Technical Report Writing

English 101 this is not. Your language, grammar, spelling and usage skills are presumed to be at least adequate for everyday communication. In this Chapter, the emphasis is on ways to increase those skills and avoid some of the most common errors found in technical reports.

The choices we make in word and sentence length and structure, style and "terms of art" create the impression our report makes on our audience. It is their, our audience's, needs which is our best guide in making these choices.

In deciding upon a writing style you must, again, return to the analysis of your audience. The style you choose will be determined by the things you know, or can reasonably assume, about your readers. The information and knowledge they have will guide you as you choose the words, sentences and paragraphs which will ultimately be your report.

If your audience is largely technically oriented, educated and inclined, then your style is likely to be characterized by longer sentences, more complex sentence structure, technical terms and jargon and references to things only a fellow technician would be expected to know about. But, this is seldom the case. Even in reports or articles written for technical journals, it is probable that your audience will be much more varied than this. Even if it is not, such writing is very difficult to read and tends to sound stilted and pompous.

For all except the most narrow audiences a much simpler style is recommended. Try to avoid the kind of dense technical writing which may be found in such publications as the Journal of the American Medical Association or even Scientific American.

The daily newspaper is written for a seventh grade reading level. It is intended for a general audience and, sad though it may be to say so, that is the level at which most Americans can read and comprehend. Your report may aim a little higher, but not much. Remember that many of your readers are not accustomed to reading technical material and following intricate and convoluted analyses. If you have any of the style analysis tools such as Grammatik II or RightWriter, subject a sample of your writing to them. See what they tell you about your usual style. Is it complicated, passive voiced and does it have a high "fog-index"? If it does, consider how you can reduce the reading level required to understand your writing. Doing so will make your message accessible to more of your intended audience.

It is axiomatic that long, complex sentences are more difficult to understand than shorter simpler ones. As you analyze your own writing and that of others, this is perhaps the easiest place to start toward making it more easily read and understood. Here's a quick example of a long sentence rewritten into two shorter ones. It is taken from an early draft of this syllabus, Chapter 5:

"Apart from the hours saved by not having to retype pages of more or less interchangeable text, the great advantage of cloning lies in the fact that the report organization, its design, is already provided for you."

"Cloning can save you hours by not having to retype pages of generic, interchangeable text. But its great advantage is that the report's organization is already present in the original report. "

The re-write has six fewer words and is easier to read and understand. This kind of reduction can almost always be done with any long sentence. It can also be overdone. You can expect, in a technical report, that there will be some long sentences. They are not out of place in such writing but their number should be minimized.

The words you choose to express your ideas greatly affect the impression you make on your readers. During the Apollo Moon Landing mission NASA chose to use terms such as; "Lunar Excursion Module", and "Extra Vehicular Activity". The first described what was essentially a dune buggy. The second meant that the astronauts got out of the dune buggy and walked around on the moon's surface. This kind of stilted, pseudo-scientific terminology seems to some of us, ludicrous. It is using ten dollar words to express two-bit ideas and NASA carried this sort of thing to extremes. Other examples abound in the speech and writing of people like Howard Cossell and in much advertising copy.

Avoid this stuff. If you have a simple idea, try to express it simply. If you have a complicated idea, use the simplest terms you can think of to describe it. The best word in any particular context is not necessarily the shortest or simplest; it is the word that says exactly what you want to say.

Much technical writing suffers from overuse of the passive voice. It is very difficult to overcome this but your writing will be much improved if you can.

Technical terms and jargon are unavoidable in technical report writing and it is not suggested that you even try to avoid them. They have advantages in that, they provide a kind of short-hand
for you and your reader. It would be almost impossible for you to describe, for example, a water treatment plant without using any chemical names. But, if some of your audience is unlikely to understand those names or know why certain chemicals are used in water treatment processes, you've lost them.

The easiest way around this is to define any technical terms you will use in your report somewhere early in the report. If there are not too many such terms, it is a simple matter to define them the first time they are used. A brief paragraph describing, for example, the chemicals commonly used in water treatment and the reasons for using them would help your non-technical readers and save you the trouble of trying to think up synonyms for them.

This obscure word is defined by Webster to mean; " synecdoche (sin neck dough key) n. A Figure of speech by which a more inclusive term is used for a less inclusive term, or vice versa. For example, head for cattle or the law for a policeman."

It can also be used in a slightly different sense and provides you, as technical writer, with a powerful tool for making seemingly complex ideas much more understandable. The tax system of the United States is, you would probably agree, pretty complex. Yet, if you reduce it to its simplest terms it is not. Suppose that instead of fifty states, there were only two; one of them rich and one of them poor. The federal tax system collects taxes from both states, uses some of the money to run the government and then gives back to the poor state, through some program, more money than it gives back to the rich state. In short, it re-distributes the wealth. Of course it is not really this simple, but on its most elemental level it is.
Such over-simplified examples can be useful to you as a writer attempting to explain technical subjects to non-technical audiences.

It is a good technique and an excellent exercise to try to think up a synecdoche like this for the problems you are called upon to describe and explain.

A well written technical report must first be technically correct. Your reader expects you, as a technical advisor, to know how to spell, how to use words correctly and how to punctuate. If you don't know how to do these things, your other technical abilities are cast in a shadow of doubt.

a. Spelling Checkers - If you are not already producing your technical reports using a good word processor, start. There is no quicker way to check your report for spelling and other grammatical errors, such as doubled words.

b. Usage Notes - Some word processors also offer usage note for commonly misused words. Here's an example from Textra 6.0:

"ACCEPT: v. to take or receive something that is offered, usually with approval; to agree or consent to; to receive or regard as true or proper

EXCEPT: prep. excluding, leaving out; other than, but (a) v. to omit, to exclude (b)

correct usage: She accepted his invitation to dinner.
He hoped she would accept the terms of the contract.
Finally, she believed he was sincere and accepted his apology.

He didn't say anything all night except that he was tired. (a)
He decided to except Jeff from his invitation list. (b)

incorrect usage: Everything accept the rice was delicious.
Everyone accept Joanne was wearing a red hat.

She didn't except his invitation to the party.
He was not willing to except her refusal.

NOTES: Accept is only a verb while except is both verb and preposition. Take a look at their different meanings to decide which one to use. "

This kind of help for about 100 commonly misused words is just a keystroke away. If your word processor doesn't offer this feature consider one that does or find a separate program which gives you access to at least an electronic dictionary so you can look these words up for yourself.

If you feel your writing style needs major surgery, then programs such as Grammtik II, RightWriter and similar aids may be for you. They offer help in reducing sentence and word length, proper usage of those tricky words like "accept" and "except" or "allusion" and "illusion" and spelling. The better programs will also calculate the fog index of your writing and the reading level needed to comprehend it and will often annotate your text with suggestions for changes.

Much confusion arises from taking some of this advice too seriously. Many writers, in a effort to bring some variety and interest to their writing, go to extremes to find different ways to describe the same thing. This can be dangerous and confusing in a technical report. If, for example, Chapter 1 of your report referred to a water reservoir as "a reservoir" continue to use that term. Don't change to calling it a "pool" in Chapter 3 and then in Chapter 8 calling it an "impoundment". Many of your readers may not understand these terms to be synonymous, which indeed they are not.

In team writing the problem of consistency in style can also arise. No two people write in exactly the same way and it is seldom that there is only one "correct" way to say something. In organizations where team writing is practiced this problem can be largely overcome through the use of style manuals and frequent meetings among team members to review and mutually offer constructive criticism.

This is not a course in basic English grammar and usage. You are presumed to have a good working knowledge of the language that you use daily in your work. But all of us can improve our language and communication skills through attention to some of the details discussed in this section. In a report, which will inevitably be mainly words on paper, words are our most important tools. Skill in using those tools to fashion reports which can be read and understood by the audience we hope to communicate with is a basic for success.

References in you report which are meant to lead the reader to some other part of the report should be set off from the main body of the text in some consistent way. You, as the writer will also find this especially helpful when editing the report. Because these references stand out, it will be easier to spot them and check them to make certain they are correct and do not mislead either you or your reader.

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