Technical Report Writing
- Identify the key message and purpose of their report,
- Write reports in a clear, concise and consistent style,
- Use the company template appropriately,
- Use a structured approach to planning, writing and editing,
- Have an efficient process for writing reports,
- Edit more competently and eliminate some common avoidable mistakes,
- Analyse the readability of their writing and measure it using Microsoft statistics.
Overview
This course is designed to assist individuals in writing, compiling, editing, and managing technical documents efficiently. It focuses on presenting key principles to simplify these tasks, utilising tools and techniques to enhance quality and reduce the time required to effectively convey messages.
Who should attend
Technical writers, editors, document managers
Course Content
This course has been designed to help anyone needing to write, compile, edit or manage technical documents. It aims to present the key principles to make the task as simple as possible, using tools and techniques to improve quality and reduce the time needed to get the message across successfully
Who Should Attend
Location
One-day face to face delivery on the clients site, or available in a variety of on-line models, amounting to 6 hours of contact and 90 minutes individual/group work between sessions.
Course Syllabus
Day 1
• What ‘good’ looks like in technical reports
• Why reports for industry are different from reports for academia
• How to only write what will be in the finished document
• The three stage process: planning, writing and editing
• How to focus on what the reader needs
• How to have a logical ‘flow’ through your document
• Working to the KISS principle (keep it short and simple)
• Three key grammar topics for Engineers – use of tenses, active vs passiveverbs, smothered verbs/nominalisations
• How to reference correctly and not infringe copyright
• The Simplified Technical English standard and how it informs ‘bestpractice’
• How to give your Reviewer a document of the right quality so you don’twaste their time
• How to give constructive feedback to a colleague so that everyoneimproves their written work.
Additional Information
Each delegate is expected to bring along to the course:
1) a few printed pages from a document that illustrates their writing style and the template they usually use,
2) the readability statistics for their piece of work. (They will have been sent instructions prior to attending as to how to do this analysis.)
Whilst general ‘best practice’ is taught in the course, company-specific and client-specific templates can be accommodated. Unless a company style guide is provided, ‘The Elements of Style’ by Strunk and White will be used as benchmark for writing style. Any specific documents that are to be included in the course must be provided at least 2 weeks prior to delivery.
Each delegate will be given a printed booklet containing a number of exercise sheets to complete during the course, along with a comprehensive reading list/sources of further information and copies of the PowerPoint slides.
