Chapter 9 of Houp/Pearsall/Tebeaux's Reporting Technical Information, 9th ed. (New York: Allyn & Bacon, 1997), reviews the various elements of technical reports. Accompanying the textbook, this chapter of the online instructor manual provides the following:
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table of contents. |
- Know the purpose, content, and format of each of the standard design elements of reports.
- Know the correct sequencing of these design elements.
- Know how to decide between a transmittal letter and a preface.
- Understand the difference in function and content between introductions, abstracts, and executive summaries.
- Know the key elements of a good introduction.
- Know the various ways to conclude a report and combinations of them.
- Know the functions of appendixes and the types of information typically included in them.
This chapter takes your class into the mechanical aspects of report writing. Students typically become a bit dismayed at the complexities in formatting the technical report. However, there are a number of things you can do to reduce these anxieties.First, students need to understand that this chapter presents a standard report design. Professionals expect reports to look a certain way—namely, what is shown in Reporting Technical Information. Students need to understand that documents have detailed specifications the same as hardware products. Organizations have "house styles" that they expect to be followed to the letter.
But on a more positive note, students need to know that their technical reports can be very useful when they go into an interview. When the interview turns to their writing skills—or to the quality of their work in general—they can pop open their fancy new brief cases and show off those technical reports they wrote in your course! This often brightens students up about taking the extra time to produce sharp, professional-looking final reports.
Here are some suggestions for activities to help students learn about design elements and other issues covered in chapter 9:
- Give the initial quiz. Give the quiz at the beginning of your unit on report design elements. It is a good way to get into a discussion of key aspects of this chapter. When students have completed the quiz and have turned it in, you can go through the answers with the class a whole.
- Conduct a systematic walk-through of report elements. You'll need to go through report design element by element from front cover to back cover. For each element, discuss every format and content detail including caps, alignment, vertical spacing, bold, italics, type size, and so on. It's useful to hand out example pages for each element: front cover, transmittal letter, title page, table of contents, figure list, abstract or executive summary, introduction page, body page with headings, body page with a figure, body page with a table, appendixes, and information sources. Students can take notes on these sample pages, which are 8-1/2 by 11, the same size as their own pages. During this report-format walk-through, discuss types of bindings and covers—warn your students away from fancy, overly elaborate covers.
- Show examples of report elements with minor problems. As you continue teaching technical writing, you'll amass a backlog of student technical reports. You can select pages, copy them, alter them slightly, and then put them on transparencies for in-class discussion. You can make the problems challenging to spot—this will train students to look for the small variations and discrepancies in format and style.
- Construct report elements for exercise 1 in class. Textbook exercise 1 provides a wonderful tool for practicing report design elements. In-class discussion can focus on designing each of the elements, one by one, from front cover to back cover. You can do this work on the white board, but better is to use a computer with projector. This gives students a real sense of what this task is like and a chance to ask how to do this formatting with their word-processing software. You can promote this practice as a "dress rehearsal" for the real report. A "dry run" of this sort helps students when they start formatting their own formal reports: it frees them to focus more on substance. (Consider going over exercise 1 in class and then having students implement that discussion on their own outside of class.)
- Group-compose the executive summary (textbook exercise 2). Discuss with students how to write an executive summary of the text shown in textbook exercise 1. If you can get a computer and projector into the classroom, type what the class thinks should go into the executive summary and then revise and edit it as a group.
- Develop "design specifications" for an example report in class. Consider having students compile design specs for the report format shown in Reporting Technical Information or some report that you bring to class. Presented either in table or paragraph form, design specs include details on each unique textual component of a document (for example, a bulleted-list item or a standard body paragraph) as well as each unique page of a document (for example, the title page or the TOC). Design specs for a standard body paragraph would include top, bottom, left and right margins; justification; type style and size; line spacing; first-line indentation; and so on.
Here are some discussion questions related to this chapter:Prefatory Elements (pages 236-253)
- What prefatory elements of a report help readers understand the report's context?
- What prefatory elements help readers navigate inside the report?
- What prefatory elements help reader learn selectively?
- How does an abstract differ from an executive summary?
Main Elements (pages 253-263)
- In what ways does a report's introduction differ from its abstract?
- How do summaries differ from conclusions and from recommendations?
Appendixes (pages 263-264)
- What kinds of materials do you consider useful for appendixes?
- How can you usefully guide report readers to materials in the report's appendixes?
The following are some suggestions for journal entries related to this chapter:
- Which parts do you read first in a report? Why?
- How do you use different parts of a report to navigate?
- What do you consider the most useful part of a report to help a reader look up information selectively?
- In what ways do the abstract, the introduction, and the summary overlap? How do they differ?
Here are some ideas for writing projects related to chapter 9, including ideas for collaborative projects:
- Write a memo on the design of a selected report. You can have students select a report, or you can hand out ones that you've selected. Have your students compare what they see in these reports to what they've read about in chapter 9. Have them critique these reports against the design principles presented in Reporting Technical Information.
To turn this into a collaborative project, suggest that student teams organize themselves into these roles:
- Manager. Plans meetings, locates a report for discussion, distributes copies to team members, assigns roles, establishes a timetable for activities.
- Facilitator. Conducts a meeting in which team members discuss their responses to the report's design relative to its audience.
- Team Members. Review the report, take notes on its design relative to its purpose and audience, take part in the meeting, serve as reviewers of the editor's draft.
- Scribe. Takes notes on the discussion.
- Editor. Drafts and then revises the report.
- Construct the report elements in textbook exercise 1. As mentioned previously in the workshop section, you can fully discuss exercise 1 and then have students do the actual work outside of class. In this exercise, students compose the transmittal letter, title page, introduction, summary, and conclusions for the body text provided in the textbook. You can take this exercise a step further by having students format the entire report including these elements. Put the text of the report on disk so that students can make copies of it. They can then turn out a complete, fully formatted "dry-run" report. Doing this exercise will keep them from becoming obsessed with format and style details and enable them to focus more on the substance of their reports.
To turn this into a collaborative project, suggest that student teams organize themselves into these roles:
- Manager. Plans meetings, assigns roles, establishes a timetable for activities.
- Team Members. Each drafts a part of the report, takes part in the meeting, reviews the editor's draft.
- Scribe. Takes notes on the discussion.
- Editor. Drafts and then revises the report.
- Write the executive summary of the report text in textbook exercise 1. You can have your students write an executive summary of the report text shown in exercise 1. You can spend class time discussing how to go about it without getting into specifics, which will leave most of the task to your students.
To turn this into a collaborative project, suggest that student teams organize themselves into these roles:
- Manager. Plans meetings, assigns roles, establishes a timetable for activities.
- Team Members. Each drafts notes about the report, takes part in the meeting, reviews the editor's draft.
- Scribe. Takes notes on the discussion.
- Editor. Drafts and then revises the executive summary.
- Develop design specifications on a selected report. You can formalize workshop activity 8 by showing students how to write design specifications and then having them complete that work outside of class, either individually or in teams. This is a good project for teams in that additional sets of eyes on the same document are likely to find additional specs. Students can select reports, or you can provide reports to them. Of course, reusing reports from semester to semester will mean less work for you the instructor. (While this project may not be such a good idea for students in engineering and scientific fields, it is ideal for your technical communication majors.)
To turn this into a collaborative project, suggest that student teams organize themselves into these roles:
- Manager. Plans meetings, assigns roles, establishes a timetable for activities.
- Team Members. Each drafts notes about the report specification, takes part in the meeting, reviews the editor's draft.
- Scribe. Takes notes on the discussion.
- Editor. Drafts and then revises the executive specifications.
The following point summaries focus on key points in this chapter of Houp/Pearsall/Tebeaux's Reporting Technical Information:
DESIGN ELEMENTS OF REPORTS |
PREFATORY ELEMENTS |
TRANSMITTAL LETTERS AND PREFACES |
Always include: |
TITLE PAGE ELEMENTS |
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ELEMENTS OF INTRODUCTIONS |
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| Subject | State it early, clearly, and specifically. |
| Scope | Indicate how broad will be the treatment of the subject, what level of competence readers will need. |
| Theoretical or historical background | Include material in the introduction if it is not too lengthy. |
REPORT ENDINGS |
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| Summaries | For nonargumentative reports, a condensed version of the information in the body of the report (but no new information). |
| Conclusions | For argumentative reports, logical conclusions based on the discussion in the body of the report. |
| Recommendations | Based on conclusions, a statement that some action should or should not be taken. |
| Graceful close | In short, simple, nonargumentative reports, some final words to prevent an abrupt ending. |
| Combinations | Combinations of summaries, conclusions, recommendations, and graceful exits. |
APPENDIXES |
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The following provides ideas for writing assignments related to this chapter of Houp/Pearsall/Tebeaux's Reporting Technical Information:
Sample Assignment 1 |
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The research report must be typed (or word-processed), double spaced,
on good quality paper. Dark, clear dot-matrix print is acceptable.
Double space each page, and print (or type) on only one side of each
sheet.
Report Requirements The following elements are required parts of the research report assignment. Binding. You may use any binding that attaches the pages of your report and that holds them in order. The only unacceptable binding is a plastic cover with a slip-on plastic spine. Cover. The report's title and its author's name must appear on the front cover of the report. Title page. The title page must be the first page inside the binder. It will have complete identifying information about the report in an attractive format. A descriptive abstract should appear at the bottom of the title page. Table of contents. The table of contents lists all elements and sections of the report that follow it, giving the page on which each part of the report begins. The table of contents locates the parts of the report by page. Give each section heading a title that accurately describes the contents of that section. The descriptive headings from the outline will work well for this purpose. List of figures and tables. A list of figures and tables describes all charts, graphs, diagrams, and illustrations that appear in your report. Include illustrations only if your report needs them to explain or support main ideas. Descriptive and informative abstracts. A descriptive abstract should appear at the bottom of the title page. The informative abstract should provide a brief, concise, well-organized overview of your report. It should be no longer than two-thirds of a typewritten page and should occur on a page by itself after the list of figures. Text. The text of the report should be broken down into sections and subsections with headings. Your text, that is, the discussion part of your report, should be between 12 and 16 pages long. Begin with an introduction that states your report's purpose, scope, and order. End with a summary that reviews the main points of your report's discussion. Page numbering. The title page counts as lowercase roman numeral page 1 (i). Each page after the title page before the introduction is numbered with lowercase roman numerals. The first page of the introduction is numbered Arabic one (1), and each page thereafter is numbered consecutively. Be sure to reflect these page numbers correctly in your table of contents. Descriptive headings. Headings must appear in the text exactly as they are listed in your table of contents. Don't entitle section II of your text "Collected Data," "Body," "Discussion," "Text," or any other such general title. Instead, break your discussion into numbered sections, and give each one a heading that describes the contents of the section that follows it. Illustrations. All charts, graphs, figures, and illustrations must be prepared neatly and must be mounted into the report or photocopied onto the page. A citation must be provided for each copied figure. Illustrations must be located with the text they illustrate, not later. Each illustration must be discussed in the report. Parenthetical citations. Citations are a required part of the research report assignment. They document your use of quotes, paraphrases, unusual or unique information, or the opinions of others. Only MLA parenthetical citation format is acceptable: the Modern Language Association of America (MLA) Style Sheet for parenthetical notation format. Works cited list. A list of works cited is a required part of the research report assignment. It appears after the last page of your report, providing a complete description of all the sources useful in your research and discussion. Sources must be arranged in alphabetical order by the last name of the author. If no author is listed, entries are arranged by the first important word in the title. MLA-format works-cited lists are never numbered. Other materials. An appendix can include materials useful to the reader's understanding of the report, such as glossaries of terms. All materials in the appendix must be listed in the table of contents and mentioned in the text. Provide an appendix only if you have useful information to include; not every report requires an appendix. Please review the grading standards for the research report in the following. |
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Content and Rhetoric: 40%
Organization: 20%
Style: 20%
Format and Mechanics: 20%
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The following describes general requirements for the technical report,
the one that you propose to write in the proposal assignment and that
is due toward the end of the semester. To prepare for this project,
read chapters specified by the syllabus.
Note: There will a progress-report assignment later this semester, for which you will be expected to have made some progress in your work on this technical-report project. Remember that your report must (except for minor variations) match the one you describe in your report-planning memo and in your proposal. Discuss any project changes with your instructor. Remember to turn in the preliminary draft on the assigned date; the final draft will not be accepted otherwise. (See the Course Schedule for specific dates.) Concerning the preliminary draft:
This assignment will be graded on the following criteria:
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