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This report presents the methods a mechanical engineer uses to formulate a typical engineering report. The following information results from research and interacting with a mechanical engineer working as Technical Sales Manager in wireline services.
Mechanical engineering is a technical field, yet it the amount of technical writing depends on the position a mechanical engineer acquires. Contrary to popular thinking, engineering is not a purely technical role. Written communication is an integral part of their career.
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The objective of this report is to show a format synonymous to a typical engineer’s technical report and distinguish a professional report from writing of a subpar nature.
In order to collect the necessary information for this report, multiple sources were collected and analyzed. The resources include an interview with a mechanical engineer, secondary sources such as articles written about communication in mechanical engineering, and sample documents written by the interviewed engineer. Other sources were also used to understand the field of computer engineering.
Definition of Mechanical Engineering
In preparation for an analysis on professional writing in mechanical engineering, the career path must be defined. According to Columbia University, “the role of a mechanical engineer is to take a product from an idea to the marketplace. To accomplish this, the mechanical engineer must be able to determine the forces and thermal environment that a product … will encounter; design the product for functionality, aesthetics, and durability; and determine the best manufacturing approach that will ensure operation without failure.” [1] In simpler terms, Queen Elizabeth II described “engineering... [as]... using science to find creative, practical solutions” [2]
Interview with a Mechanical Engineer
Next, an interview was conducted with a current mechanical engineer working at Baker Hughes – GE, which is an international service company. Egr. SandeepGade has over 12 years of global experience (USA, United Arab Emirates, and India) in engineering, technology, product, marketing, operations & training management. During his time as a project manager, Egr. Gade has worked on numerous projects which lead to professional writing such as presentations, technical reports, and patents. He recently became a Technical Sales Manager, which resulted in a decrease in technical professional writing.
Analyzing Writing Samples
During the interview, EgrGade produced a template of a mechanical engineer’s technical writing. It is a summary details that are needed to create a professional engineering report. This report was written to convey his approach to writing formal technical reports. This document was read and analyzed to aid in forming this report. In addition,
Common Forms of Technical Writing
While in the career path of mechanical engineering, there are different forms of written communication are necessary. The two primary forms of technical communication for mechanical engineers includes emails/presentations/memos and technical documentation.
Emails, Presentations and Memos
The most common form of professional communication is emails. It is an integral method of correspondence with colleagues, clients, and leadership or management. Depending on the audience and context of the email, the tone and level of professionalism will need to be adjusted. For example, emails to peers can be more casual and include specific details, whereas emails to the leadership must be written more professionally and give a high-level overview of the status [2]. The type of information that is communicated using emails could also be communicated using memos for computer engineers.
Technical Documentation
Technical documentation is a common way to communicate the functionality of a project as well as the current progress. In order to have a professionally formatted technical report. An engineer should keep the following sections in mind: A table of contents, List of Figure/Tables/Symbols, Acknowledgments, Introduction,
Table of Contents
As the name implies, Table of Contents is an outline of the report. Before the actual report, important sections of the report must be listed with page numbers in the Table of Contents. Second, third and fourth level headings may also be listed as appropriated.
List of Figures and Tables
The next section contains the list of figures and tables. The list of Figures contains all the figures (drawings and graphs) that appear in the report. This list is in the consecutive order that they appear in the report and have figure captions and page number attached. Subsequently the list of tables follows the same formatting.
List of Symbols
This list is optional. It is most often used when the report contains a lot of formulae and symbols.
An engineer should apply their knowledge of their audience, when making a decision for a list of symbols
Acknowledgements
Before the introduction. The engineer(s) must acknowledge every person or agency involved in funding, guiding, advising, and working on the project that are not part of the authoring team.
Failure to acknowledge someone contributing to the project is a serious breach of etiquette and may be construed as plagiarism. Traditionally, an editor, proofreader, or fact checkers are not included in acknowledgements.
Introduction
The beginning of the introduction should be brief and concise. In it the engineer will explain the importance and objective of the experiment being reported. To simply say that the information is important is not adequate, thus the author must make a case for the significance of what they are presenting. When there is not a separate “Technical Background” section in the report, then the introduction will also describe the necessary concepts that were applied in order to obtain the results are explained. Thus, the engineer must be in tune to the technical level of the audience.
In a case where the audience is not clear, the engineer should assume that the audience already possess technical ability to understand the material then present the technical information accordingly. Do not attempt to write an introductory text on the subject, nor assume that the readers are experts in the subject.
Experimental Details
This is the section where details of the experiments or research conducted are discussed. The descriptions maybe in paragraph form, list form, or a combination of both. Think of experimental details section as a recipe in a cookbook. The description must contain enough details to enable the audience the ability to duplicate the experiment. As Engineering and scientific experiment must be repeatable and verify.
Results and Discussions
Had this been an actual report, the results should be reported in table or graph format. Report only the results. Raw data and intermediate results that are not central to the topic of the report can be placed in the Appendix if needed. The Results and Discussion section should be the most substantial part of the report. This is where the results of the experiment are reported and discussed. Any significance in the work reported here must be made clear by detailed discussions. Consider this section to be the “meat” of the report while other sections constitute the rest of the “ingredients”.
Conclude what was discussed in the Results and Discussion section. Do not conclude anything that had not been discussed. Think of the conclusion as a short restatement of important points being presented in the report. Once conclusions are made, make some recommendations as to the utilities of those conclusions. Explain how useful the methodology and the results are. Mention restrictions or limits pertaining to the use of the results. For example, “The results reported here only apply to the second full-moon night a month (blue corn moon) and not any other night.” Suggest what the next step in the study should be to overcome the limitation or advance the study further. Both conclusions and recommendations may be in the form of descriptive paragraphs or running lists. Whichever the format is chosen, apply it consistently for both the conclusions and the recommendations.
Giving proper credit to originator of an idea is very important. Any idea, formula, etc., not originating from the author must be cited. It is unlikely that a report is so original that it is not built upon any previously discovered knowledge. A reference section is a required component in any technical report. Failure to reference prior works may be interpreted as claiming those works to be your own. Plagiarism is one of the most serious offences for engineering and scientific professions.
A sanction from your colleagues for this offence is enough to end one’s professional career. References must be attached to specific formulae, pages, or passages in the report. They are numbered consecutively according to the order that they appear in the report. Use superscript numbering or square bracket to denote a reference. Part of the source material being referenced must also be specific. It must refer to specific formula, page, passage, or idea in the source material being cited. Any work, formulae, or discussion that is a common knowledge in the field does not need to be referenced. For example, it is a common knowledge for engineers that F = ma. There is no need to reference Newton for this.
This rule applies to common formulae that can be derived or are well known by people in the field also. See References section for the format of references from books, essays, journals, World Wide Web, and personal communications. [1,2,3,4,5] A particular technical journal may have its own format for the authors to follow. The information to be included in the references, however, is always of the same nature as what is presented.
Appendices
In is imperative that the way you determine the result from the raw data be made clear. Others should be able to duplicate the experiment according the instruction provided in the “Experimental Details” section and reduce the data according to the “Sample Calculations” in the Appendix to obtain results similar to what is reported. Other supporting information that is not central to the main points to be made in the report is placed in separate appendices as needed.
Consider carefully the necessity of including the raw data in your report. Include one set of the raw data for example calculation is adequate for most purpose. Listing pages and pages of numbers that nobody can decipher is excessive and likely not count as a good credit to the author. Photocopied text and references are also inappropriate since doing so copyright violation. Retracing drawings from other sources is not acceptable for the same reason. Direct copy of materials from other sources must be accompanied by explicit permission from the copyright holders of those materials.
There are many other points that should be considered in writing a technical report that apply to the whole report. The points presented here are, by no means, exhaustive nor authoritative. They are merely suggestions. Major or first level headings should start on a new page unless two or more headings can fit on a single page. Think of a heading as a start of a new chapter in a book. A new chapter always starts on a new page. This pseudo-report does not follow the stated guideline too rigidly. 12 points, serif typeface such as Times is standard for report writing. Keep color usage to a minimum if at all. Black text and black or gray-scale figures are adequate for most technical reports.
Do not use san serif font such as Arial or fancy font such as Script in writing the body of a technical report. Serif fonts are best for long text in a book format. San serif fonts are designed for headlines or presentation composing of short phrases or lists. Try to avoid all capital letters in the body of the report.
It is an equivalent to “shouting” in writing. Contractions are not used in formal writing. For example, use “It cannot be said that …” instead of “It can’t be said that …” Similar line of reasoning applies to the use of abbreviation. Consider using it sparingly. Fully type of “versus” instead of “vs.” does not require extraordinary effort with the use of a computer yet will keep the writing easily readable. Use “Figure” instead of “Fig.” and “Table” instead of “Tab.” will spare the reader of having to translate the abbreviations while reading. If abbreviations were used, use them consistently throughout the report. For example, do not switch among “versus”, “vs.” and “vs”.
Note that an abbreviation is followed by a period, e.g., “vs.” not “vs”. Many engineers and scientists use acronyms in their writing without giving it a second thought. If the target audience were people in the exact field, acronyms would present no difficulties. As a matter of courtesy though, consider writing out the full name with acronym in parenthesis the first time that name appears in the report. Then use the acronym in any subsequent occurrences. For example, “My corporate counsel wants to talk to you about your intellectual property (IP) violation.” Following this convention will prevent any confusion that may arise when one acronym having more than one possible meaning, e.g., “intellectual property (IP)” versus “internet protocol (IP).” 1-inch on all sides is standard for margins in a loose-leaf report. Use 1.25 to 1.5-inch left margin for a bounded report.
If the report is to be graded, type on one side of the page only and use double space for line spacing. This leaves room for instructor’s comments. A formal report is written in third person. For example, “An experiment on something was conducted…” instead of “We did this experiment on…” Avoid overly complicated or doubly passive sentences. Many modern authors of technical reports forgo third person narrative altogether. Equations and formulae are numbered consecutively in the order that they appear in the report.
Equation is centered on the page with equation number on the side followed by the explanation of the symbols used in the equation. Think of the equation and the explanation as one sentence. For example, V = 4/3 πr3 [1] where, V = volume of a sphere r = radius of a sphere. Note a period marking the end of a sentence after the second “sphere” but not the first one. A figure, table, equation, or heading is treated as proper noun and is referred to as such in the report. When a figure is being referred to, consider that it is being called upon by its name. For example, “As can be seen in Figure 5…” not “As can be seen in figure 5…” Tables and figures are listed separately in the table of contents.
Each group is numbered consecutively in order appearance in the report. In any case, a table or a figure must come after the text that refers to it. Tables are always at the bottom of the page, but figures may appear any where on the page with or without text on that same page. For a short report or a journal article, it is acceptable to put the tables and figures at the end of the report. All tables and figures must include captions. A caption is a description explaining the table or the figure.
A caption must be self-explanatory. For example, “Table 4 Test parameters for dust balls collection experiment” is acceptable but “Table 4 Test parameters” is not. Engineering report normally uses only horizontal lines to denote sections in a table. The use of vertical lines is avoided since they may be misinterpreted as engineering markings. Figures may include schematic diagrams, pictures, or graphs. The main type of graphs used in reporting engineering test results is scatter plot.
A scatter plot treats both x and y data as values. A similar looking graph type, a line plot, is not normally used to report scientific data. In line plot, the x data are treated as names or categories not values. Data presented as a graph are plotted without lines connecting the data points. A line connecting two data points on a graph implies that intermediate values can be read directly off the line. Use curve-fitting line to show a trend in the data instead of connecting points. When using a curve fit, the fitting equation and the R2 (indication of how good the fit is) must be included. A curve fit line without the information underlining the curve fit does not have any scientific meaning.
Mastering Mechanical Engineering Reports: A Comprehensive Guide. (2024, Feb 20). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/document/mastering-mechanical-engineering-reports-a-comprehensive-guide
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