Formal Reports: The
Outline and Introduction
CHAPTER GOALS
1. Understand the importance of an outline
2. Understand how to choose a title to invite reading 3. Know what constitutes a proper introduction
REPORTS are the most frequent writing situations for most technical pro- fessionals. They are appropriate to propose and conclude a project, request a capital expenditure, a process change, a personnel change, and so forth. Because reports are so important in technical writing, this book devotes three Chapters to them. It is the purpose of this Chapter to discuss how to start a report. It addresses the outline, title, and introduction. Subsequent Chapters address other portions of a formal report.
9.1 Outline
Sometimes the decision on whether to write a report (or not) is made by your boss or client. You are requested to write a report on a test, project, or whatever. The very first step in technical writing is to decide to write a document on some aspect of your work. If you just completed a project, a report is the logical way to present results.
After the decision to write a report, the next step is to decide on reader- ship. Who do you want to share results with? Certainly the person, depart- ment, division, or company that paid for your study deserves to be listed as primary reader, but there may be others who are also interested. They should be noted.
At some point in this initial stage of drafting an outline, deciding on the type of document is also necessary. You can mentally scan the options that were discussed in “Writing Strategy,” Chapter 4. This example is a formal report that will be submitted as an article to a journal. Often, the only dif- ference between the two is that the former may contain some proprietary information, and the latter may have some format conventions that are dif- ferent from the accepted format of your organization. As mentioned a num- ber of times [and there will be more], a formal report contains an intro- duction, a body made up of an investigation, results and discussion, and a concluding section. You could list these section heads in your outline and start to put in details, but some writing professionals prefer to start by sim- ply listing the major points that they want to make in their report.
Next, think about the reasons for writing the report. Are you trying to get funding for a project? Are you researching a mechanism? Whatever the purpose or purposes, state them in the outline and focus on them in the out- line.
At this time, you can start with just a preliminary working title. The exact title can be finalized later.
Next, it is necessary to state the objective of the work.
Major Points
1. Fretting corrosion is a problem.
2. Type of test used—not a normal test
3. Range of materials and coatings tested
Objective
Prevent fretting corrosion damage of tool inserts in capping presses and reduce tool replacement costs 20%.
Sample Outline
Title
Fretting Corrosion/Resistance of Materials to Fretting Damage
Readership
1. Company machine designers 2. Publish paper in STLE proceedings
Purpose
1. Summarize lab studies
These major points are not necessarily in the order that you will put them into the report. They are reminders that you want to make these points some place in your document.
Now you are ready to work on a more formal outline. It is usually help- ful in the formal outline to assign a hierarchy to sections. There should be A, B, C, and maybe D heads for sections. Capital letters can be used for A- heads, numbers for B-heads, lower case letters for C-heads, and italics or Roman numerals or some other designation for D-headings.
• A-head ⫽ A, B, C, and so forth • B-head ⫽ 1, 2, 3, and so forth • C-head ⫽ a, b, c, and so forth • D-head ⫽ i, ii, iii, iv, and so forth
These heading designations help to visualize the sections and length of the document. The outline at this point looks like Fig. 9.1. This gives you an idea of how the document may come together. Each of the subheads in the body ends up as at least a paragraph and possibly as several paragraphs or several pages. If you go to small fonts, you can add a topic sentence for each subhead. This helps define each section and ensures that you discuss your work in a logical manner. When you get into the thick of writing, you may want to repeat this outlining procedure for each of the B-heads in the outline.
In summary, an outline is a plan or strategy for writing. An outline is needed on almost all documents. Even letters can benefit from an outline. A detailed outline will include topics for each paragraph. There is proba- bly no technical writing situation that could not benefit from an outline. Use the suggested format or whatever feels right, but do not skip this step. An outline keeps a writer from straying, it collects ideas, and it helps as- sess an entire document for logical presentation. The more detailed the out- line is, the easier it is to write the document.
4. Carbide against other metals produces low damage.
5. Dry film lubricants did not help.
6. Unique system for measuring damage
7. Application of results
8. No liquid lubricant allowed
9. Others try to solve problems with reduced motion or oils
RULE
9.2 Title
A title is an essential part of the outline. All reports must have a title, and the outline process must define the title, establishing the readership and type of report. Many letters do not have or need a title, but often letters do have subject lines for the benefit of the reader. Some computer mail soft- ware also prompts you to title a letter or note. It can help.
Titles must be carefully chosen. They are essentially abstracts of docu- ments, and if you want somebody to read a document, you must create a title that encourages a person to read it. In addition to interesting a poten- tial reader, a title must be accurate, concise, grammatically correct, and free of jargon and acronyms. The title must reflect what the document contains. If you wear tested six plastics, do not call the document “Wear of Plastics.”
You did not test all the plastics that exist. Call it “Wear of Selected Olefin Thermoplastics.” Make the title reflect the scope of the work. Do not make the title look like an abstract:
Try “Friction and Wear of Acetate Films in Controlled Environments.” Do not make mistakes in the spelling or grammar of a title. This makes all of your work suspect. People expect at least the title to be checked and rechecked. If it still has an error, this may brand you as a lesser person.
Often technical reports pertain to plant equipment with strange-sounding names. Try to convert the machine names for the layman; avoid jargon. In- stead of writing a report on “D-Min Rating of CFMB-A on Wide Roll Tri- als,” write it on “Sensitometric Properties of a New Cardiology Film.” Sen- sitometric, which is in the dictionary, is more informative. In fact, you should try to limit the words in a title to words in the dictionary. If anyone wants to find out the meaning, they can easily look it up.
Finally, titles are the first thing that your prospective reader sees. They decide to read or not read your report based on the six or seven words in the title. [Once at a conference, I ended up in a very boring talk. I passed
the time critiquing some of the article titles at the conference. As shown in Fig. 9.2, they ranged from too long to too complex to simply not appealing in tone.
Example A is too long. When your title exceeds one line, it is a candidate for trimming. Example B does not tell the reader what he or she will learn about chemical coatings. All of the articles were about coatings; it was a coatings conference. A title needs to be specific enough to allow a decision on whether the article is worthwhile to read. The edited title tells the reader that the article is about certain types of chemical coatings (chemical va- por deposited polycrystalline diamond) and the author will concentrate on tribological (friction and wear) properties.
When I read example D, I knew the talk was about ellipsometry—an op- tical technique for measuring the thickness of films that may be only 10 atoms thick, but the title suggested that it was a review article. A review article is one that reviews previous work and does not contain new infor- mation. However, the article was really about instrument improvements that make this measurement technique very easy and cost effective to use.
Too Long a Title
The Friction and Wear of Cellulose Triacetate under Conditions of Varying Hu- midity, Temperature, and Surface Temperature Using a Slow Speed Pin-On-Disk Apparatus
Title Containing a Typo
The new title attempts to tell the reader that there is new information in the article that may help the reader solve a coating-thickness problem.
Example E may frighten readers away with big words. It was really a readable article with usable information. Unfortunately, many readers would pass this article by because of “title scare.”
Example F needs little editing. It is concise and tells AFM people that it is about new tips. These tips are the key to the instrument. As much as I dis- like acronyms, this particular one is known to all coatings people, but to a newcomer to the field, it may mean “Air Force Museum.” Acronyms are never right in titles, but they are widely permitted in conferences and pro- ceedings on specialized technical subjects.]
Summary. Your choice of words in a title is very important. It advertises
your work, and everyone knows how important advertising is. The title must accurately describe what is in the document; it must be honest. It needs to be concise; potential readers may sense a wordy document if the title is too long. It must not be too foggy or intimidating. Titles must be just right. Give title selection the consideration it deserves.
[After due consideration, I decided that the appropriate title for the fret-
ting corrosion report is “Fretting Corrosion Resistance of Tool Materi- als.” This reflects the type of damage to be discussed (fretting corrosion), and it states the types of materials studied (tool materials).]
9.3 Front Matter
Most documents require some sort of front matter that identifies the doc- ument and contains background information. For example, letters have the traditional salutation with the title and the address of the recipient.
Some computer mail systems allow the use of letter templates that auto- matically record information about the document and/or the recipient. This simplifies record keeping and letter generation in a consistent format.
Investigation reports in many organizations are required to use a saluta- tion format. They are informal technical documents directed to an individ- ual or group. Figure 9.3 shows a form that works very well for a laboratory that writes many reports on short-term projects and studies. The reports are assigned a number to aid access from department files. At the end of the year, they are reviewed for retention or disposal for the next year. These re- ports often are not retained for more than two years. If the information has
RULE
Make your title “sell” the document.
Salutation for a Business Letter January 2, 1997
Susan Pross Travel Director
Eastman Kodak Company 343 State Street
Rochester, NY 14614 Dear Ms. Pross:
In reply to your letter of 25 December concerning my account, please find en- closed . . .
I hope this satisfies your inquiry. Please contact me if you need additional details. Very truly yours,
Kenneth G. Budinski
KP Materials Engineering Laboratory 5/23/Kp, MC 23423
long-term value, it should be documented as a technical report or document that can be archived in the corporate library.
Formal technical documents and reports have long-term value and are not necessarily directed to an individual or group. Along with the outline, a formal report requires the appropriate front matter that describes its source and reason for being. The first page should contain front matter that iden- tifies the author and contains other fields to identify the report, the organ- ization, date, coauthors, contributors, key words, and other items that may be needed for tracking (Fig. 9.4). Some research organizations list the spon- sor of the research in this front matter. Articles submitted to a journal also often require a formal cover sheet. The author instructions for the journal specify what information is needed on the cover sheet.
Front matter in a book includes: • Copyright—legal requirement • Dedication—to a person
• Foreword—usually written by another praising the book and author Fig. 9.3 Report form for small investigations
• Preface—written by author to say why the book was written • Table of contents—listing of chapters/sections and major headings None of these are needed (or appropriate) in a formal report unless your particular organization wants them. For example, long project proposals sometimes have a table of contents. Title, author(s) organization, key words, preface, forward, and table of contents are only needed on extensive doc- uments such as theses or books. A formal report will not need one unless it exceeds 20 pages or so [then it may be a tome instead of a report].
Another important aspect of the front matter is the distribution list. In some organizations, standard procedure is to have the distribution list on a separate sheet of paper so that it can be detached (Fig. 9.5). This can affect litigation. Every company employee who has any documents in their file pertaining to a product lawsuit may be asked to turn them over to the legal department. Formal reports containing a distribution list indict every per- son on the list. If 20 people receive a document relating to a problem with
Fig. 9.4 Cover sheet for a formal report
PLEASE DISCARD BEFORE FILING
TECHNICAL DOCUMENT NO: RCD 93016 AUTHOR: Kenneth G. Budinski
TITLE: Wear of Carbide Dies on Conventional Perforators
cc: J.J. Doe/K. Budinski T.G. Smith
A.L. Jones (Abstract only) S.Q. Summers
B.L. Springer J.V. Dale
Finally, many journals publish the mailing address of authors so that read- ers can write for reprints. Make sure on published papers that the listed ad- dress is adequate to get correspondence to you. [Pretend that you will get
a royalty check.]
9.4 Writing the Introduction
The introduction in college textbooks is sometimes regarded as less im- portant than the “inner Chapters.” Some students (and teachers) feel that a company product, they can become a party to that problem if it leads to an injury lawsuit. [My company encountered a patent suit that ended up
unnecessarily involving many people through distribution lists. One billion dollars later (yes with a “B”), we now must detach the distribution sheet from formal reports as soon as we receive them.]
Nowadays electronic distribution of reports is very common. Front matter is still needed because some people will want to print out a hard copy and li- braries retain hard copies. There are no assurances that electronic copies will be in a retrievable form 10, 20, or 50 years hence. Some electronic distribu- tion systems send reports to team suites or to databases. Team members download the report if they are interested (another reason for good titles). Key words are becoming more important as computer databases attain more powerful searching capabilities. Most technical journals ask for key words or indexing numbers when a manuscript is submitted. Establish a hi- erarchy for the key words based on how you anticipate potential readers of your document may search. If the document is about a failure of a cast iron pipe hanger, the most important term would be pipe hanger, followed by failure, followed by cast iron, followed by less obvious terms like safety or brittle fracture.
If formal documents are coauthored, the traditional protocol is to have the principal investigator’s name first in the front matter. Sometimes, re- search organizations have a protocol that the name of the laboratory head occurs first on all articles written by his or her staff. Hopefully, this proto- col has passed away. If someone did not do the work, they do not deserve the credit. Do not list contributors as coauthors unless they wrote a portion of the article or made a substantial technical contribution. Technicians who performed planned work can be listed in an acknowledgment section at the end of the article, if this is the custom for the journal in which the article is published. Some articles do not have acknowledgments except to thank re- search sponsors for financial support. Do not make an “Oscar” acceptance speech where you thank every member of your department.
RULE
the “meat” does not come until Chapter two and beyond. This is not the case with most technical reports. In fact, many technical journal editors re- ject articles because the authors fail to say in the introduction why they are doing the work. The introduction is where you state who you are, what you did, what you hope to accomplish with the report, what you are going to write about, and a few words about your results.
The introduction is a sales pitch for the report; some executives, in fact, feel that they are too busy to read entire reports, so they only read the in- troduction and recommendations. This is why some reports include an ex- ecutive summary, which is a more detailed abstract corresponding to the sections in a report (See Appendix 8). An executive summary is placed af- ter the abstract, and it essentially contains abstracts for each of the major sections of a report. Busy people may only read selected sections, and the abstract is followed by the report with complete sections. Each section should stand alone.
The basic ingredients of an introduction are:
• Background: circumstances that prompted the report, including the im-
portance of what you are writing about
• Purpose of report: why you are writing the report
• Objective: what you hope to achieve
• Format: brief list of report sections
• Hint of conclusions/recommendations
Background
The background information in the introduction of a report should in- clude the following items:
• The problem addressed by the report
• Who you are and who asked you to work on the problem
• Why is the problem important—why should the reader bother to read this
It may also be appropriate to include the chronology of events that led to your work. If you were simply asked by someone to work on a problem, then state this. The following is an example of an introduction with inade- quate information:
Introduction
The majority of ribbon yarn manufacturers use a razor blade slitter in their pro- duction line. Blade life is rarely more than one or two days; frequent shutdowns