I love writing. I always have. It’s one of the things that makes me happiest. In fact, I love writing so much that I decided to teach others how to love it as much as I do. I created a course called ‘Writing for Engineers’. On this course, I introduced the students to the world of technical writing and equipped them to become competent technical writers. Here are some of the things they learned while on this course:
How To Write A Professional Report
One of the first things that the students had to do is to learn how to write a professional report. A lot can go into a professional report, such as:
- The objectives of the report
- The approach used by the report author
- The structure of the report
- The style of the report
- The relevance of the report to the reader
- The reliability of the information presented
- The significance of the findings
A lot of research goes into each of these areas, so it’s essential that the report is written in a professional manner that will make the reader believe that the work was done properly.
How to structure a Technical Report
Another essential step for the technical writer is to learn how to structure a technical report. This is where you would lay out the various sections of the report, breaking it down into constituent parts. A very good structure will make the report easy to follow, which will make it much more likely that the reader will understand what the report is aiming to communicate. Following a structured approach always makes things easier, especially when writing complex documents. This is why I suggest starting every technical report with a clear executive summary, which should be no more than a couple of paragraphs.
The next section is the introduction, which sets the scene by explaining what the report is about. This is followed by the main body of the report, which is comprised of the various subsections and sections. Finally, the conclusion and recommendation sections round off the report. These are important, as they provide a summary of the entire report, including the key takeaways. A good conclusion and recommendation make a report much more digestible. It’s always a good idea to write the conclusion and recommendation last, as this is where you get to indulge in a bit of an emotional outpouring, expressing your gratitude to those whom this report may assist.
How to write an objective for a research paper
As a university lecturer, I often get requests from my students to write objectives for their papers. A lot of them struggle with this, especially those who are not used to writing them. This is why I wrote a whole guide to help my students write better research papers and put the objectives into practice. While I was teaching this course, the students had to write two research papers, one of which had an objective and the other had an evaluation aim. This is what they learned: