Technical Report Writing

What makes reports work?

• Functions of reports

• What makes a report effective?

• Overt messages and hidden messages

• Key principles of functional writing

• Three key factors: objectives, audience, structure

• Time management: a structural approach to writing

Practical work: critique of a range of examples of text

Reports as functional documents

• Planning your material

• Making sense of complexity

• Getting to the point: summarising and grouping

• Chunking and sequencing: core planning techniques

• SPQR:  a technique for introductions

Explain or persuade?

• Six modes of explanation

• Persuasion in three dimensions

• Logic: deductive and inductive

Creating an outline

• Key features of an effective outline

• Checking for coherence and sense

• Producing the outline

 Practical work: participants plan, write, critique and rewrite an outline.

From outline to draft

• Essential apparatus of reports

• Summaries, introductions, appendices

• Navigation aids

• Presenting information graphically: tables, charts algorithms…

Practical work: short exercises on key techniques.

Editing on three levels

Constructing effective paragraphs

• Four characteristics of effective paragraphs

• Paragraph structure and sequences

Bringing sentences under control

• Sentence length and structure

• Sentence sequences

• Bringing your sentences to life

Words that work

• Finding and placing key words

• Developing your style

• Managing vocabulary, jargon and specialist terminology

• Attention to detail: typos, spelling, punctuation

The elements of good style

• Composition and the writer’s position

• Bringing your writing to life

• Formal or informal: judging what’s appropriate

Practical work on existing pieces of writing, applying the tools and techniques covered.