A Practical Guide to Technical Reports and Presentations

This book is meant as an easy-to-use guide for engineers, scientists, and college students in technical programs at all levels who need to produce technical reports or make oral presentations. Standard technical communication textbooks tend to be complex and lengthy, and consequently both harder to use and quite expensive. But because simplicity, conciseness, and straightforwardness are crucial aspects of good technical communication, A Practical Guide to Technical Reports and Presentations itself exemplifies the principles technical writers should embrace. It is concise, easy to use, clearly written, and inexpensive enough to attract a broad readership, both within and outside the classroom. The central feature and greatest strength of A Practical Guide to Technical Reports and Presentations is its organization: Each section explains the characteristics and purposes of a specific report genre concisely, presents a simple template for a typical example of the genre, and concludes with a sample document that demonstrates the features as they might actually appear. Additional useful features are its brief overview of the main considerations in technical communication and its set of detailed appendices; the latter provide more in-depth treatment of several topics that arise in the descriptions of the genres, such as language and usage, particular forms of organization, the use and documentation of sources, and the design and use of graphics. The basic philosophy behind A Practical Guide is that a communication book should help its readers learn to write clearly and directly, and that it should model the style it teaches. Further, it offers both an analytical understanding of the elements of technical documents and a simple approach to their incorporation. A Practical Guide gives both students and working technical professionals the tools they need for producing standard industry documents.

About the Author :
Pauline Bary Khan has been teaching technical communications to undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Michigan, College of Engineering since 1997. She has taught report writing and coached students with their presentation skills in a variety of technical fields. She has also created seminars on resume writing and interviewing skills, worked with PhD students on dissertations and conference papers, and evaluated MBA assessment papers for the Ross School of Business. Prior to her teaching career, Ms.Khan worked to design manufacturing systems in the information technology field, to manufacture and test engine blocks for the automotive industry, and to research coatings for high-speed and high-temperature machining applications. Ms.Khan has a Bachelors of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Masters of Science in Technical Communications, both from the University of Michigan. Elizabeth Hildinger has taught classes in writing, technical communication, Old and Middle English, literature, and Latin at universities in the U.S. and Canada. She has taught in the University of Michigan College of Engineering's Program in Technical Communication since 2001. Erik Hildinger has taught classes in technical communication in the University of Michigan College of Engineering's Program in Technical Communication since 2000. He also teaches the processing of legal materials for international law students.