Technical Report Writing
© The IET 2015
The Institution of Engineering and Technology is registered as a Charity in England & Wales (no 211014) and Scotland (no SC038698).
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1. Objectives
The objectives of a report identify exactly what information it covers, for whom it is written and why it should be
produced; these objectives should be clear to the writer long before the process of writing starts.
It is helpful to put down in note form the precise details of the objectives and to check these details regularly until the
last stages of production. The report may assess the validity of a new process, the possible heating and lighting needs of
a new factory, the technical possibilities of developing a new kind of antenna: whatever the subject of the report, its exact
specification must be identified and adhered to.
Closely allied to this is the ‘why should it be produced at all?’ question. Is the report intended to inform about recent
developments, show the potentialities of a product (and if so, for whom - the senior scientific officer, the manufacturing
subsidiary, the user?), or to persuade superiors that more money, time or facilities are needed?
Surprisingly, perhaps, this stage of report production can present problems. A report which was meant to cover ‘the
UK’ and in fact dealt with England and Wales resulted in lost opportunities for development and sales in Scotland and
Northern Ireland; a report which tried to be both a specification of a machine and a report on the results of using the
machine ended up as confusion, neither precise specification nor reasoned conclusion. If time is needed to discuss the
objectives and clarify them, it will be time saved in unravelling complications at a later stage.
Knowing the reader involves questions which will be discussed in Section 2.1, but identifying the level of technical
knowledge, and the precise nature of that expertise, is part of the analysis of objectives. Seven questions should be
asked:
What does the reader already know about the material of this report?
How wide is the reader’s knowledge of the subject?
Why should the particular reader need this particular report?
What is it necessary to tell the reader?
What will be the reader’s expected response?
What, from the writer’s point of view, is the desired response?
How can the writer bridge the gap between what the reader knows already and what the writer wants the reader to
know, in order to produce the desired response?
Six out of the seven questions concentrate upon the reader, and therefore are related to the first law of good report
writing.
At the same time, some reports have to be written for a varied readership, for instance technical managers and financial
managers. Writing two separate reports would be time-consuming and ‘politically’ dangerous (directors, for example,
might feel offended if they did not receive both versions!). Strategic use of appendices (see Section 2.2) and summaries
(see Section 5.1) can produce a partial answer to this problem. It must, however, be identified as a possible area of
difficulty before the writing starts.
The identity of the reader will determine not only the approach but also the technical level and the style of the writing.
A short, emailed report to a colleague will be less formal than a report to the managing director of another company, and
considerations of tact in what can be safely included, and of presentation and layout, will of course be less important.
A balance must be maintained between the informality of friendly writing and the formality due to any business
communication; diagrammatic material must be clearly produced even if the drawing is informal in style.
The objectives of a report, then, are found in matching the reader’s need, the information involved, and the appropriate
tone, within the clearly defined limits of the report specification. When the objectives are identified and clarified in this
way, the actual writing of the report will become much easier.
Law 1: The reader is the most important person
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