Scribd
Upload
17 views4 pages

Second Course Technical English

Uploaded by

mutrace
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
17 views4 pages

Second Course Technical English

Uploaded by

mutrace
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 4

Hassiba Benbouali University of Chlef 2022/2023

Department of Mechanical Engineering/ Process Engineering


Technical English Course

Second course:
How to Write an Engineering Report

2.1 What is an engineering report ?

An engineering report is a practical working document written by engineers for clients, managers,
and other engineers.
✓ presents a problem
✓ analyzes this problem
✓ offers solutions
✓ involves collecting and compiling data and ideas,
✓ conducting testing,
✓ organizing the information.

2.2 Guidelines for Writing a Successful Report, Research, and other Scientific Papers

➢ All researches should have a unique style of writing a successful report and research
papers to represent an individual personality.
➢ A crystal-clear understanding of what is to going to be the abstract, references,
introduction, context, and conclusion is essential.
➢ The writing should be simple without many complexities to enable even a layperson to
read and understand easily.
➢ In-Depth knowledge of the subject will prevent unnecessary diversions which are out of
the scope of the research paper.
➢ Innovative ideas and ways to justify the research work will be much appreciated.
➢ Different scientific terminologies and a track of bibliography will help in raising the
standards of the research paper.
➢ To strictly follow all the specifications of the approving and publishing authority while
writing the research paper.
➢ Thorough proofreading from top to bottom of the research paper is critical to avoid
any errors in the research paper.

1
2.3 Basic report structure

Report generally includes these sections in this order:


2.3.1 Title
✓ clearly expressed in a few words
✓ convey the most information
✓ with the goal of attaining maximum "findability"
2.3.2 Abstract
✓ a short-written statement containing only the most important ideas in a report,
speech, article etc.
✓ Is brief (one paragraph-one page)
✓ Past tense
✓ States research problem
✓ main objective
✓ Indicate the methodology used
✓ Presents the main findings and conclusions
2.3.3 Introduction
✓ Explains the research problem and its context
✓ Explains importance of the problem (why does it matter?)
✓ Applications of the experiment or theory
✓ Explains reason and goals for study
✓ Motivation
✓ Outline the purpose and announce the present research, clearly indicating what is
novel and why it is significant.
✓ Avoid: repeating the abstract; providing unnecessary background information;
exaggerating the importance of the work; claiming novelty without a proper
literature search.
2.3.4 Background
✓ Includes the theory for the experiments
✓ Any equations required for the calculations
✓ Each equation should be numbers

2
✓ Included references
2.3.5 Methodology/Procedure
✓ Is in past tense and passive voice (3rd person)
✓ Do not use “We”, “I”, or “You”
✓ Describes the experimental procedure and data collection
✓ Included a schematic/diagram of the apparatus
✓ Write in complete sentence
✓ “The tank was filled with 5 L of water”
✓ NOT “Fill tank with 5L of water”
✓ Incomplete sentence and present tense
2.3.6 Results
✓ State the results in the text before presenting any graphs, figures or tables.
✓ Text points out the most significant portions of research findings
✓ Indicates key trends or relationships
✓ Highlights expected and/or unexpected findings
✓ Visual representation of results:
✓ Graphs, tables or figures
✓ Included error analysis
✓ Past tense (these are results you measured, calculated or observed)
2.3.7 Discussion
✓ Why did you observed what you observed?
✓ Explanation for Results:
✓ Comments on unexpected results, offering hypothesis for them
✓ Comparison to literature
✓ Does your research confirm previous studies? Deviate from them?
2.3.8 Conclusions
✓ What was learned through research?
✓ Strengths and weakness of study
✓ Possible applications of study (how it can be used)
✓ Recommendations
2.3.9 Recommendations

3
✓ What would you do differently?
✓ Any changes would you recommend for the experiment
2.3.10 References
2.3.11 Acknowledgement
2.3.12 Annexes

2.4 Visual Design

✓ Should be used to illustrate specific points


✓ Should be incorporated in a way that is natural to report’s content/context
✓ Should be explained fully in text using references such as “Fig. 1 shows….”
✓ Should be cited if taken from a source
✓ Textual information should come before graphics

2.5 Source Documentation

• Cite sources whenever you are quoting, paraphrasing, or summarizing work that is not your
own
✓ Quote directly is discouraged
✓ DO NOT COPY

• Sources include:
✓ Books
✓ Journal, magazine, or newspaper articles
✓ Interviews
✓ Conference Proceedings
✓ Lectures
• Citing
✓ Shows your credibility as a researcher
✓ Gives proper credit to authors and researchers
✓ Protects you from accusations of plagiarism

You might also like