Instructor Resources: Tutorial on Writing Reports

Tutorial Objectives

  1. Persuade students that writing is an important skill in their engineering or scientific career
  2. Show engineering and science students the importance of analyzing audience, purpose, and occasion before writing a report
  3. Dispel common misconceptions about the structure, language, and illustrations of technical reports
  4. Put students (or student teams) in a position to do well on their next technical or scientific report.

Tutorial Description

This tutorial on writing reports in engineering and science was developed to put students in position to succeed in their report assignments for engineering and science courses. Essentially, the module aims to have students realize the most important differences between scientific writing (which many students have not yet formally studied) and general writing (for which they have taken several courses). Note that this website uses scientific writing, engineering writing, and technical writing as interchangeable terms.

Pre-Work

Prior to the class period, the students should do the following:
  1. View the films of the Tutorial for Writing Reports in Engineering and Science.
  2. Download a report template for the next writing assignment

Teaching Slides

Available for the class period are instructor slides that pose and answer questions from the tutorial. When I show these slides, I call on specific students to answer the easier questions (the ones directly discussed in the tutorial). For the more difficult questions, I pose the questions to the class. For "yes or no" or multiple choice questions, I have students raise their hands.  
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Comprehension Quiz

At the following link, you will find a comprehension quiz for the tutorial on writing reports. A Canvas version is available at Penn State by searching for "Writing Lessons for Engineering and Science." To obtain a key for this quiz and all quizzes for the Writing Lessons, please email Michael Alley at mpa13@psu.edu. Title the email as "Requesting Quiz Keys for Writing Lessons." Once we have verified that you are an instructor, we will send you the link to the quiz keys.

References

  1. Alley, Michael, The Craft of Scientific Writing, 4th ed. (New York: Springer Verlag, 2018).
  2. Bernstein, Theodore, The Careful Writer (New York: Free Press, 1995).​​
  3. William A. Sabin, The Gregg Reference Manual: A Manual of Style, Grammar, Usage, and Formatting, 11th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010).
Sponsors
     Leonhard Center, College of Engineering, Penn State
​     National Science Foundation, NSF EAGER Award  1752096

​Content Editor
     Michael Alley, Teaching Professor, College of Engineering, Penn State

Film Editors
     Richelle Weiger, College of Engineering, Penn State
     Casey Fenton, College of Engineering, Penn State
​For the academic year 2019-2020, we are collecting comments, questions, criticisms, and suggestions for the films, text, and quizzes of each lesson on scientific writing. To help us understand your input, would please let us know what your discipline is and whether you are a student, professional, or faculty member?