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.