REPORT WRITING

A report is a short, sharp, concise document which is written for a particular purpose and
audience. It generally sets out and analyses a situation or problem, often making
recommendations for future action. It is a factual paper, and needs to be clear and well-
structured. Technical writing is a specialized, structured way of writing, where information is
presented in a format and manner that best suits the psychological needs of the readers, so
that they can respond to a document as its author intended and achieve the purpose related to
that document. The process of gathering information from experts and presenting it to an
audience in a clear, easily understandable form is called technical writing

Technical writing is the presentation of information that helps the reader solves a particular
problem. Technical communicators write, design and/or edit proposal, web pages, lab reports,
newsletters and many other kinds of professional documents.

Purpose of technical writing - why study technical report writing

Technical report writing has two basic purposes:

1. To inform

2. To persuade

A technical report can be used for the physical description of a new machine, the steps in a
particular process, or the results of an experiment.

For example; A writer not only describes two sites for a factory but also persuades readers to
accept one of them as the best i.e. to prove your point. The document that achieves these
purposes is called technical writing.

Functions of Technical Writing also include the following points:

a. Reassure recipients that you are making progress, that the project is going smoothly,
and that it will be completed by the expected date.
b. Provide their recipients with a brief look at some of the findings or some of the work
of the project.
c. Give the recipients a chance to evaluate your work on the project and to request
changes.
d. Give you a chance to discuss problems in the project and thus to forewarn recipients.
e. Force you to establish a work schedule so that you'll complete the project on time. It
gives the writer a motivation to work more and produce results more efficiently.

Characteristics of Technical Writing

Technical writing is an important part of everyone's career. Writing well is difficult and time
consuming and writing in a technical way about technical subjects even makes it more
difficult. People write to propose projects, to document their own actions, to help other
understand the research, to analyze and solve problems, to describe procedures and objects. If
done well, technical writing is an exciting, fulfilling experience but if done poorly, it is
frustrating, even harmful to career development. Technicality in writing is based upon the
following points

There are six basic properties of Technical writing

Clarity

Accuracy

Comprehensiveness

Accessibility

Conciseness

Correctness

1. Clarity

Technical document must convey a single meaning that the reader can understand. Unclear
Technical writing is expensive. They vital communication link among the various employees
is usually the report, if this link is weak, the entire project may be jeopardized. Unclear
technical writing can be dangerous e.g. unclear instruction on how to operate machinery.

2. Accuracy

Unclear writing can cause many problems and even inaccuracy in the report. If you mean to
write 40,000 don’t write 400,000. If you mean to refer to fig 3.1 don’t refer to fig 3.2.
Slightest error can confuse or even annoy the reader of the report. If the reader suspects that
you are slanting information they have the right to doubt the entire document.

3. Comprehensiveness:

When writing technically, all the information should be provided, its background must be
described and clear description of any process, or method of carrying out a specific work,
should also be given. It also includes results, conclusions and recommendations.

4. Accessibility:

It means the ease with which the readers can locate the information they seek.

To increase Accessibility, include headings and lists in the report. A table of contents, list of
illustrations glossary and index are preferred.

5. Conciseness:

Technical writing is meant to be useful. The longer a document is, the more difficult it gets to
use it. Even it takes more of the user's time.
Conciseness works against clarity and comprehensiveness. Solution to this conflict is to
create a balance between the requirements of clarity, conciseness and comprehensiveness. In
short, in T.W every aspect of the subject is discussed in optimized detail. Document must be
long enough to be clear. It must give the audience purpose and object but no extra details.
Technical writing can be shortened 10-20% by eliminating unnecessary phrases and choosing
short words and sentences.

6. Correctness

Qualities of technical report writing also include correctness. Good technical report must also
be correct. It must be free from grammatical errors, punctuation mistakes, and should have
appropriate format standard. If a report contains grammatical errors, the reader will doubt the
accuracy of the information in the report. Technical writing is meant to convey information
and to persuade the audience. To accomplish these goals it must be clear accurate, easy to
access and must be economical and correct.

Components of a reports

1. Letter of Transmittal

The components of a report are not written in the same order in which they appear e.g. the
letter of transmittal is the first thing the reader sees, but it is probably the last to be created.
It introduces the purpose and content of the report to the principle reader. It gives you an
opportunity to emphasize whatever you think, your reader will find particularly in the
attached material. It enables you to point out any errors or omission in the material.
Transmittal letter contains the following element.
A statement of title and purpose of report.
A statement of who authorized the project and when
A statement of method used in the project or of the principal results, conclusion and
recommendations.
An acknowledgement of any assistance you received in preparing the material.
2. The title page: it Usual elements are :

Title
Name and position of writer
Name and position of principle reader
Date of submission
A good title must be informative. It. answers two basic questions
What is the subject of the report
What type of report is it? E.g. sea pollution - control devices
Define the type of report by using a generic term such as analysis, recommendations e.g
summary, review etc. For a simple title page, centre the title (typed in full capital letter) about
a third of the way down the page, then add the readers and writer's position, the
organization’s name and date.

3. The abstract: It’s like a brief technical summary, usually not more than 200 words of the
report. Its directed to readers who are familiar with the technical subject and need to know
whether to read the full report or not. This can use technical terminology and refer to
advanced concepts. Basic types of abstract are descriptive and informative abstracts. The
descriptive abstract sometime called topical or table of contents abstract. It does not provide
the import results, conclusion or recommendations. It lists the topic covered giving equal
coverage to each. The informative abstract states the problems the scope and methods, and
the major results, conclusion or recommendations.

4. The table of contents: It enables different readers to turn to specific pages to find the
information they want. Well organized report becomes ineffective if table of contents, is not
clear. T.O.C provide only guide to report's structure, coverage and pagination. The headings
that appear in the report are listed in T.O.C

For effective T.O.C make sure the report has effective headings.

5. The list of illustrations: It is a T.O.C for the figures and tables of a report. If the report
contains figures but not tables, it is called the list of figures

But if the report contains tables but not figures so is called the list of tables only

List of illustrations may be on the same page as the table of contents, or may be on the
separate page. If it begins on a separate page, it should be listed in the table of contents.

6. The executive summary: Sometimes called executive overview or the management

summary. It is a one-page condensation of a report. Managers don’t need a detailed and deep
understanding of various projects undertaken in their organization because of limitations in
time and specialization. The background of the project is also discussed clearly herein. The
specific problem that is to be solved through the project is clearly discussed; also the
conclusion and recommendations are discussed in a full separate paragraph.

7. The glossary and list of symbols: A gloss is an alphabetic list of definitions. It is useful if
you are addressing a multiple audience that includes readers who will not be familiar with the
technical vocabulary used in the report. An asterisk or any other notation can be used along
the word to tell the audience that the word is defined in glossary. It is generally placed at the
end of the report just before the appendix. Though if the glossary is a brief one, so can be
placed right after the table of contents.

A list of symbols is structured like glossary, but rather than defining words and phrases, it
defines the symbols and abbreviations used in the report.

Like glossary, the list of symbols may be placed before the appendices or after the table of
content.

8. The appendix:An appendix is any section that follows the body of the report (and the list
of references or bibliography, glossary or list of symbols). Appendices provide information
that is too bulky to be presented in the body or that will interest only a small number of
readers. For conciseness in the report, this information is separated from the body. Examples
of the kind of material that are usually found in the appendix include maps, large technical
diagrams or charts, computations, test data and texts of supporting documents. Appendices
are usually lettered, rather than numbered and are listed in the table of contents.

9. Referencing Styles: There are many styles of referencing, one of the most popular (in UK
institutions) is the Harvard system, the remainder of this article deals with the Harvard
referencing system. Your university may prefer the use of a different referencing system,
check with your lecturer or in any study skills information you have been provided with.

10. Date of Publication - You should include the year of publication or a more specific date
if appropriate, for journal or newspaper articles/stories. For webpages look for the when the
page was last updated. Include dates in brackets (2012) after author information. If no date
can be established then put (no date).
Publisher Information - Usually only relevant for books, you should include the publisher
name and place of publication.

11. Title of Piece - Include the title of the piece; this could be the name of the book, the title
of a journal article or webpage. Titles are usually written in italics. For books you should
also include the edition (if not the first) to make finding information easier. Often when
books are republished information remains broadly the same but may be reordered, therefore
page numbers may change between editions.

12.Page Numbers - If you are referencing a particular part of a book then you should include
the page number/s you have used in your work. Use p. 123 to indicate page 123 or pp. 123-
125 to indicate multiple pages.

13. URL and Date Accessed - For webpages you need to include the full URL of the page
(http://www... etc.) and the date you last accessed the page. The web is not static and
webpages can be changed/updated/removed at any time, it is therefore important to record
when you found the information you are referencing.