We assume that you are already familiar with how to write a technical / scientific report. Report writing is a skill that is taught in schools, beginning as early as primary school. We will spend only a short time teaching report writing in this class, but we offer guidelines here on how to present your work in a professional manner.

Structure and Content

If you want support in writing a technical report you might start with materials provided by the Academic Skills and Learning Center, and specifically their guidelines on report writing and science reports. You might also consider many of the materials available on the internet, such as Tischler’s Scientific Writing Booklet.

Typesetting

You should also pay attention to present your work professionally. Though the typewriter is long dead there is no reason you cannot produce a properly typeset document. There are many different tools out there for you to consider using.

Many technical writers in computer science and mathematics use the \(\mathrm{\LaTeX}\) typesetting system, which produces beautiful documents with relative ease.1 Neverthelesss, typesetting with \(\mathrm{\LaTeX}\) still requires care to avoid common errors in technical writing.

Other non-technical people find use of a WYSIWYG2 tool like Microsoft Word or Apple Pages to be more intuitive, though some sneer that such systems really are WYSIAYG3 or WYSIMOLWYG.4 I personally find such tools also to be pretty clumsy and inflexible for technical writing. Whatever tool you choose, please use a template that is suited to the mode of technical writing, and format your document to have a professional look.5

Submission Format

Whatever typesetting system you use, you should deliver electronic copies of your document in a form that anyone can read, which these days really means as a PDF6 file, which can easily be generated from whichever typesetting tool you use. Do not submit a Word or Pages document—you should not expect anyone else to adopt your choice of proprietary typesetting system.

  1. The \(\mathrm{\LaTeX}\) Project ↩

  2. WYSIWYG: “what you see is what you get” ↩

  3. WYSIAYG: “what you see is all you get” ↩

  4. WYSIMOLWYG: “what you see is more or less what you get” ↩

  5. Typesetting for Technical Writing. ↩

  6. Portable Document Format ↩

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