Tuesday 7 October 2014

A Brief Description Of Engineering Reports And Proposals

By Jocelyn Davidson


An important aspect of engineering is the ability to convey ideas, project information and findings to people concerned. The main objective of doing engineering reports and proposals is to obtain grants from agencies, also to publish in journals and for progress updates to the relevant authorities.

The goal or reason of writing is an important aspect to consider when writing engineering documents. The purpose of writing is to convince the reader that you are qualified for the job and that the project is scientifically and economically viable. Most engineers wrongly assume that convincing is not part of their job but it indeed is as most clients may not be able to understand the terms used in the documents.

The audience is also a factor to be considered while writing. They cannot pay for information they already know therefore they are supposed to learn something new. The problem should be clearly stated and the solutions to it explained clearly. Background information should be used to provide more information so that readers are able to put them the problem and solution into perspective. It is important that the audience understands that you are the expert in that specific field.

Proposals are written by consulting engineers as well as engineers in academia. They are written to seek funding from funding agencies for projects or for approval by management. Another reason for writing them is to send to clients, prospective or otherwise. They indicate what the task is about, how it will be done, the cost, time frame and objectives of the task.

There are at least six basic elements of a proposal. The abstract summary is one page long and is a brief and summarized proposal. It explains the purpose of the project, expenses to be incurred, qualifications and program essentials. In the introduction section, the purpose, background and brief overview of the project are objectively and clearly spelt out.

The project objectives, methods and evaluation are to be found in the project description section. A time frame and the budget bearing all the over heads and estimated cost are also found here. They should in form of charts, diagrams and tables. In the last section is a list of particular team to be involved and their education and professional qualifications.

Engineering reports are similar to proposals in that they also contain an executive summary and introduction. In contrast, reports have extra sections such as theory and analysis where laws and equations applied are defined. In addition, the method section includes the instruments and apparatus used. Findings are explained in results section and discussed. From the results, conclusions and recommendation are made. The rest of the document also contains the literature cited, acknowledgment and appendix.

In conclusion, remember to organize your writing to increase readability. Format the document including headings and text in the acceptable way. In addition, any graphs, pictures and tables used should be labeled. Lastly, the content of proposal or report should determine the style of writing and organization used.




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