Technical Report Writing

Very few technical reports are written for a single, simply identifiable, reader. Because your audience is usually a complex group of people each with different needs, desires, expectations and backgrounds some thought must be given to each if you hope to communicate with him or her.

Your first task in audience analysis is to identify the primary audience. This is not necessarily the audience closest to you in the organization. Your immediate supervisor, who will review your report and send it on to others, is obviously an important audience member but is not necessarily the most important. The primary audience will be determined by the nature of the report but will always be that person or group who will make the most important decisions regarding your technical problem. Often, that will be the decision to fund or not to fund the project. Sometimes it will be the decision to proceed to the next step, or do further research or implement changes within your organization.

Whoever makes those decisions is the Primary Audience to whom you need to address your report.

There will usually be many secondary audiences. Your immediate supervisor will often be among these because he/she must concur with your report before they pass it along to others who may make the final decisions. Examples of other secondary audiences include; regulatory agencies, funding agencies, co-workers in other parts of your own organization who may be affected by your recommendations, and possibly citizen groups who have an interest in the results of your technical problem solutions.

Recognize too, that there may be some audience members who are completely unknown to you. They may come upon your report in the course of their work but you may never have guessed that they even existed. You cannot design your report for these unknown readers but you can design it so that even they may be able to gain some useful information from it.

Think of each of these audiences as individuals who have certain information or knowledge, but may not have other information they would need to understand your report. One of your tasks, as technical writer, is to provide whatever information may be missing so that your readers will understand your message. You have to do some guessing in this because you may not know all of the people who will read your report. If in doubt, it is best to include a little more information rather than a little less. This must be done carefully so that you don't insult your readers by implying that they are more ignorant than they are. In general though, the wider the range of knowledge among your audiences, the more basic information you will need to include.

Each of your readers will use your report in a somewhat different way. For example, the Finance Director needs budget figures so that he knows how your proposal may affect the rest of the organization. A City Councilor will look for the political effects of the plan you propose. A Regulatory Agency reviewer may be expected to look for compliance with existing rules.

For each main audience group, ask yourself how they may use your report. If the subject of the report is at all controversial, then you must also anticipate that some audience members who oppose your plan may attempt to use your report against you. Knowing that in advance is a great advantage and allows you to anticipate that criticism and include answers to those objections in the report.

Most of us have prejudices of some kind or another. If you've worked with your current boss for a long time you probably know some things he/she likes and some things he/she doesn't like. For example, you might know that the boss doesn't like complicated solutions but prefers simpler ideas. Knowing that tells you clearly how you must fashion your report to gain approval. If you have a choice, a simpler solution to the problem is more likely to win favor. If you don't have a choice; i.e., if you can't find a simple solution, then you will want to point that out in the report and explain why you can't present a simple answer to the technical question.

Apart from their personal preferences, each of your readers will have concerns that relate to their jobs. Some are obvious such as, Production Managers, Finance Directors, Regulatory Specialists, etc. Your report must address their concerns if those audience members are in the decision making loop. Ignoring any legitimate concern of this kind will ensure that your report will either not be approved or worse yet, if approved, will not be supported and implemented by some important members of the team.

H. How Will Your Report Affect Them ?

Finally, it is human nature for each of us to look at any proposal from our own selfish point of view. Many people view change as threatening. Suggestions to change the way things have been done for a long time will almost always meet resistance, especially from those who may have a career interest in keeping things the way they are. Be alert to these feelings as you write your report. Be certain that when you do recommend change that it is really necessary or desirable. If you are convinced that it is, then ask yourself, who will resist it? Then be prepared to offer those who might be opposed some reasons to support the change so that it will be less threatening to them.

No matter how widely varied your audiences' interests are there are two things everyone of them may be expected to understand. These are time and money. Your report must answer these two basic questions for every reader.

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