ENGINEERING

COMMUNICATION
ABE 413
INTRODUCTION TO AND PRINCIPLES OF
TECHNICAL WRITING
Prof O. U. Dairo

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 Introduction To Technical Writing
❖ Technical Writing
a form of writing that subject matter experts use to clarify, simplify, and
communicate their ideas, often to a tecical or non-technical audience.
A technical report’s purpose is for an engineer to communicate
information gained through a process of technical or experimental work
In the engineering workplace, readers of technical reports include
supervisors assessing progress on specific projects or corporate officers
evaluating professional recommendations and proposals to invest in new
technologies
These non-technical readers might be executives, sales representatives,
end-users, consultants, or virtually anyone else whose skills differ
substantially from the technical writer’s own.
 It is divided into sections which allow different readers to access different levels of
information
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 Characteristics of Technical Writing
• Audience Analysis:
Understanding what your audience knows and does not know to help focus your
thoughts and produce documents that add value for others.
Know what questions your targeted audience has about the subject and answer them in
your writing.
Your immediate audience is the professor evaluating your understanding of
theoretical concepts. Other real or imagined audiences include fellow
students, engineering colleagues, or customers seeking engineering services
or products.

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 Characteristics
Simplicity:
No matter how complex the topic is, it’s important to communicate it with
both precision and concision, that is, saying what’s needed but no more.
Avoiding technical jargon is a good practice
The most important information in technical reports is the steps you
followed or the events that occurred
should convey information in an objective, fact-based manner–a style
that ensures technical information and processes that can be relayed
from you to readers in a clear, efficient fashion.
your opinions should not make their way into the text.
The third person, passive voice is required since it allows you to write
with more objectivity and keeps the emphasis of the writing on the
processes you followed and the products you built, rather than on
your experiences or role as a technician.
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 Characteristics
• Modularity:
• When developing material for a knowledge base or other resources that will be used by
different people each topic should receive a single, simplified explanation that can be
reused to develop multiple documents.
• Technical report must follow a stated pattern easily followed by fellow or
un-related personnel
• Typical Report Components
1. Title Page 6. ,Experimental Setup, Experimental
2. Executive Summary/Abstract Procedure,
3. Introduction 7. Sample Calculations,
8. Results and Discussion
4. Theory
9. Conclusion,
5. Apparatus 10. Appendices 5
 Components of Technical Report
Title Page
❖ The title should be brief and meaningful and describe the contents
of the report.
❖ The title identifies the subject and indicates the purpose of the study.
❖ includes the title, author’s name, course name and number, lab section
number, instructor’s name, and is not numbered..

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 Components of Technical Report
Executive Summary/Abstract
❖ Typically either an Executive Summary or an Abstract is required with technical
reports, but not both.
❖ The executive summary should give a concise and clear overview of the entire
laboratory experiment or topic to be discussed and should be the main
explanation of the entire.
❖ Readers should be able to gain all necessary information from the Executive
Summary and sometimes will read only this part. It should be written in the third
person, passive voice, and past tense because it explains work already done
A Good Executive Summary/Abstract will Include:
ii. The overall purpose of the experiment or principal objectives.
iii. The problem to be studied.
iv. Experimental methods and materials used.
v. Main results.
vi. Main conclusions
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 Components of Technical Report
Introduction
This section provides a context for the work discussed in the report.
Defines the scientific purpose or objective for the experiment.
Includes a description of the problem and reasons for the work being
done.
Be careful not to use specific technical jargon or abbreviations
Gives sufficient background information to the report.
Must answer the questions:
i. Why was this study performed?
ii. What is the specific purpose of the study?
iii. Justification.

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 Components of Technical Report
Introduction
This section provides a context for the work discussed in the report.
Defines the scientific purpose or objective for the experiment.
Includes a description of the problem and reasons for the work being
done.
Be careful not to use specific technical jargon or abbreviations
Gives sufficient background information to the report.
Must answer the questions:
i. Why was this study performed?
ii. What is the specific purpose of the study?
iii. Justification.

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 Components of Technical Report
Theory
❑ This section is mostly embedded in the introduction, especially if it is
simple and the paper is reporting a specific sub-task like a lab
experiment.
✔ explains the technical background of the work.
✔ includes the mathematical equations, models, and formulae, as well as
the scientific relations in its final forms, which governs the work,
referenced to its original sources

❑ Any equations or models should be formatted and numbered

according to the standards followed in technical writing.

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 Components of Technical Report
DESIGN / THEORETICAL ANALYSIS
❑ Give the details of your design procedure -with sentences plus
formulae
❑ Divide this section into subsections where appropriate
❑ If there is no design but strictly analysis, then provide the important
details of all the analysis performed
❑ Any equations or models should be formatted and numbered
according to the standards followed in technical writing.

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 Materials and Methods
Apparatus/Equipment
• lists all equipment and materials used in the experiment. Be sure to include
identification labels of all equipment.
Experimental Setup
• provides details of the setup needed to carry out the experiment or work. It
could be a circuit diagram, mechanical setup, field rig, equipment setup, etc
Experimental Procedure:
• describes and explains the steps and process of the experiment in
chronological order.
• Must have information in a paragraph structure that allows the reader to
duplicate/repeat the experiment exactly.
• Give the information in a step-by-step format.
• Write mainly in the passive voice.
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 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Sample Calculations
• Results are obtained based on equations and mathematical relations which
should have been mentioned earlier in the “Theory” section. If few
calculations are performed, they can be included in this section
Results
• The result should be analyzed, interpreted and stated clearly.

• use neatly organized and completely labeled tables and/or graphs

• incorporate labels referenced in the text and fully explain and interprete

Discussions
• results should be followed with a meaningful discussion. The discussion
explains what the results mean and points out trends
• Cite relevamt literature to ack up comformity or otherwise. Discuss errors.
They are acceptable 13
 CONCLUSION
❑ Is the final section of the body of the report, the author should briefly bring
everything together
i. Must answer any questions raised in the introduction regarding what was shown, discovered, verified, proved, or
disproved.
ii. Must explain why the experiment is significant.
iii. Must explain the implications for your particular field of study.
iv. Should not include discussion of new information not already mentioned in the report

❑ This section should briefly summarize the significant results of the

experiment
❑ should be a concise description of the report including its purpose and most
important results providing specific quantitative information
❑ The conclusion should not contain figures or make reference to them
❑ the reader should be able to read this section on its own which means that
there should be no specific technical jargon, abbreviations, or acronyms14 used
 REFERENCES AND APPENDICES
REFERENCES
• Details of published sources of material referred to or quoted in the report

• including any lecture notes, personal communications, and URL addresses of

any websites used.
❑ All references must follow any of the approved citation format and consistent
all through the report
❑ Three major citation methods
• APA (American Psychological Association) is used by Education, Psychology, and Sciences.
• MLA (Modern Language Association) style is used by the Humanities.
• Chicago A/ Chicago B/Turabian style is generally used by Business, History, Sciences and the Fine
Arts.
• IEEE Engineering
Link to citation types
• https://www.scribbr.com/citing-sources/citation-styles/
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 REFERENCES AND APPENDICES
APPENDICES
❑ This section may not always be present

❑ Useful information too lengthy to fit within the body placed in an appendix.

❑ Typically appendices are used for

✔ long mathematical formulas,
✔ lab sheets, parts list, diagrams,
✔ extensive calculations, error analyses,
✔ lengthy computer programs. and
✔ complete sets of data such as tables or figures.
❑ All appendices should be referenced within the text of the report; items in the
appendices should be arranged in the order in which they are mentioned in
the report

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