Technical Report for Engineering-How To Write

Engineers have often heard this line at various stages in their careers— ‘prepare a technical report and get ready for the presentation.’

What happens next?

They go through previous year’s samples, browse the internet for some guidelines, and eventually gets confused.

If you relate to this scenario, you are not alone. Many engineers find the process of preparing a technical report tricky. Yet, implementing some universal guidelines can help immensely. Reports will always be an integral part of engineering students/professionals tenure. So, here’s a guide that helps to prepare a remarkable technical report.

Technical reports

So, what exactly is a technical report?

It is a short or long document that includes the following aspects:

An existing problem
Analysis of the problem
A potential solution for solving the problem and
An analysis of the solution

In a short, an engineering report contains data, information, and analysis to present logical results for the reader.

Why to prepare a technical report?

Students and professionals will have distinct goals for creating a technical report.

As part of the academic curriculum, students need to present their project work in-depth and consequently, committee measure the skills they obtained throughout the course. Additionally, these projects/reports often bear aid such as funding, accolades,awards and achievements.

On the other hand, professionals/students prepare technical reports to impress clients, and the client subsequently decides whether or not to invest in the product/service based on these reports.

So, what is the mantra to succeed in both cases?

Clear and concise communication!

You must therefore write a technical report to communicate your idea to the desired audience with precision and clarity.

How to develop a technical report?

There are no rigid rules to prepare a technical report. Each part of the content needs to adapt to the requirements of a project or solution. However, you should follow certain guidelines to develop a ‘good’ technical report. This includes:

1. Setting clear objectives

Be it the GATE exam or technical report writing, clarity is the first step to achievie success. Here’s how you gain clarity before and during the preparation of a report:

Who is the audience?

Why is the technical report required?

What is the data necessary for the report?

Answering these basic queries creates a streamlined path. You should know what to include in the result of the technical report.

Example:

A report on the design of a machine without clear objectives ends up including different parts of information. For instance, consider the following objectives in a report:

Design methodology
CAD drawings
FEA analysis
Testing
Results of testing

Such a report fails to provide a concise message to the readers because it contains everything from CAD, FEA, to testing, leaving them jumbled.

The same machine report with set of objectives on the design criteria can include the following information:

Theory of existing mechanism
A drawback in the current design
Suggestion of modification
Raw material selection
CAD drawings
Design calculations
Fabrication
Assembly
End-result i.e., whether the modified design solved the issue?

By reading such a report, the audience will engage with the chronology and purpose of the project.

2. Data acquisition

It is crucial to gather relevant data because it is backbone of a good technical report. Engineering students should start collecting relevant information from the very point.

Amidst all this hectic process, be sure you choose reputed sources that are reviewed.

Here’s what you should aim to collect for developing a high-quality technical report:

Research papers
Articles
Technology news
Relevant published blogs
Statistics
Reference books

On the contrary, engineers working in a company can sometimes require limited data. In such a case, it is still crucial to refer to industry-relevant content for developing a good report.

Significance of formatting

The structure is the face of your technical report. You need to understand that the audience will not read the entire data at a single glance. Thus, formatting becomes crucial to present the content in a simplified manner.

Segregate your information into three categories:

Highly relevant information
Borderline data
Extra information that can be excluded

Next, set out a rough outline of this information chronologically. If you are a student, follow the university rules for formatting. On the other hand, if you are a professional engineer, create an outline before initiating the writing process.

Focus On Proofreading

The last step to develop an A1 report is editing and proofreading. Some students overlook this aspect and submit the technical report.

What happens next?

The report contains flaws that can harm a company’s reputation. Hence, you should allocate time to proofread the entire report.

Submit or present the report only after you are sure about all the facts and information in the document.

Writing a technical report

Some components in technical reports remain constant for various topics. Here’s a quick summary of the critical elements.

Element	Objective
Title page	To identify the report topic
Summary/abstract	To help readers decide which sections to read thoroughly
Table of contents	To guide readers through the sections
Introduction	To provide the context of the problem and aim of the report
Body content	To communicate all the data and work
Conclusion	To summarize major outcomes or key findings
References	To credit sources of information and establish the reliability

Table: Important elements of technical report

Here’s an in-depth look at how to write each section suitably:

1. Title page

The title page should be straightforward. It should convey the topic of your report in as few words as possible.

Also, your technical report title page should include the date, institution details, and name of your guide.

Moreover, remember that the words on your title page are excluded from the overall word count.

2. Summary/abstract

A technical report can contain a summary or an abstract, depending on the requirement.

For instance, thesis reports might need an abstract in the beginning. On the other hand, internal company reports can require a summary to present the whole idea.

Here’s how you differentiate between the two:

The summary includes the synopsis of the report with results
While the abstract overviews the entire report, which is short in length

To write a compelling summary, you must mention all the points in ascending order. Also, make sure you do not write a summary more than two pages.

An abstract should be shorter than a summary, preferably restricted to one page.

3. Table of contents

This section needs proper formatting. The table of contents mentions headings and subheadings. Hence, you need to arrange them adequately.

Ensure the page numbers, spacing, indentation, and alignment of this table are precise. In addition, you can even allocate separate pages for the following:

List of figures
List of tables

The above two segments need to be on separate pages after the table of contents. This will help the reader to analyze the report more efficiently.

4. Introduction

If you want to prepare a technical report, invest time in writing an original introduction. This section is an opening insight into your document.

Hence, writing an introduction without plagiarism proves vital to establishing sincerity and reliability.

Wondering what your introduction should contain?

Here are some pointers:

Problem statement
Main goals of the topic
Purpose of the report and
Outcomes from the topic

Remember, a technical report’s introduction should discuss previous research. You can also mention multiple relevant studies in the opening section.

5. Body content

Some engineering students have a good habit of referring to previous reports to note the main content structure.

Still, you can tend to overlook this aspect after completing your education. So, you must inculcate the habit of scanning older reports for it can prove to be an essential guide to writing the main body content.

The body of a report consists of the following points:

All sections
Design or experimentation details
Tables, facts, figures
Results and discussions

Example:

Consider a technical report on an IoT solution. The body text should contain the definition, theory, proposed model, technical details, and figures in chronological order.

An ideal report includes several graphics, images, and bullet lists to make the body content interesting. If the IoT technology has a software interface, it also contains screenshots of the same.

Another vital point in using images or graphs is to credit the sources. Different universities can have specific requirements for mentioning the sources. Hence, you should verify the exact format of citations.

6. Conclusion

Your technical report conclusion should be a summary of your work. This section should include the results, findings, or scope for future work.

You need to highlight your outcomes concisely. There are no strict rules to write a conclusion, nevertheless, you need to align this section with your body text.

Lastly, both students and professionals should use words that suggest the end of the report to the audience.

7. References

This section lists all the sources you used to write the technical report. You should ask your instructor to verify the reference format before you go about adding the sources used.

Here’s one way to mention references in the body text and link them to the final section.

Example:

‘There were 1,245 people [3] who took part in the survey.’

The source for this information is a number [3] in the reference section. So, the reader can locate the reference used to insert this statistic.

The mentioned example is just one way of using references. You can use a set of style according to the university or company guidelines.
General tips to prepare an impressive technical report

You can follow these simple yet overlooked tips to make a technical report more interesting:

Aesthetics: You should choose a readable font, space setting, and indentation throughout the report. Fonts like Calibri, Times New Roman, and Arial are safe choices.
Use variations of Headings: To make the report more readable, you should use H2s, H3s, and H4s, depending on the priority of the section
Citations: One of your prime focuses should be to create a plagiarism-free report. Remember always write in your own words
Focus on editing: Removing the unnecessary content in your report can enhance the quality immensely. So, allot sufficient time for editing your technical report.

Wrapping up

Regardless of your current status in engineering, technical writing skills can prove to be a gamechanger.

An excellent technical report can help you impress a reputed employer or encourage a new client to invest in a particular solution.

After knowing the objective of your report, plan wisely. Gather all the relevant information and create a structure. Next, follow the mentioned tips and develop an interesting technical report.