GUIDELINES FOR REPORT WRITING

This information applies particularly to your Lab Report, and in general to all technical reports you write
thereafter.
The readership (or audience) for a technical report
Before writing a report, you must consider to whom it is addressed. For example, report A
aimed at a higher level of management to help them make a major decision needs a different approach
(exceptionally clear statements of the main points only, omitting most of the detail, and making
recommendations) from report B which serves to record some stage of work on the development of a
product and is intended for engineers at a level in the organization similar to the authors (clarity still
very important but also some detailed discussion). Whatever the intended audience, tell them what they
need to know, based on their knowledge and interest, not a history of what you did. As students, you
will have to imagine an audience, which is not easy until you have some experience. Since this course
may possibly be your first opportunity to write an engineering report, we ask you only to assume an
audience with the same level of technical knowledge as you has at the time of doing the experiment.
However, remember that short reports are more likely to be read than long ones containing too much
detail.
Structure of a report
Organizations often have their own standard styles for the layout of reports, but they tend to differ only
in detail. A very common arrangement of the sections of a report is as follows.
1.0 Objectives
2.0 Summary

State the objectives of the experiment or report

A short (no more than 200 words) self contained summary of the whole
report saying what was done and why, and then giving the main results and
conclusion.
Purposes are (i) to summarize the work for those who have no need or are to
busy to read the whole report, (ii) to provide an overview before reading the
body of the report and a reminder of the work some time later, (iii) for
anyone not originally the recipient of the report but searching for
information on the broad topic, to indicate whether the report is worth
reading. Sometimes called Abstracts or Synopsis; this is arguably the most
important part of a report.

3.0
Introduction/Theory

Depends on the topic of the report. May not be necessary but if it is, try to
devise a more helpful heading. Subsections, with appropriate subheadings
e.g. Operating principal of a steam engine, may be necessary.

4.0 Result/Discussion

Compare results with expectation, other related cases, and previous

experiments, analytical or computational results; consider the implications,
etc whatever is appropriate. Often included in the Results section as an
alternative to a separate section.

5.0 Conclusions

An essential section; worth a lot of care in writing since it is likely to be the

most read section after the summary. Used to summarize the principal
findings of the work and to assess the success in meeting the stated
objectives.
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Try to keep it short and punchy and to be quantitative (e.g. was within
2% of .. not .was very closes to). You should not introduce here
any material which has not been mentioned earlier in some form, under
Results or Discussion.
6.0 Recommendations

Common in industrial reports, to suggest further action; may be included

instead in the Conclusions section. Student sometimes use it to suggest
improvements in apparatus or measurement procedure, which is valid for
experiments intended mainly to reinforce lecture material; however such
sections are best suited to reports on open experiments.

7.0 Tutorials

Answer the questions given.

8.0 References

A list of any books, reports, journal articles, conference paper etc. which
have been explicitly quoted in the main text of the report, for a specific
purpose. The reference sections would then contain the item [2] Smith J.M
and Van Hess H.C., Introduction to Chemical Engineering
Thermodynamics, McGraw Hill, New York 2001, p.229. The number [2]
would mean that this is the second reference cited in the text and the item
would appear second in the Reference list.
*Minimum; 5 references
For Information which is too detailed to interest most readers, but could be
relevant to some. Putting such material in Appendix improves the
readability of the report. Appendices are not for material which is central to
the message of the report!
*Raw data/tables
All tables should have a caption consisting of a Table Number followed
by a helpful title. Table 1 would be the first one to be quoted in the text, e.g.
all relevant dimension of the engine is given in table 1.

Appendices

Tables

Figures

Block diagrams of apparatus, graphs of results all count as Figures and

should be quoted in the text by number. For example, Figure 1 might be a
diagram of an equipment and Figure 2 and 3 graphs of processed results.
The rules above regarding tables apply equally to figures.

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