This document provides an overview of technical writing and how to write technical reports. It discusses the differences between academic and technical writing, with technical writing having a focus on getting tasks done for an audience that may know less about the topic than the writer. Key aspects of technical writing include clarity, comprehensiveness, conciseness, and correctness. The document then discusses the structure of technical reports and provides tips for writing clearly and effectively.

1. Senior Lecturer: Khishigjargal.G

2. Agenda
• Introduction
• Structure of technical report
• Some important hints

3. 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.
Objectives

4. Differences between Academic
and Technical Report
Academic Technical
Purpose: Demonstrate what you
know about a topic
Getting something
done
Knowledge of Topic: Less than teacher who
is evaluating them
More than the reader
Audience: Teacher Several People
Criteria for
Evaluation:
Depth, logic, clarity,
unity and grammar
Clear and simple
organization of ideas

5. What is Technical Writing?
―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

6. Types of Technical
Reports/Communication
Examples are:
• Annual Report
• Books
• Computer Hardware Guides
• Magazines
• Newsletters
• Organizational Manuals
• Scholarly Articles/Journals
• Software Guides
• Technical Reports

7. 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

8. Theory of Design
Good design is:
1. Visually simple and uncluttered.
2. Highlights structure, hierarchy, and order.
3. Helps readers find information they need.

9. Writing
•Write positive language.
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•Don’t write in upper case for more than A
WORD OR TWO.

10. 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

11. 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.

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

13. How to Write Anything
• Free-write a rough draft. Just write—don’t
proofread, edit, revise, correct, look back at all. Then
• Revise. Organize, check for introduction and
conclusion for all sections, build in transitions, get rid
of excess verbiage, spell-check and grammar-check.
• Revise again.
• Read it out loud. This can help you detect awkward
phrases, missing commas, etc.

14. 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!

15. 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!

16. Further characteristics of
reports
They are also almost always:
6. Too long,
7. Badly organized,
8. Incomplete.

17. 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

18. Anatomy of a Report
• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Letter of Transmittal
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Executive Summary
• Report Body

19. Report Body
• Introduction
– Purpose and Scope;Limitations, Assumptions, and
Methods
• Background/History of the Problem
• Body
– Presents and interprets data
• Conclusions and Recommendations
• References or Works Cited
• Appendixes
– Interview transcripts, questionnaires, question tallies,
printouts, and previous reports

20. Document Design
• Use no more than 5 fonts.
• Use no more than 5 colors.
• Use glossy paper.
• Use white space.
• Use templates.
• Use parallelism.
• Avoid double emphasis.

21. Format Example
Please refer to uploaded documents at
http://www.zaipul.com/download/tdp
1. How to Write a Technical Report from Alan Smithee - A
format using single column.pdf
2. Template from IEEE for writing a Proceeding Manuscript - 2
columns.doc
3. Guide to a Journal Writing Format from MUST - 2
columns.doc
4. A sample of how to use MS Word to submit a Technical
Report to a lecturer.doc
5. A Detail Articles on how to write a Technical Report.doc

22. Thank you for
your attention