Writing Technical Reports and Teamwork

1
Writing Technical Reports and Teamwork

• Cive 4312
• Hanadi Rifai

2
The Need to Communicate Effectively
Engineers must be able to convey ideas
effectively in formal reports
3
Top 10 Problems

• Poor organization
• Spelling and capitalization
• Grammar and punctuation
• Misused words
• Redundancy
• Hedging
• Lengthy paragraphs
• Passive language
• Inappropriate tone

4
General Guidelines

• Purpose what is the purpose of the report?
• Audience what do they need to know and
  understand
• Organization prepare an outline
• Grammar, syntax and punctuation spell-checking
  is a must
• Rewrite edit, edit, edit..

5
Technical Reports

• Front-end materials
• Title page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Abstract or Summary

• Technical content
• Introduction
• Background info
• Methodology
• Alternative solutions developed
• Final design solution
• Conclusions
• Recommendations
• Bibliography
• Appendices

6
Teamwork

• Common goals
• Equitable workloads
• Mutual accountability
• Collegial environment

7
Being Effective as a Team Member

• Apply design process
• Contribute expertise
• Explain roles and responsibilities
• Appreciate contributions from others
• Provide perspective with clarity
• Recognize ethical issues as they occur
• Acquire new skills and knowledge
• Use appropriate models and formats

8
Being Effective as a Team Leader

• Establish collegial environment
• Motivate all team members
• Delegate and coordinate
• Help others synthesize ideas
• Establish cohesive team structure
• Organize, coordinate, monitor and assess
• Lead in resolving ethical issues
• Encourage others to develop new skills