guidelines for writing report

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GUIDELINES FOR REPORT WRITING This information applies particularly to your Lab Report, and in general to all technical reports you write thereafter. The readership (or audience) for a technical report Before writing a report, you must consider to whom it is addressed. For example, report “A” aimed at a higher level of management to help them make a major decision needs a different approach (exceptionally clear statements of the main points only, omitting most of the detail, and making recommendations) from report “B” which serves to record some stage of work on the development of a product and is intended for engineers at a level in the organization similar to the author’s (clarity still very important but also some detailed discussion). Whatever the intended audience, tell them what they need to know, based on their knowledge and interest, not a “history” of what you did. As students, you will have to imagine an audience, which is not easy until you have some experience. Since this course may possibly be your first opportunity to write an engineering report, we ask you only to assume an audience with the same level of technical knowledge as you has at the time of doing the experiment. However, remember that short reports are more likely to be read than long ones containing too much detail. Structure of a report Organizations often have their own standard styles for the layout of reports, but they tend to differ only in detail. A very common arrangement of the sections of a report is as follows. 1.0 Objectives State the objectives of the experiment or report 2.0 Summary A short (no more than 200 words) self –contained summary of the whole report saying what was done and why, and then giving the main results and conclusion. Purposes are (i) to summarize the work for those who have no need or are to busy to read the whole report, (ii) to provide an overview before reading the body of the report and a reminder of the work some time later, (iii) for anyone not originally the recipient of the report but searching for 1/3

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Page 1: Guidelines for Writing Report

GUIDELINES FOR REPORT WRITING

This information applies particularly to your Lab Report, and in general to all technical reports you write thereafter.

The readership (or audience) for a technical report

Before writing a report, you must consider to whom it is addressed. For example, report “A” aimed at a higher level of management to help them make a major decision needs a different approach (exceptionally clear statements of the main points only, omitting most of the detail, and making recommendations) from report “B” which serves to record some stage of work on the development of a product and is intended for engineers at a level in the organization similar to the author’s (clarity still very important but also some detailed discussion). Whatever the intended audience, tell them what they need to know, based on their knowledge and interest, not a “history” of what you did. As students, you will have to imagine an audience, which is not easy until you have some experience. Since this course may possibly be your first opportunity to write an engineering report, we ask you only to assume an audience with the same level of technical knowledge as you has at the time of doing the experiment. However, remember that short reports are more likely to be read than long ones containing too much detail.

Structure of a report

Organizations often have their own standard styles for the layout of reports, but they tend to differ only in detail. A very common arrangement of the sections of a report is as follows.

1.0 Objectives State the objectives of the experiment or report2.0 Summary A short (no more than 200 words) self –contained summary of the whole

report saying what was done and why, and then giving the main results and conclusion.Purposes are (i) to summarize the work for those who have no need or are to busy to read the whole report, (ii) to provide an overview before reading the body of the report and a reminder of the work some time later, (iii) for anyone not originally the recipient of the report but searching for information on the broad topic, to indicate whether the report is worth reading. Sometimes called Abstracts or Synopsis; this is arguably the most important part of a report.

3.0 Introduction/Theory

Depends on the topic of the report. May not be necessary but if it is, try to devise a more helpful heading. Subsections, with appropriate subheadings e.g. “Operating principal of a steam engine”, may be necessary.

4.0 Result/Discussion Compare results with expectation, other related cases, and previous experiments, analytical or computational results; consider the implications, etc – whatever is appropriate. Often included in the Results section as an alternative to a separate section.

5.0 Conclusions An essential section; worth a lot of care in writing since it is likely to be the most read section after the summary. Used to summarize the principal findings of the work and to assess the success in meeting the stated objectives.

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Page 2: Guidelines for Writing Report

Try to keep it short and “punchy” and to be quantitative (e.g. “…was within 2% of …..” not “….was very closes to…”). You should not introduce here any material which has not been mentioned earlier in some form, under Results or Discussion.

6.0 Recommendations Common in industrial reports, to suggest further action; may be included instead in the Conclusions section. Student sometimes use it to suggest improvements in apparatus or measurement procedure, which is valid for experiments intended mainly to reinforce lecture material; however such sections are best suited to reports on open experiments.

7.0 Tutorials Answer the questions given.

8.0 References A list of any books, reports, journal articles, conference paper etc. which have been explicitly quoted in the main text of the report, for a specific purpose. The reference sections would then contain the item “[2] Smith J.M and Van Hess H.C., Introduction to Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics, McGraw Hill, New York 2001, p.229”. The number [2] would mean that this is the second reference cited in the text and the item would appear second in the Reference list.*Minimum; 5 references

Appendices For Information which is too detailed to interest most readers, but could be relevant to some. Putting such material in Appendix improves the readability of the report. Appendices are not for material which is central to the message of the report!*Raw data/tables

Tables All tables should have a “caption” consisting of a Table Number followed by a helpful title. Table 1 would be the first one to be quoted in the text, e.g. “all relevant dimension of the engine is given in table 1”.

Figures Block diagrams of apparatus, graphs of results all count as “Figures” and should be quoted in the text by number. For example, Figure 1 might be a diagram of an equipment and Figure 2 and 3 graphs of processed results. The “rules” above regarding tables apply equally to figures.

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