Technical Report Writing

In this, and in Chapter 9, the parts of your report which make the first, and often most telling, visual impression are described. The use of white space to guide the reader's eye and maps, graphs, schematics, tables and other illustrations all contribute to, and sometimes determine, the overall effectiveness of the report.

The reader of your report will find it much easier if you provide an occasional rest from his/her labors. The effective use of "white space" does this and makes your report look better, scan more easily and places the emphasis on the most important points. Look at other reports you've seen where the authors have done this and you'll see how spacing things properly can increase the effect of the message.

Maps are an integral part of many reports in the Civil Engineering field as in many others. A good readable map answers the first question many readers have which is, where in the world is this project? By contrast, find a report in your own organization which does not have good maps. There are many such reports around so it won't be difficult to find an example.

Aerial photographs and mapping products derived from them are attention grabbers! The three examples below are good examples.

What is the effect of such a report on you, the reader? Do you find yourself annoyed and frustrated because you can't read the maps? Are they so poor that you can't even tell what it is they are trying to show? Are you angry at the author of that report because he didn't take the time and trouble to reproduce a good map at an appropriate scale to illustrate his ideas?

There are several examples of maps included in this Chapter. Look at the Figures below. They have been chosen because they represent what good maps can and should be.

There are many others examples around and you should be able to find some in your own library. They all share some characteristics in common, including;

The increasing use of Computer Aided Design and Drafting (CADD) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is making production of such maps easier and easier. If you have access to such systems, use them to produce the kind of maps that clarify your ideas and win your reader's appreciation and support for those ideas.

Graphs represent one of the best ways to illustrate numerical data in a concise and dramatic way. The example below is offered to show how this is accomplished. Graphs are especially helpful when you wish to show trends over time or the effect of one variable upon another. The key to good graphs however is simplicity.

Some of the pitfalls in creating and integrating graphs into your report arise from failing to remember to keep graphs as simple as possible. Trying to show too many things on a graph is worse than not graphing the data at all. A graph with too many lines, especially when they cross and/or relate to different scales tends to confuse your reader and distort the data.

Suppressed zeros are another way to distort data. Most readers expect to read graphs from left to right and from the bottom up. When you depart from these conventions, the reader may get confused. It may occasionally be necessary to do so, but be sure to explain fully in your report why the data is plotted in this non-conventional way.

The type of graph; bar, line, pie, area, 3-D, logarithmic, etc., is also important. Complicated but unusual graphs can be very helpful to you in your technical investigations but need to be used with great caution in your report. Consider again your audience. Will they understand this log/log plot of variable a vs. variables b,c,d,e and f? If not, include this graph in an appendix intended for your technically inclined readers and find a way to summarize the conclusions you've drawn from this graph in the main body of your report.

A very powerful tool for conveying technical ideas is the "schematic diagram". As used here, this term means a drawing or illustration which shows how something works, rather than how it actually looks. An example can be seen below.

Think of these as "idea-grams". They are meant to explain fairly complex systems in the simplest terms the author can devise. Flow diagrams are similar. They show how something flows through the system, what happens to it along the way and what the end result of a process is. The water treatment flow diagram is good and well drafted. It could be improved however by rendering the main flow, the flow of water through the system, in a heavier line weight. The other flow paths, such as the chlorine feed lines, are less important and need to be suppressed.

F. Tables and Highlighting the Important Stuff

Tables represent a kind of hybrid between textual and graphical report elements. They are very important though and need a little thought and attention to detail in their design. Very simple tables, such as in the example below, do not require much explanation in the text of the report but more complicated tables, do. As a concise way of presenting data though, a table is hard to beat.

They also have an advantage to you as technical writer. With a good tabulation of data, your job is to explain in the text of the report the meaning and significance of the table.

Certain features of tables can add greatly to their impact. Lines are very helpful in guiding the reader's eye to those things you particularly want him/her to notice. Shading, boldface type, separation and similar tricks can also be used to accomplish that same objective.

In all graphical elements of your report it is essential that you avoid clutter, confusion, business and sloppiness. These things interfere with your main goal which is communication. Do this by being careful about where you place labels in graphs, titles in tables, notes appended to either and reference marks or ticks.

These features of the graphical elements of your report are important little details which often spell the difference between an effective illustration and one that only confuses or obscures your message. Some people naturally have an eye for this sort of thing while others do not. If you are one of the latter, the best advice that can be offered is to find someone in your organization who does and seek their advice.

It is common for a technical report to be built around the graphical elements within it. This technique is used by many good technical writers and they have devised ways to link the graphics to the text. Phrases and formulas for doing this may be found in parts of this syllabus, as examples. However you do this, don't forget that it is essential. Without this kind of "connective tissue" your report will be a skeleton from which the muscles have become detached.

At the end of Chapter 6 the suggestion was made that Figure numbers follow the Chapter or Section numbering scheme of your report. It is nice, but not essential, that Figure numbers be consecutive starting with, for example, Figure 4-1 and proceeding by ones through Figure 4-X. If you can, do this. But if you can't, don't worry about it. The only essential thing is that each Figure or Graph or Table have a unique number so that your references to it in the report will be unambiguous.

The graphic elements of your report are important for at least the following reasons:

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