Saturday, April 24, 2010

The Technical Report

In this blog-posting reply, I want you to take some time and image a circumstance in your dream profession in which you might have to write a "technical" report for a non-technical audience. In what kinds of situation might you find yourself wherein you would have to convey your findings, or present your recommendations, to an audience that does not necessarily share all of your discipline-specific vocabulary? Develop the scenario for me and tell me how this project, in ENGL 341, might or might not have prepared for such an eventuality or possibility.

12 comments:

  1. I am currently working on a software review for ISD on a network monitoring software. I will be presenting the report to ISD management and elsewhere for possible funding sources. I think having to write the report for your class has increased my knowledge greatly on how a technical report needs to be properly constructed and presented.

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  2. I want to deal with environmental biology. In order to get funding, a non-biology audience has to be able to understand my project and why it's important to the general public.

    This project is an example of how I might organize and present a project to a funding board.

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  3. I work at IRIS/PASSCAL compiling software for their computers. I make sure all of the computer related things work well for the geologists so they won't run into problems in the field. Currently, I'm compiling a new piece of software that many of the scientists want to run. I started this project last summer when a grad student wanted to use it. She had quite a bit of trouble with it so I gave it a shot. Currently, I'm the only person who has been able to compile it in my lab.

    I'm writing a document to show person how to compile the software by hand if they wish to do so. It's basically an instructional guide for non-technical people. I found the instructions paper to be quite useful for preparation in my task.

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  4. My goal is to become Chief Information Officer for a large organization. One of the responsibilities of the CIO is to present proposals for IT upgrades and computer policies to executives and shareholders. This experience gained in this technical writing project would be well applied to such presentations. For example, I would want to recommend a deployment strategy for mobile devices inside an enterprise. The project for this class covered some security issues for this scenario, but I would want to present more details acceptable use policies for mobile devices.

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  5. I believe what I presented for my project is a good example of one of the goals I have in my life. I enjoy research, but sometimes I feel like maybe I alienate what I'm working on and fail to show the larger picture to someone who isn't in my field.

    I believe that the learning experience from having to present my findings for ENG 341 will help me in the future when I have to give presentations in my senior year and beyond.

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  6. Hopefully, I will end up working in a lab. A scenario where I would have to explain my work to a non-technical audience would be if there were visitors touring the lab. The visitors could be kids on a field trip or other members of the public. The oral presentation part of this project has helped me practice my presenting skills. The presenting skills being: explaining a technical subject using non-technical language and dealing with questions you don’t know the answer to.

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  8. On the Baja project we not only need to build a competitive vehicle, we also need to be able to convince an audience that or design is profitable and marketable. This is why the team also develops a sales pitch that is presented at the competition. With the sales pitch we try to convince an imaginary company that investing in our design will yield profit and that the product is safe and fun to operate. This is a very good example of real world applications of the technical report.

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  9. Let's say that I'm called in as a chemical engineer to look at a process and evaluate it and optimize it. If I were to report my findings and recommendations on this process, I would have to make sure that it can be read by not only people who are specialists in the field but also people who may not have a firm grip on the subject matter. I feel that English 341 has given me a good experience with writing technical documents for general audiences.

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  10. As a food scientist, it would frequently be necessary to distill complex technical information into easy to understand nuggets of information for a marketing department. It is the marketing departments job to take my raw findings and cook up a campaign that appeals to the public. I feel like the technical report project has taught me what I should focus on when presenting my results to a non-specialist.

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  11. My project depicts a scenario that many people have experienced. Darts is a common game which a "non-technical" audience can understand. So if I find myself doing a report in the future where I would describe technical aspects of a well-known design, this project would be a good example of how to convey the material to a genera audience.

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  12. I'm positive that i will have to prepare a report similar to this in my field. I am currently working at Sandia Labs on production of neutron generators. The current project is preparing a new design to meet specific criteria. I could see myself preparing a recommendations report for a manager and peers for a new design, or for new materials to use. I would have to include reasoning and research in the report. This would have to be appropriate for anyone who is inexperienced in the technical aspects of the research and data, including the manager.

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