CHE 319-001 - Spring, 2011

Basic Chemical Engineering Laboratory

Technical Memorandums

This document described the required content for the sections of a technical
memorandum. Consider this to be a ‘living document’ that evolves over time. It is not
perfect and some issues are certainly overlooked. Hopefully, it will give you clearer
guidelines for constructing your report. I start with some general comments on technical
writing.

Technical writing is very, very difficult. It should communicate information as

accessibly and accurately as possible (as Haile frequently emphasizes). These matters are
all the more challenging if you rarely read technical material (or even literature), have
little practice writing anything beyond email and status updates, or have never been asked
to write in a technical style. So be prepared for some hard work. Learn to humbly accept
criticism of your writing from your team mates and instructor. It stings, particularly when
you thought you had done a good job.

By now you should have read Haile’s book Technical Style from cover to cover.
Improper formatting of equations, figures, and tables, obvious grammar and spelling
mistakes, and gross misplacement of section content will become simply unacceptable.
Developing an excellent technical style that is accessible and accurate takes time and
practice. But it is not impossible for intelligent engineering students. By the end of this
semester you will have written three technical reports as team leader and been heavily
involved in editing six other reports. We have succeeded if you are a significantly better
technical writer at the end of the semester.

Study the excellent lessons by Haile in the first chapters of Technical Style,
building from words, phrases, sentences, and finally to paragraphs. However, don’t
become frustrated if advanced techniques such as linkage or parallel structures seem
overwhelming. Basic concepts like deleting unnecessary words and phrases or
maintaining an active voice (when possible) come first.

Executive Summary
This section is a miniature version of the entire report. It describes what was done
and summarizes the important results for a technical audience. It should deliver this
“bottom line” information so that a busy executive does not need to read the whole
report. The length is typically no more than a paragraph.

Introduction
After reading the introduction, the reader should have a good idea of what the
report contains. Don’t pad the introduction (or any section!) with unnecessary
descriptions of required section headings (The report contains an experimental section in
which we describe the experiment …). State the purpose of your experiment (something
was measured or some engineering principle was demonstrated), how it was conducted,
and what was done with the results (a calibration chart was produced or a measurement
was compared to a theoretical value). Alert your reader to the important content that
should not be missed.
Do not give detailed information that will be presented in later sections.
Particularly, do not give experimental details or results yet.

Background
Present information that will help the reader to understand the content of your
report. The operation and principles of common equipment and instruments are not
usually described in technical reports. However, when the purpose of the experiment is to
calibrate a rotameter, gas chromatograph, or thermocouple, a general discussion is
appropriate. Drawings are always useful to help you describe something. Discuss
resources to compare experimental data such as theoretical equations, calibration charts
from the literature, physical properties like VLE diagrams, or empirical correlations.
This discussion must be kept generic. Do not describe your own experimental
details - that will come in the next section.

Experimental
Sufficient information must be presented for a technical person to reproduce your
results. Our experiments can typically be described in two paragraphs – one to describe
the equipment and instruments, one to describe your methods. Sometimes a third
paragraph can describe the alternative method.
Complex systems such as the fluid flow rack or the stirred reactors are best
described by first presenting a process flow diagram. Use the drawing to help you
describe the system in a logical sequence and to help the reader follow along. How much
detail to present is a matter of judgment. For instance, you could give the pipe diameters
and materials of construction for the fluid flow rack – but is that really necessary for
someone to reproduce your calibration?
Describe the important features of your methods. It is usually not important to
specify the chronological sequence (first we did this and then we did that). However, you
did measure the flow rate by … or prepare standard solutions by … and these need to be
specific.
Do not present results or discuss analysis in this section.

Results and Discussion

Do not simply dump data on the reader. Present your results in a logical order and
in a way that most clearly conveys the information. This will take some thoughtful
consideration.
Always present the result first and then discuss. Include a discussion of
experimental error. Compare your data to known or predicted values, for instance bubble
points, calibration charts, theoretical or empirical equations. Towards the end of the
discussion, refer to raw data and example calculations in the appendix.
There is room in good technical writing for much variation. For instance, you
could state the general conclusion that method “A” gave much more accurate results than
method “B” and then go on to present the data that support the claim. Or you could
present the data from methods “A” and “B” first and then arrive at the conclusion.
Conclusions
Summarize the most important lessons learned. Do not present new information
or ideas.

Recommendations
Make life easier for classmates that will do this experiment later. What problems
did you encounter and how did you solve them, or would have if you were to do the
experiment again.

References
Cite your sources of information and any figures that you “cut and pasted” into
the report. Use any standard style that you find in a technical article or textbook.

Appendices
Include any supplementary information that is not essential for reading the report.
This includes raw data, calibrations (if not the main point of your experiment), sample
calculations, etc. No format will be specified. Just make sure the information is identified
clearly and presented neatly so that a reader has easy access. Information in the
appendices should be referred to in an appropriate section of the report.