MEC 217 Technical Report Writing) Course Tutor Engr. Dr. A. Mahmud
MEC 217 Technical Report Writing) Course Tutor Engr. Dr. A. Mahmud
Course Tutor
Engr. Dr. A. Mahmud
1st General Objective
(Week 1 & 2)
Technical
Specifications
Feasibility Research
Report Reports
Types of
Reports
Policies &
procedures Business
for Plans
Organizations
Background
Research
Feasibility Report
It is a primary and most important thing in
development of project.
Example is Operational, market and financial.
Background Report
Intended to provide background details on a technical
report.
Focus on a specific topic meeting specific audience
needs.
Two essential infrastructures of the background
reports are definition and classification.
Business plans
These are proposals for starting a new business, a
formal statement of the business goals and the
plan for achieving them.
To provide whatever information the audience
may need to consider the idea.
Format the business plan: use the format for
formal report, the format for proposals or
some combination of theses two. Business plan
even those for small operations, can run over
15 pages.
Technical specifications
A document that defines a set of requirements
that a product or assembly must meet or exceed.
These documents present descriptive and
operational information created for new
products.
Research Report
Presenting findings culled for researches, both
from laboratories on certain field.
Content of report is actual work someone does
in a laboratory or in the field.
Consisting of data, conclusion, methodology
and background on the problem.
To make the reader easily understand the
purpose and results of research.
1.4 The methodology and sequence of writing
technical report
Summary
A TR summary (or abstract) should include a brief
overview of your investigation, outcomes and
recommendations. It must include all the key
information your reader needs to make a decision,
without them having to read your full report.
Don’t treat your summary as an introduction; it
should act as a stand-alone document.
Tip: Write your summary last
Table of contents
Help your reader quickly and easily find what they
are looking for by using informative headings and
careful numbering of your sections and sub-
sections.
Introduction
A technical report introduction:
provides context for the problem being
addressed,
discusses relevant previous research, and
states your aim or hypothesis.
To help, consider these questions:
a. What have you investigated?
b. How does your study fit into the current
literature?
c. What have previous studies found in the area?
d. Why is it worth investigating?
e. What was the experiment about?
f. Why did you do it?
g. What did you expect to learn from it?
Body
The body of a technical report is structured
according to the needs of your reader and the
nature of the project. The writer decides how to
structure it and what to include.
To help, ask yourself:
What does the reader need to know first?
What is the most logical way to develop the
story of the project?
Tip: look at other technical reports in your discipline to see
what they’ve included and in what order.
Conclusion
Your conclusion should mirror your introduction.
Be sure to:
Refer to your aims
Summarize your key findings, and
State your major outcomes and highlight their
significance.
Recommendations
If the TR includes recommendations for action, it
could be chosen to report these as a bullet point
list. When giving an answer to your problem, be
sure to include any limitations to your findings.
Recommendations can be presented in two ways:
Action statements
Example is ‘Type approval should be issued for
tunnel ventilation fans.’
Conditional statements.
Example is ‘If fan blades are painted with an anti-
corrosion coating system, it is likely that…’
Appendices
If you have data that is too detailed or lengthy to
include in the report itself, include it in the
appendix. Your reader can then choose to refer to
it if they are interested.
Label your appendix with a number or a letter, a
title, and refer to it the text, e.g. For a full list of
construction phases, see Appendix A.