Technical report writing

Article by Muhammad Uzair Sukhera

De – 27 Electrical Engineering

uzairasif@hotmail.com

 

 

 

Do not make report writing a headache! Make it fun for you. Always document your project while it is in progress. Documenting the project once it is complete is unfortunately a bad practice in many engineers. This late documentation not only makes the report writing a formality but also misses out important technical details that were taken care of during the implementation phase!

 

Documentation is an essential part of all engineering projects. The technical details of each and every module of a project can not be kept in memory! These technical details are critical to system design, functionality and more often to troubleshooting. Thus it is essential to have a record of all the technical details in a well documented manner. Well, I stress “well documented”, why? Imagine the technical details and documentation in a scrambled form in some computer hard disk. When the need arises, lot of time and energy will surely be wasted to look for the right stuff.

 

“Imagine in big industrial unit, a catastrophe is caused just because the project engineer did not document the critical temperatures for the chemical process!”

Report writing has no specific fixed format. It is written according to one’s need and the purpose. However there are certain essentials that technical reports MUST HAVE

1.       Statement of problem

State clearly the task at hand. It includes the purpose of the report.

Example: The given task was to write a report for the lab experiment.

 

2.       Diagram

You are writing a “technical report”, o yes, but it doesn’t mean that it simply contains mere facts and figures! It will make the reader sleep. Make it as much interactive as possible. The engineering processes are often best explained through visual aids than through words!

Example: Diagram and/or flow chart is to give visual description of the task assigned.

 

3.       Strategy

Engineering is all about innovation: Applying the theory to solve the problem in the best possible manner. Most problems can be solved in number of ways. An engineer’s task is to find the best methodology.  To determine the best method one has to determine all the methods that may help in solving the problem. The pros and cons of these methods are discussed, evaluated and then the theme plan is developed based on some facts and/or preliminary experiments.

 

 

 

Example: For the given problem there are two approaches: to make the report stereotypical or to keep the format flexible and innovative to keep the readers interest alive.

 

4.       Implementation

Once the modus operandi has been selected what’s the next task? Of course GET TO WORK. So the next heading is naturally the implementation. Now here the details of the methodology adopted, the design process, equations, the technical details all come in. Most often the problems faced during implementation are also discussed. Two other subheadings can be.

a.       Datasheet

b.      Tables

Hey I said datasheets. But it did not mean copy paste the whole data sheet. It is just to mention the technical details from datasheet and the design steps you have taken for its to meet those requirements. Most text book methods of report writing prefer appending the datasheets at the end of report as annexure.

5.       Results

Was the project without any results? No. So state the RESULTS.

So in the last you got to discuss what did u achieve? How many targets were accomplished? What was the outcome? Get down to start and REVIEW your work!

6.       Recommendations

Now after the completion of your work you are capable of making recommendations for future work. Guiding others of the possible choices they have and the probable solutions to the problems faced by you. Recommendations might also include few solid suggestions for the supervisors, in case of students, the professors and lab demonstrators. However, be sure not to over suggest! It may cost you some marks

7.        References

Technical papers, research work and documentation are incomplete without proper references. Remember copying text from somewhere without referencing is plagiarism – a serious crime! Moreover, citing different technical papers, books, thesis or reports may increase the worth of your work, but keep a balance and do not include useless references.

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