Heike Hering How to Write Technical Reports Understandable Structure, Good Design, Convincing Presentation Second Edition How to Write Technical Reports Heike Hering How to Write Technical Reports Understandable Structure, Good Design, Convincing Presentation Second Edition 123 Heike Hering Hannover, Niedersachsen, Germany ISBN 978-3-662-58105-6 ISBN 978-3-662-58107-0 (eBook) https://doi.1007/978-3-662-58107-0 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018957060 Original German edition published by Vieweg, 2007 1st edition: © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010 2nd edition: © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE part of Springer Nature The registered company address is: Heidelberger Platz 3, 14197 Berlin, Germany Preface Technical Reports are usually written according to general standards, corporate design standards of the current university or company, logical rules, and practical experiences.
These rules are not known well enough among writing engineers and technicians. Therefore, this book intends to help you create Technical Reports. It contains many practical examples. It is based on a German edition published by Springer Vieweg and is now published by Springer as second edition in English.
Both authors of the 1st to 7th German edition have long experience in educating engineers at the University of Applied Sciences Hannover. They have held many lectures where students had to write reports and took notes about all positive and negative examples that occurred in design reports, laboratory work reports, and in theses. Heike Hering worked at TÜV NORD Akademie, where she was responsible for e-learning projects and Internet pages and supervised students who were writing their theses. She now works for her private teaching company.
Klaus-Geert Heyne joined the team as co-author for the second German edition. He redesigned Chap. 5 “Presenting the Technical Report.” He contributes his experiences from Motorenwerke Mannheim AG and his lectures at University of Applied Sciences Wiesbaden Rüsselsheim as well as from rhetoric and visualization seminars in Rüsselsheim and Mannheim. This book answers questions of engineering students and practitioners occurring when writing Technical Reports or preparing presentations on the PC.
These questions refer to contents as well as formal aspects. Such questions occur during the whole work on the report or presentation from the beginning to the end. Therefore, this book is designed as a guideline or manual How to Write Technical Reports. It is ordered by timeline along the process of writing Technical Reports into the three phases: planning, creation, and finishing.
In this second edition, the book was changed to fit to an electronic and media neutral production process, so that an e-book version can easily be created that runs on computers and mobile devices. The following sections have been shortened a lot: Tables (Sect.3), v vi Preface figures (Sect.4), word processing and desktop publishing systems (Sect.7), and presentation graphics programs (Sect. The section about copyright and copyright laws has been deleted. The topic short statement (Sect.7) has been added.
Hannover, Germany Heike Hering September 2018 Contents 1 Introduction. 1 2 Planning the Technical Report .1 General Overview of All Required Work Steps and Time Planning .2 Accepting and Analyzing the Task .3 Checking or Creating the Title .4 The Structure as the “Backbone” of the Technical Report .1 General Information About Structure and Table of Contents .2 Rules for the Structure in ISO 2145 .3 Logic and Formal Design of Document Part Headings .4 Work Steps to Create a Structure and Example Structures .5 General Structure Patterns for Technical Reports .6 The Style Guide Advances Consistency in Wording and Design .7 References in This Chapter. 32 3 Writing and Creating the Technical Report .1 Parts of the Technical Report and Their Layout .1 Front Cover Sheet and Title Leaf .2 Structure with Page Numbers = Table of Contents (ToC) .3 Text with Figures, Tables, and Literature Citations .4 List of References .5 Other Required or Useful Parts .2 Collecting and Ordering the Material .3 Creating Good Tables .1 Table Numbering and Table Headings .2 The Morphological Box—A Special Table .3 Hints for Evaluation Tables .4 Tabular Re-arrangement of Text .1 Understandable Design of Instructional Figures. 72 vii viii Contents 3.2 Figure Numbering and Figure Subheadings .3 Scheme and Diagram (Chart) .4 The Sketch as Simplified Technical Drawing and Illustration of Computations .6 Technical Drawing and Bill of Materials (Parts List) .8 Pictorial Re-arrangement of Text .9 Creating Paper Images and Graphics Files and Incorporating Them into the Technical Report .1 Introductory Remarks on Literature Citations .2 Reasons for Literature Citations .3 Bibliographical Data According to ISO 690 .4 Citations in the Text .5 The List of References—Contents and Layout .6 The Text of the Technical Report .1 Good Writing Style in General Texts .2 Good Writing Style in Technical Reports .3 Formulas and Computations .4 Understandable Writing in Technical Reports .7 Using Word Processing and Desktop Publishing (DTP) Systems .8 Completion of the Technical Report .1 The Report Checklist Assures Quality and Completeness .2 Proof-Reading and Text Correction According to ISO 5776 .3 Creating and Printing the Copy Originals and End Check .4 Exporting the Technical Report to HTML or PDF for Publication .5 Copying, Binding or Stapling the Technical Report and Distribution .9 References in This Chapter.
158 4 Useful Behavior for Working on Your Project and Writing the Technical Report .1 Working Together with the Supervisor or Customer .2 Working Together in a Team .3 Advice for Working in the Library .4 Organizing Your Paperwork .5 Organizing Your File Structure and Back-up Copies .6 Personal Working Methodology .7 References in This Chapter. 171 Contents ix 5 Presenting the Technical Report .1 Target Areas University and Industrial Practice .2 What Is It All About? .3 What Is My Benefit? .4 How Do I Proceed? .2 Presentation Types and Presentation Targets .3 “Risks and Side Effects” of Presentations and Lectures .3 Planning the Presentation .1 Required Work Steps and Their Time Consumption .2 Step 1: Defining the Presentation Framework and Target .3 Step 2: Material Collection .4 Step 3: The Creative Phase .4 Creating the Presentation .1 General Recommendations for Designing Presentation Slides .2 Step 4: Summarizing the Text and Working Out the Details .3 Step 5: Visualization and Manuscript .4 Step 6: Trial Presentation and Changes .5 Step 7: Updating the Presentation and Preparations in the Room .6 Step 8: Lecture, Presentation .5 Giving the Presentation .1 Contact Preparations and Contacting the Audience .2 Creating a Relationship with the Audience .4 Dealing with Intermediate Questions .6 Review and Analysis of the Presentation .7 The Short Statement .3 Example Statement for a Familiar Audience .4 Example Statement for an Unfamiliar Audience .5 Problems of Short Statements .8 57 Rhetoric Tips from A to Z .9 References in This Chapter. 227 Glossary—Terms of Printing Technology. 229 Cited and Recommended References.
241 About the Author Dr. Heike Hering has a private teaching institute in Hannover and has been a Lecturer at the Hochschule Hannover—University of Applied Sciences and Arts as well as FH Aachen for many years. She has written and translated software manuals for a CAD company in German and English and was a safety engineer for 9 years. Thereafter, she has worked at the TÜV NORD Academy in Hannover for 18 years and has developed e-learning programs, took part in software projects and worked as safety engineer.
Klaus-Geert Heyne represented the fields of communication, combustion engines, and statics at the Hochschule RheinMain University of Applied Sciences in Rüsselsheim. xi List of Figures Fig.1 Network plan for creating Technical Reports .2 Network plan to write Technical Reports—analysis of the task .3 Network plan to write Technical Reports—create the title .4 Network plan to write Technical Reports—creating the 4-point and 10-point structure .1 Network plan to write Technical Reports—search and cite literature, create text, figures and tables, develop a detailed structure .2 Comparison of a faulty (left side) and a correct (right side) front cover sheet for a design report .3 Two handwritten drafts of the title leaf of a dissertation (the placement of information varies between centered, left justified, along a line, and right justified) .4 Two handwritten drafts of the title leaf of a dissertation (with variation of font size and line breaks) .5 Front cover sheet and title leaf of a diploma thesis .6 Front cover sheet and title leaf of a design report .7 Example of a chapter ToC for an Appendix .8 Technical-economical evaluation of the concept variants of a water purification plant (from VDI 2222) .9 Layout of figure subheadings that spread across more than one line and common figure subheading of several small figures .10 Diagram with physical values, measuring units and measures .11 Example of a diagram with ruled lines to read off exact values. Source Table appendix for the textbook ROLOFF/MATEK Machine Elements .12 Two variants to show that a scale or coordinate axis is interrupted .13 Different, clearly distinguishable measured point symbols and line styles.14 Marking of the measured values and the limits of an error tolerance zone within the true value lies (the two left variants give the best contrast). 80 xiii xiv List of Figures Fig.15 Example for a curve diagram that shows only the qualitative relationship of two physical values (stress-strain-diagram of a tensile test) .16 Change of the optical impression of a curve by change of the scale density .17 Arm of a puller with diagram of forces and moments .18 Gearbox scheme with exact specification of bearings, shafts and gears .19 Examples of simplified technical drawings from manufacturer documents .20 Simplified display of the sections of different semi-manufactured bar materials .21 Advantage of perspective drawings: the shape of objects can be determined much easier .22 Avoidance of frequent mistakes in technical drawings .23 Example of a mind map for planning the building of a pond in a garden .24 Examples of pictorial re-arrangements of text .25 Section through a protective gas welding pistol with integrated weld smoke suction (fill patterns and arrows show the direction of flow of protective gas and weld smoke) .26 Components of a literature citation .27 Layout of the list of references in three-column and two-column form .28 Page layout with usual positions of the page number (positions a and b are recommended) and minimum size of the page margins .29 Network plan for the creation of Technical Reports: proofreading .30 Simplified system of correction symbols according to ISO 5776 .31 Network plan for the creation of Technical Reports: printing originals or PDF and end check .32 Network plan for creating Technical Reports: copy, bind and distribute the report .33 Folding of a swing-out to the bottom .34 Folding a DIN A3 drawing or a swing-out to the right to DIN A4 .35 Folding a DIN A1 drawing to DIN A4 .1 Network plan to create and present a lecture .2 Gantt diagram to create and present a lecture .3 Processes compared with a presentation (biology) .