Guide To Technical Reports

Technical Reports are usually written according to general standards, corporate - sign standards of the current university or company, logical rules and practical - periences. These rules are not known well enough among engineers. There are many books that give general advice in writing. This book is specialised in how to write Technical Reports and addresses not only engineers, but also natural sci- th tists, computer scientists, etc. It is based on the 6 edition published in 2008 by st Vieweg in German and is now published as 1 edition by Springer in English. Both authors of the German edition have long experience in educating en- neers at the University of Applied Sciences Hannover. They have held many l- tures where students had to write reports and took notes about all positive and negative examples that occurred in design reports, lab work reports, and in theses. Prof. Dr. Lutz Hering has worked for VOLKSWAGEN and DAIMLER and then changed to the University of Applied Sciences Hannover where he worked from 1974 until 2000. He held lectures on Technical Drawing, Construction and Design, CAD and Materials Science. Dr. Heike Hering worked nine years as a Technical Writer and was responsible for many CAD manuals in German and English. She is now employed at TÜV NORD Akademie, where she is responsible for E-Learning projects, technical documentation and software training and supervises students who are writing their theses. Prof. Dr. -Ing.

This book is based on, and expanded from, a course on technical report writing that the author has presented for over 20 years. Are you an engineer who writes technical reports as part of your job, yet you wish you could make them shorter and better - and write them faster? Maybe you write external reports for your consultancy's clients, or internal reports for senior managers. Maybe sometimes you think you signed up to be an engineer not a writer. But now you are a writer as well as an engineer and you wish that writing a good report was easier. This book will show you how to write shorter and better reports, and write them faster. The author is a retired chartered engineer and who has written about 100 articles and four books - published by Kogan Page, Macmillan and San Francisco Press. Here is just one comment from one client who arranged for the course on which this book is based to be presented to his staff: 'Thank you for the course. All the feedback I've had so far has been very positive... which is quite unusual as they can be a cynical bunch.' Well, not so much as cynical as don't like 'airy-fairy' ideas. The book is down-to-earth with practical ideas.You will learn: - How to break the task into three phases: planning, writing and editing.- How to avoid the biggest complaint about technical reports.- How to use three layers of sequencing to make the writing easier.- The most common format for technical reports - and three others. - How much detail to include.- Twelve big tips to improve the writing and several smaller tips.- How to satisfy both technical and non-technical readers.- How to cut the waffle.- How to edit your own work, which is never an easy thing to do.- Seventeen consistency checks to look for when editing.- How to get the best from the Microsoft grammar checker.- How to use the readability statistics.- Variations between British and US English.PLUS: A style guide with over 130 items of guidance, including all the punctuation marks. Did you know that the hyphen has been described as the punctuation mark to drive you mad?

This book provides thorough and specific guidance on how to prepare defense-related scientific and technical reports, including classified scientific and technical reports. It includes an appendix describing the workings of the Defense Technical Information Center, the central repository for defense-related scientific and technical reports, and an appendix addressing tone and style, including pertinent information from the United States Government Printing Office Style Manual 2000, the official style guide of the U.S. Government and, therefore, the Department of Defense. Every facet of preparing defense-related scientific and technical reports is addressed, thereby making it unnecessary for the user to have to refer to the standards and numerous regulations pertaining to this subject. In effect, the book provides "one-stop shopping" for the user. Also, some of the official guidance on preparing defense-related scientific and technical reports requires interpretation, and in those cases the book provides a prudent analysis of that information and prescribes a "best practices" course for the user.

This second edition has been revised and updated. Not intended to be read from cover to cover, this book was designed instead to be a quick and useful reference for students, young engineers, and experienced professionals alike. It provides guidelines, advice, and technical information for preparing formal documents-covering a range of report formats (e.g. assessment, laboratory and progress reports). This concise, no-nonsense guide provides alphabetically ordered and cross- referenced topics, which make it easy to find answers to questions related to writing a technical report or thesis. Topics include: the format and content of reports and theses; copyright and plagiarism; print and Internet reference citation abbreviations; units and conversion factors; significant figures; mathematical notation and equations; writing styles and conventions; frequently confused words; grammatical errors and punctuation. It also provides commonsense advice on issues such as how to get started and how to keep your reader's attention.

Technical Writing: A Practical Guide for Engineers, Scientists, and Nontechnical Professionals, Second Edition enables readers to write, edit, and publish materials of a technical nature, including books, articles, reports, and electronic media. Written by a renowned engineer and widely published technical author, this guide complements traditional writer’s reference manuals on technical writing through presentation of first-hand examples that help readers understand practical considerations in writing and producing technical content. These examples illustrate how a publication originates as well as various challenges and solutions. The second edition contains new material in every chapter including new topics, additional examples, insights, tips and tricks, new vignettes and more exercises. Appendices have been added for writing checklists and writing samples. The references and glossary have been updated and expanded. In addition, a focus on writing for the nontechnical persons working in the technology world and the nonnative English speaker has been incorporated. Written in an informal, conversational style, unlike traditional college writing texts, the book also contains many interesting vignettes and personal stories to add interest to otherwise stodgy lessons.

This book is meant as an easy-to-use guide for engineers, scientists, and college students in technical programs at all levels who need to produce technical reports or make oral presentations. Standard technical communication textbooks tend to be complex and lengthy, and consequently both harder to use and quite expensive. But because simplicity, conciseness, and straightforwardness are crucial aspects of good technical communication, A Practical Guide to Technical Reports and Presentations itself exemplifies the principles technical writers should embrace. It is concise, easy to use, clearly written, and inexpensive enough to attract a broad readership, both within and outside the classroom. The central feature and greatest strength of A Practical Guide to Technical Reports and Presentations is its organization: Each section explains the characteristics and purposes of a specific report genre concisely, presents a simple template for a typical example of the genre, and concludes with a sample document that demonstrates the features as they might actually appear. Additional useful features are its brief overview of the main considerations in technical communication and its set of detailed appendices; the latter provide more in-depth treatment of several topics that arise in the descriptions of the genres, such as language and usage, particular forms of organization, the use and documentation of sources, and the design and use of graphics. The basic philosophy behind A Practical Guide is that a communication book should help its readers learn to write clearly and directly, and that it should model the style it teaches. Further, it offers both an analytical understanding of the elements of technical documents and a simple approach to their incorporation. A Practical Guide gives both students and working technical professionals the tools they need for producing standard industry documents.