Preparing Reports

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Preparing Reports
MEC
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Contents

• Introduction.
• Purpose of the Final Report.
• Rough Outline.
• Topic Sentence Outline.
• Editing.
• First Report.
• Final Report.

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Project Reports

• To communicate with the client.
• To ensure clients thoughtful acceptance of a
  teams design choice.
• Results in clear, understandable language.
• Highly detailed or technical materials may be
  placed at the end of the report for better
  clarity.
• May move technical and other supporting materials
  to separate volumes.

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Project Reports

• Best managed and controlled using a structured
  approach.
• Steps include
• - determining the purpose and audience of the
  technical report.
• - constructing a rough outline of the overall
  structure of the report.
• - reviewing the outline within the team and
  with the teams managers.

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Project Reports

• - constructing a topic sentence outline
• (TSO).
• - reviewing the outline within the team.
• - distributing individual writing assignments.
• - assembling, writing, and editing an initial
• draft.
• - soliciting reviews of initial draft from the
• managers and advisors.

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Project Reports

• - revising and rewriting initial draft to
• respond to the reviews.
• - preparing final version of the report.
• - presenting the final version to the client.
• A structure helps to learn how to create an
  organized report of the design results.

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Purpose of Final Report

• Likely to be read by a wider audience than the
  clients liaison with whom the team has been
  interacting.
• Team to determine if liaisons interests and
  levels of technical knowledge represent the
  audience for the final report.
• Liaison to guide team to a better understanding
  of the expected readers.
• Liaison to highlight issues of particular concern.

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Purpose of Final Report

• Team to understand what the reports recipient
  hopes to do with the information in the final
  report.
• Audience likely to want to see a full
  presentation of the design space that was
  explored if the intent of the project was to
  create a large number of conceptual design
  alternatives.

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Purpose of the Final Report

• Audience likely to want to see how well the
  selected alternative meets the specified need if
  the client simply wanted a solution to a
  particular problem.
• Team to organize information to satisfy each of
  the target groups.
• Use of technical supplements or appendices.

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Purpose of the Final Report

• May also call for a structure that begins with
  general language and concepts, and then explores
  the concepts in technical subsections.
• Team to write clearly and well for each audience,
  regardless of the organizational principle
  selected.

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Rough Outline

• To plan and structure the final report.
• A report more than a project history.
• To develop a general structure for the final
  report early in project.
• Need a lay out in advance all of the ideas and
  issues to be addressed.
• Thinking about the report early on emphasizes
  thinking about a projects deliverables.

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Rough Outline

• To consider how ideas and issues relate to each
  other.
• Identify the major sections into which the report
  is divided.
• Final stages or endgame of our project will be
  less stressful if we organize our final report
  early.

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Format of Rough Outline

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Format of Rough Outline

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Major Sections of a Report

• Abstract.
• Executive summary.
• Introduction and overview.
• Problem statement and problem definition or
  framing, including relevant prior work/
  research.
• Design alternatives considered.
• Evaluation of design alternatives and basis for
  design selection.

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Major Sections of a Report

• Results of alternatives analysis and design
  selection.
• Supporting materials, often set out in
  appendices, including drawings and details.
• Fabrication specifications.
• Supporting calculations or modeling results.
• Other materials that the client may require.

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Major Sections of a Report

• Final report of the engineering or design project
  to be well organized.
• Reader to go to any particular section and see it
  as a clear and coherent standalone document.
• Each major section of a report to tell a complete
  story about some aspect of the design project and
  its results.

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Topic Sentence Outline

• To build a corresponding, detailed topic sentence
  outline (TSO) after the rough outline.
• TSO to identify the themes or topics that,
  collectively, make up the report.
• Every single paragraph of a piece to have a topic
  sentence to indicate paragraphs intent or thesis.

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Topic Sentence Outline

• A topic identified by an entry in the TSO.
• One paragraph for one topic identified.
• TSO helpful to follow the logic of the argument
  or story.
• TSO helpful to assess the completeness of each
  section being drafted, as well as of the report
  as a whole.
• TSO shows whether a proposed report will address
  all of the issues that it should.

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Topic Sentence Outline

• TSOs to help identify appropriate
  cross-references to be made between subsections
  and sections as different aspects of the same
  idea or issue are addressed in different
  contexts.
• Helps to spot a topic and to identify and
  eliminate duplication if any.

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Topic Sentence Outline

• TSO forces the team to agree on the topics to be
  covered in each section.
• TSO makes easier for team members to take over
  for one another if something comes up to prevent
  a designated writer from actually writing.
• A team member can suddenly find that the
  prototype is not working as planned and he/she
  needs to do some more work on it.

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Topic Sentence Outline

• TSO eases editing, to develop and use a single
  voice.
• Editor to ensure that the report flows
  continuously, is consistent and accurate, and
  speaks in a single voice.
• Editor to ensure continuity, topics and sections
  to follow a logical sequence.
• Entries in a TSO do not really have to be
  grammatically complete sentences.

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Topic Sentence Outline

• Entries in TSO to be complete enough that their
  content is clear and unambiguous.
• Structure of rough outline and topic sentence
  outline permits teams members to write in
  parallel or simultaneously.
• Helps corralling the efforts of several writers
  into a single, clear, coherent document.

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Topic Sentence Outline

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Editing a Report

• Team to designate an editor as soon as the
  planning of the report begins.
• Team members to write in parallel or
  simultaneously.
• The more writers, the greater the need for a
  single, authoritative editor.
• One team member to assume the rights, privileges,
  and responsibilities of the editor.

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First Report

• Team members to be comfortable surrendering
  control of pieces they have written.
• Team members to be willing to let the editor do
  the job.
• Editor to ensure continuity, consistency and
  accuracy.
• Report to speak in a single voice.

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First Report

• Continuity
• - topics and sections to follow a logical
• sequence.
• - sequence to reflect the structure of
• the ideas in the rough outline and the
• TSO.

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First Report

• Consistency
• - common terminology, abbreviations and
• acronyms, notation, units, similar
• reasoning styles etc. throughout the
• report and all of its appendices.
• - team objectives tree, pairwise
• comparison chart, and evaluation matrix
• all to have same elements.

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First Report

• - discrepancies if any to be noted
• explicitly and explained.
• Accuracy
• - calculations, experiments,
• measurements, or other technical work
• to be done and reported.
• - use of appropriate professional
• standards and current best practices.

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First Report

• - technical reports not to make
• unsupported claims.
• - not to add to a final report something
• that wasnt really done well/incomplete.
• Voice or style of a report
• - reflects the way in which a report speaks
• to the reader.
• - ways to be similar to how people literally
• speak to each other.

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First Report

• - editor to ensure single voice throughout.
• - reader to feel that the report was written
• by one person.
• - voice to be more formal and impersonal.
• - not to sound overly familiar or
• idiosyncratic.

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Final Report

• Draft final report to get thoughtful
  reconsideration and meaningful revision.
• Draft report to benefit from careful readings and
  reviews by team members, managers, client
  representatives or liaisons and other stake
  holders.
• To incorporate reviewer suggestions into a final,
  high quality document.

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Final Report

• May reach a very diverse audience.
• To be professional and polished.
• To be clearly organized, easy to read and
  understand.
• Graphics or figures to be clear and easily
  interpreted.
• To be of reproducible quality, likely to be
  photocopied and distributed.

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Final Report

• Report to speak with a single voice to the
  anticipated audience.
• To ensure that the report can be read and
  understood by readers who may have different
  skill levels or backgrounds.
• An executive summary to address readers who may
  not have the time or interest to read all the
  details.

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Final Report

• Ready to use, client(s) may adopt the teams
  design.
• To be sufficiently detailed and complete to stand
  alone.
• Will be the final documentation of the work done.

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Rough Outline of a Project Report
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Reference

• Clive L Dim, Patrick Little and Elizabeth J
  Orwin, Engineering Design, A Project Based
  Introduction, 4th Edition, Wiley, U.S.A, 2014.

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Thank You