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Oregon Institute of Technology Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering and Tec

Oregon Institute of Technology Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering and Technology Department WRITING GUIDE FOR FORMAL TECHNICAL REPORTS Robert K. Wattson, Jr. In Collaboration With: Wayne E. Phillips Charles A. Hermach 4th Revision: June 1987 FOREWORD This is not a technical report. It is not intended to read or to look like one. It is a very small book about technical report writing. Read it carefully. Use it when you are writing reports of laboratory projects. It is the Department's style manual in the same sense that commercial companies have style manuals. You will be required to comply most rigidly with its instructions. CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION II. ELEMENTS OF THE ENGINEERING WRITING STYLE III. ORGANIZATION OF A TECHNICAL REPORT IV. MAJOR SECTIONS OF THE TECHNICAL REPORT Title Page Table of Contents First Page of Text Summary Introduction Notation Analytical Development Experimental Apparatus and Method Results Discussion Conclusions and Recommendations References Tables Illustrations Graphs Appendix Binding and Labeling V. EFFORT REQUIRED (by Wayne E. Phillips) VI. GRADING (by Wayne E. Phillips) VII. ERRORS FREQUENTLY FOUND IN STUDENT REPORTS I. INTRODUCTION Engineering writing style is quite structured, has been for many years, and will undoubtedly continue to be so. The reasons are: 1. Care must always be taken to use words the exact meanings of which are known to the engineering community. Words, phrases and sentences must say exactly what is intended. Unusual terms, when first introduced, must be defined. 2. Technical writing. is highdensity stuff; the information is packed in; indeed it must be, for there is mo much of it. Every sentence in an engineering report must convey additional information, and to the extent possible must relate that information to what went before. 3. Because of that high information density, technical reading is a slow process; in the toughest cases sometimes a single sentence can take minutes to assimilate. For this reason the reader should be confronted with familiar terms, uncomplicated sentences, short paragraphs; these help him go faster. 4. The readership is already familiar with the style, is reasonably comfortable with it, and expects more of the same. II. ELEMENTS OF THE ENGINEERING WRITING STYLE 1. A definite detailed organization scheme is followed. 2. The general style is terse, the sentences short to only moderately long. Word usage, grammar and sentence structure must be impeccable. 3. Third person is used in descriptive material. An exception is the use of firstperson plural in mathematical developments: Thus we see that . . . Occasionallyonce every few yearsyou will simply have to mention yourself specifically., Do not be stilted about it. Good: my experience is that . . . (or: I have found that . . . ) Bad: It is the experience of the author that Second person is never used. 4. Use of the third person almost compels the use of passive voice. Passive voice directs attention to the project, not to the persons who performed it. Thermometers were located at . . . This is not a fast rule; many sentences, though not referring to what someone did, work out better in active voice. (this one did). 5. Past tense is used for descriptions of work already done, and for descriptions of equipment which has since been destroyed or modified. Present tense is used for investigations in progress, for mathematical expositions, and for descriptions of equipment still in existence. Present tense may also be used for conclusions which have a continuing existence: The optimum path is generated when . . . Future tense is used for technical prediction: The trend will be toward shorter wheelbase and turning radius . . . 6. Engineering reports are usually expository, so declarative mood is appropriate. Exception: directions in a manual may use imperative mood. 7. Qualifying adjectives (much, very, extremely),are used only sparingly. Style is frequently strengthened by striking out qualifiers. 8. Contractions, slang, profanity, and vernacular terms are avoided. 9. A tendency exists among students to write "fluff" and redundant phrases simply to fill space. This is never permissible in engineering writing. 10. Use of more than one example to emphasize a point is not acceptable. 11. Paragraphs should be short. Long paragraphs tend to wander and the reader is dismayed to see them. A paragraph of technical writing should appear on a typewritten page as a flat rectangle. The occasional speed reader can read such a paragraph at a glance. 12. The purpose for which the work was done must show clearly, and every part of the report should point to that purpose organization of the text, relationships and emphases must be appropriate. III. ORGANIZATION OF A TECHNICAL REPORT Though reports of many kinds are written for many different purposes throughout industry, upper division MET laboratory reporting will follow the general format and standards of the formal industry technical report. Such reports deal with completed analytical or experimental programs. Individual courses may have special requirements. Formal technical reports are divided into sections of fixed nature and order. For our purposes these sections will be titled: MMET Writing Guide Memo Report TITLE PAGE TITLE PAGE CONTENTS SUMMARY SUMMARY or ABSTRACT MMET Writing Guide Memo Report INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION NOTATION ANALYTICAL DEVELOPMENT or ANALYSIS ANALYSIS EXPERIMENTAL APPARATUS AND METHOD EXPERIMENTAL APPARATUS / POCEDURE RESULTS RESULTS DISCUSSION CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS REFERENCES REFERENCES TABLES within sections referencing them* ILLUSTRATIONS within sections referencing them* GRAPHS within sections referencing them* APPENDICES APPENDICES *Note that in Memo Reports Tables, Illustrations, and Graphs should be included in the sections where they are referenced as noted below. Some flexibility is allowable: 1. Though tables and graphs which are to be referred to frequently are best assembled as shown above, if repeated use is not expected they may be scattered through the text. Care must be taken that they appear exactly at the place, or behind the page, where the text refers to them. 2. Major, titled subsections and titled paragraphs are permitted. 3. The contents page may be omitted in a very short report, as may any of the other sections provided their essentials appear in the text. A decision to omit a titled section is not made lightly, however. All titled sections will appear in each of your reports unless there is actually no material to put in them. 4. Sometimes when there are no conclusions a short section entitled "Concluding Remarks" is substituted. 5. There is a little difference in nomenclature and arrangement from one company or government agency to anotherone division of Boeing used to specify that the conclusions be up front just after the summary, followed by the most important tables and graphs. 6. Reports to be circulated outside the company may be reformatted and restyled, and are usually strictly controlled and heavily, even viciously, edited. They are part of the company's public face, and the firm is very sensitive about them. We are writing formal inhouse technical reports of test projects, intended to be viewed by our supervision on up to corporate level if necessary, and perhaps to be circulated discreetly to selected customers of known integrity and competence. Thus the reading audience for your report is defined: you yourself, your technical associates (fellow students), your immediate supervision (instructor), and higher echelons in the Institute, as well as one outside customer, the ABETthe Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. The general rules for communicating with them are: 1. Your report must record enough detail that you yourself, or some similarly qualified person, can replicate the tests by reading the report, assembling the equipment described (or similar equipment, or equipment able to function similarly), and following the procedure indicated. For example, if it is necessary to take a picture exactly the same as one appearing in the report, the descriptive material accompanying the photograph will include the make and model of camera; make, model and focal length of the lens; manufacturer and identifying number of film; exposure time, fstop, range; lighting positions, color, and wattage, special camera mounting, developing details, print paper. 2. Your instructor knows too much, is too familiar with what you are doing. Do not write to him. Target someone else: someone generally competent but without knowledge of what you did or how you did it, or why. 3. As your report moves up the supervisory line it will be viewed by persons with progressively less knowledge of what you are doing. If you talk about "the flow bench" or "the Detroit Diesel" to the department head, he may have an idea what you are referring to, but the director of the division may not. Neither should have to guess. 4. Also, successively higher echelons will have progressively less time to deal with your product. The brevity called for by this lack of time conflicts with the completeness required by Rule 3. You must live with this conflict. The way to do it is to see that, while the necessary points have been made, the wording is as compact and exact as you can possibly make it. 5. Outside the content uploads/s3/ report-writing-guide.pdf