An

Introduction
to
Technical Writing &
Presentation Skills

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 Objectives
You need to be able to:
• Know differences between academic and technical writing.
• Identify the characteristics of effective technical writing.
• Identify the steps in the writing process.
• Identify the components of good design.
• Identify the steps in organizing and writing instructions.
• Identify some tips to help your documents.

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Academic vs. Technical Writing

Academic Technical
Purpose: Demonstrate what you Getting something done
know about a topic
Less than teacher who is More than the reader
Knowledge of
evaluating them
Topic:

Audience: Teacher Several People

Criteria for Depth, logic, clarity, unity Clear and simple
Evaluation: and grammar organization of ideas

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 What is Technical Writing?
“Technical writing is the art, craft, practice,
or problem of translating that which is
logical into that which is grammatical.

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 What is Technical Writing?

“Technical writing conveys specific information about a

technical subject to a specific audience for a specific
purpose…The words and graphics of technical writing
are meant to be practical: that is, to communicate a body
of factual information that will help an audience
understand a subject or carry out a task.”

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 Characteristics of Effective
Technical Writing

The four C’s:

• Clarity -- it is easily understood by your intended
audience
• Comprehensiveness -- all of the necessary
information is present
• Conciseness -- it is clear without excess verbiage
• Correctness -- it is grammatical and follows
conventions

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 Theory of Design

Good design is:

1. Visually simple and uncluttered(orderly).

2. Highlights structure, hierarchy(according to their
importance), and order.
3. Helps readers find information they need.

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 Writing
• Write positive language.
• Don’t write in upper case for more than A WORD
OR TWO.

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 Writing (cont.)
• Use lists whenever possible.

• Use the title to define the task.

• Use headings and subheadings.

• Label segments(parts) in away that reflects how

readers are likely to think about the operation or
procedure.

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 The Written Report: Why?

• The medium for most technical communication is

the written report, so you had better be good at it!

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Some characteristics of reports

1. Everybody hates to write them,

2. Everybody hates to read them,
3. Almost nobody does read them,
4. They take a HUGE amount of time to write,
5. They are absolutely CRUCIAL (extremely
important or necessary ) to YOUR success
in engineering!

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Further characteristics of reports

They are also almost always:

6. Too long,
7. Badly organized,
8. Incomplete.

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 Basic Technical Overview

• Professionalism and ethics in reporting

• Knowing your audience

• Outline writing

• Report writing

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 Professionalism & ethics in reporting

• Different individuals have different

personalities, and different modes for
communicating.

• If you apply a canned(artificial) formula to your

technical communications, the result may be
awkward.

• Within the general structure of formal technical

communication, there is room for your
personality to show through.

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 Outline Your Writing Purpose

• Why am I presenting this work? What do I

want the audience to get out of this paper or
this presentation?

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 Write the Report, but how long?
• The length of your presentation - either written
or oral - is often dictated by others.

• With respect to oral presentations, you will

often find yourself up against a strict time limit:
 Be sure that you can get your take-home message
across without hurrying

• Hint: carefully rehearse your talk with a stop-

watch in hand…

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 Common Report Formats
There are a number of accepted formats for any
type of document that you write, but…

The commonly accepted standard for reports is

IMRaD - Introduction - Methods - Results - and
Discussion.

Note: Your reports do not necessarily need to

follow this format strictly, but should use this as a
guideline, and contain all of the information
discussed in.

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• Objectives: Enhance language skills and develop critical thinking
• Course Contents
• Presentation skills
• Essay writing
• Descriptive, narrative, discursive, argumentative
• Academic writing
• How to write a proposal for research paper/term paper
• How to write a research paper/term paper (emphasis on style, content,
• language, form, clarity, consistency)
• Technical Report writing
• Progress report writing
• Note: Extensive reading is required for vocabulary building

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 Steps of formal report writing
• Use a template or in-house format if available
• Set out clearly the terms of reference, such as what the report is
about, why it is necessary, and who it is for
• Conduct your research and analyze data and record findings
• Create a report outline and write the first draft
• Use a title, introduction, paragraphs, subheadings, images,
conclusion, recommendations and appendices
• Write in a formal tone and avoid personal opinions or emotions
• Proofread your report and check for errors and clarity

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THANK YOU

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