BIRLA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE, PILANI,

KK BIRLA GOA CAMPUS

INSTRUCTION DIVISION Course Handout (Part II)
First Semester 2023-2024
Date: 11/08/2023
In addition to part I (General Handout for all courses appended to the timetable), this portion gives
further specific details regarding the course.
Course No: BITS F112
Course Title: Technical Report Writing
Instructor-in-charge: Mohan Kumar Bera
Instructors: Mohan Kumar Bera/Nilanjana Goswami (Section 1), Solano Da Silva/ Rayson. K.
Alex (Section 2), and Basabdatta Mitra/ Nilak Datta (Section 3).
Scope and Objective of the course:

The main objective of the course is to help the learners develop skills in writing technical reports.
The students will learn about the various stages involved in formulating a problem, conducting a
study and presenting their findings in the form of a Technical Report.

2. Textbook:
Sharma, R. C. and Mohan K. (2016). Business Correspondence and Report Writing: A Practical
Approach to Business and Technical Communication (5th Edition) New Delhi: Tata McGraw Hill.
3. Reference Books:
Ref.1: Anthony, L. (2010). Presenting Research in Science and Engineering. Tokyo, Japan: DTP
Publishing

Ref. 2: Birkenstein, C. and Graff, G. (2014) ‘They Say / I Say’: The Moves That Matter in
Academic Writing (3rd Edition) New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Ref. 3: Booth, W. C., Colomb, G. G. and Williams, J. M. (2008) The Craft of Research (3rd
Edition). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
4. Course Plan:

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 Offered over 15 weeks, the 24 discussion-cum-practice classes of this course will follow offline
classroom mode. Two contact classes every week will be used to develop technical report writing
skills. The Schedule of Classes, along with the text references is given below.

Schedule of Classes

Sessio Chapter No. (Text Book/

Topic Sub Topics
n No. Reference Material)

1 Course Overview; Mazurkewich, K

Introduction to Communication as story telling (2018)1--------
the Course
2 -3 Academic writing Anatomy of Academic Writing
Branson (2004)2
and Types of Academic Writing
Understanding Technical
Reports; Definition, Importance,
4-5 Technical
Characteristics; Types of Text book, Chapter 15
Reports
reports : Informational,
Interpretive, Routine

1
Mazurkewich, K (2018) Technical Experts Need to Get Better at Telling Stories, Harvard Business
Review. Online: https://hbr.org/2018/04/technical-experts-need-to-get-better-at-telling-stories
[Accessed on 25 Oct 2020]
2
Branson, R. D. (2004) ‘The Anatomy of an Academic Article’ in Respiratory Care, Vol. 49
(October), No. 10. Available online: http://www.rcjournal.com/contents/10.04/10.04.1222.pdf
[Accessed on 5th June 2019]

2 of 3 pages
 The process of formulating a
Research Problem;
6-7 Ref. 3: Chap. 3 & 4
Identifying a Topic, Narrowing
Text Book Chap. 17
the Scope, Asking questions,
Looking for problems
8-9 Planning and Reviewing the literature and Ref. 2: Chap. 1, 2 & 3
Executing your revisiting the research problem Ref. 3: Chap. 5 & 6
Project Collecting new data; Working
10-12 with different sources and Text Book, Chap. 14
devising data collection methods
Working with collected data;
13-15
Analysing Data and Presenting Text Book, Chap. 14
information Concept Mapping
Audience; Purpose;
Ref.1: Section 1, Unit 2
Organization; Outline
Thinking about
16-17 Report Structure: Prefatory Parts,
Writing: Writing
Main Body and Supplementary
at the Macro Text Book, Chap. 13
Parts
Level & 15
Style: clarity, precision and
language
Ref.1: Section 2, Unit
Writing Abstract
Eight
Writing Introduction:
Background, Objectives, Scope, Ref.1: Section 2, Unit Five
Limitation, Methods of Data and Six
Collection, Overview
Writing Discussion: Analysing
Findings; Results; Explaining
Ref.1: Section 2, Unit
Results; Representing Data in
Seven
Drafting the Tables and Charts
Report: Flow, Text Book, Chap. 16
Style, Structure Structuring Information with
18-21
and Presentation Tables and Graphs
Writing Conclusions and
Text Book, Chap. 13
Recommendations
Documentation and Report
Text Book Chap. 23
Formatting
Automating your report
22 Workshop mode
Citation and References
23 Attached materials
Ethics and Report Writing
24 Summing up

Evaluation Scheme: Total 200 Marks

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Sr. Evaluation Weightage
Duration Date & Day Remarks
No. Component %
1. Class Tests 5% -- TBA Individual
2 Assignment I 10% 20/9/2023 Group
3. Technical Report 20% -- 23/11/2023 Group
12/10/23, Thursday 11:00 AM
4. Mid Semester 25% 90 Min Individual
- 12:30 PM
Comprehensive
5. 40% 120 Min 13/12/23 (AN) Individual
Exam

Chamber Consultation Hour: To be announced by the instructors in the respective sections.

Mohan Kumar Bera

Instructor-in-Charge

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