: Title, Abstract,
Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion, and References
• To summarize the article you should care of :
1. Determine your focus
2. Reading the article
- allow enough time
- scan the article first
3. Read for depth, read interactively.
4. Plagiarism
5. Writing the summary
6. Write a first draft
7. Edit for completeness and accuracy
8. Edit for style
9. Re-read what you have written. Ask others to read it to
catch things that you’ve missed. 24
 Reading an academic article
The contents of an academic article cannot be grasped by a single
reading. You have to engage with it several times, but in different
ways.

• Step 1: Skim the whole article

• Step 2: Determine your purpose for reading the article
• Step 3: Read specific sections critically to fulfill your purpose

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 Step 1: Skim the whole article

• Skim reading makes use of a normal convention for structuring

writing: placing key information at the beginning of a “chunk” of
text, then elaborating on that in the rest of that “chunk”
– Two types of “chunks”– paragraphs and paper sections
• There are two sections that usually are particularly useful in
understanding the article.
– the Introduction
– the Conclusion
» Here, an author will generally end the section with a
paragraph that makes important points. Now we can
modify the previous rule:
• So, read fully the first and last paragraph of the Introduction and
the Conclusion sections

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 Step 2: Determining purpose
Different purposes for reading articles require attention to
different areas.
• Overview of topic
– Focus on the introduction and conclusion.
• Research ideas
– Read the introduction and conclusion, looking for further research
suggestions in conclusion, then critically read the methods section.
• Planning an experiment
– Critically read the methods section.
• General knowledge
– Carefully read the whole article making sure you understand it all.
• Assignment for a course
– Think about the goal of the assignment. Critically read what you
might use to achieve that goal.

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 Step 3: Reading critically
…think about the following questions to help you read critically:
• What is the author’s purpose for writing this paper?
• What are the main points of this text?
• Can you put them in your own words?
• What sorts of examples are used?
• What factors (ideas, people, things) have been included?
• Can you work out the steps of the argument being presented? Do all
the steps follow logically?
• Do you agree or disagree with the author? Why?
• What connections do you see between this and other texts?
• Where does it differ from other texts on the same subject?

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