TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING REQUIREMENTS

By Claire M. Hay
Metropolitan State College of Denver
Earth and Atmospheric Science Department

Revision Date: 8 January 2005

gis48x0_techrept.doc
8 January 2005
GIS 4850 – Adv. GIS, or GIS 4840 – Remote Sensing Report Writing Requirements

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION______________________________________________________________________________ 1

REPORT FORMAT ____________________________________________________________________________ 1

I. ABSTRACT _________________________________________________________________________________ 1

II. BODY OF THE REPORT ____________________________________________________________________ 1

A. INTRODUCTION SECTION ___________________________________________________________________ 2
B1. OBJECTIVE OR GOAL STATEMENT(S)__________________________________________________________ 2
B2. MODEL OR ANALYSIS DESIGN CRITERIA SECTION ______________________________________________ 2
C. APPROACH OR METHOD SECTION ____________________________________________________________ 3
D. RESULTS SECTION _________________________________________________________________________ 3
E. DISCUSSION OF RESULTS SECTION ____________________________________________________________ 4
F. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION ______________________________________________________________ 4
III. REFERENCE SECTION ____________________________________________________________________ 4

IV. MODEL ILLUSTRATIONS __________________________________________________________________ 5

V. TABLES ___________________________________________________________________________________ 5

VI. RESULTS ILLUSTRATIONS ________________________________________________________________ 5

VII. APPENDICES _____________________________________________________________________________ 5

EXAMPLE REPORT DOCUMENTS _____________________________________________________________ 6

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INTRODUCTION
In order to gain practice and competence in report writing for projects involving GIS, remote sensing, and
spatial data analysis of natural resource environments, students will be required to document their work
using the report format described below. In this manner, it is hoped that the student will develop a technical
writing methodology that will reduce the sometimes ‘formidable’, report-writing task to a ‘doable’ effort
that can be approached in smaller bite-sized portions.
Students are expected to be familiar with word processing software available either in Campus Computer
Labs or on other systems available to them. ONLY word-processed reports, i.e. NO HANDWRITTEN or
typewritten reports, will be accepted.

REPORT FORMAT
For this class, you will use the following scientific and technical project report format for your lab reports.
The report consists of the following six sections:
I) Abstract
II) Body of the report,
III) Reference Section, (if any and if applicable)
IV) Model Illustrations (e.g., Flow Charts, figures, maps, etc.), if applicable
V) Tabular support data (Tables), if applicable
VI) Result Illustrations (e.g., Maps and figures), and
VII) Appendices (e.g., Command Listings, additional textual, tabular, or graphic material), if applicable.
A good report at a MINIMUM consists of sections II, III, IV, and V and/or VI, arranged in the sequence
outlined above.
The information to be presented in each of the above listed sections is as follows:

I. ABSTRACT
An abstract should be no more than 300 words. In the abstract, one briefly describes the purpose of the
report, the general approach taken in the analysis or study that is described in the report, the data used in the
analysis, the results achieved, and a brief summary of your results or findings.

II. BODY OF THE REPORT

The body of the report is partitioned into several sections in which very specific types of information are to
be provided. The sections contained within the body of the report consist of the:
a. Introduction Section
b. Objective Section
i. Model Design Criteria (if Applicable)
c. Approach or Methods Section
d. Results Section
e. Discussion Section, and

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f. Summary and Conclusion Section

A. INTRODUCTION Section
The introduction is a very important section in any report. The introduction serves to set the stage for the
work by describing your perspective on the problem and by describing the background context in which you
wish the reader to evaluate your work. If the reader is not fully familiar with the problem area, the
introduction should provide sufficient, general context so that a reader can determine the general knowledge
domain relating to the material in your report.
In this section you will present the CONTEXT for your work. The following questions should be addressed
and answered in this section.
1. WHAT is the MOTIVATION for the work you are about to describe, i.e., what situation, event, or
need (from a resource management point of view, not because it was required for class) prompted
the undertaking of this work or exercise?
For the purposes of this class, you can develop a hypothetical situation that may have motivated this
work. In other works, the motivation stated in your report should NOT state that “this work was
required as part of a laboratory exercise in class such and so”.
2. WHO should/would be interested in this report or study?
Briefly describe who should be interested in the analysis or study. That is, what type of resource
professionals, scientists, and technicians would be interested in the information produced from this
study.
3. WHY are they, or should they, be interested in this work?
Include brief statements of why they should be interested or how the study would relate to their
interest area.
4. What is the MAIN FOCUS of your study/exercise, and how will it significantly address the points in
items 1 through 3 above?

B1. OBJECTIVE or Goal Statement(s)

The most critical section in any report is the objective section. This section describes the highest priority
goals and the specific objectives of the project, plan or study. The objective should be clearly stated so that
a reader does not have to ‘dig’ for it or ‘surmise’ it from ambiguous rambling statements describing
background for the study or general goals or intents for the study. Phrase your objective statement very
specifically and precisely. For example, “the objective for this study was to explore the use of
neighborhood functions, the appropriate situations in which to use neighborhood functions, and the use
of those functions to extract population density, mean property values, and diversity of land use types
within the Seattle Downtown area.”

B2. Model or Analysis DESIGN CRITERIA Section

This section is not always applicable to all technical reports. In many of your reports for this class, this
section is not appropriate. It is particularly applicable in model design projects and in certain analysis
projects where strict criteria have been presented that restrict the range of acceptable solutions to a problem.
When the assignment is to analyze a model or to develop a model then this section is appropriate.
The Design Criteria Section deals with the development or application of some sort of model, or with the
development of certain management plans. In this section, one describes the highest priority factors to be

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included within the model or management plan. The following questions are appropriately addressed in the
Design Criteria section:
1. What are the critical resources (data, supporting theory, money, time) that affect the results of the
model or management plan?
2. What are the specific, highest priority factors, or absolute requirements (e.g., maximum or minimum
levels of cost or production) that MUST be met or addressed by the model or plan if and when
implemented? Relevant statements might include example phrases such as “no construction will be
allowed on slopes steeper than 40%”, or “maintain hauling costs to less than $X per year”, etc.
3. What are other high priority items that are desirable to achieve but not mandatory, within the plan or
analysis?
4. What types of information or data are required to support the model or plan (e.g., “elevation data at
50 meters spatial resolution, and vegetation/land cover data with a minimum mapping area of 25
meters”)?
5. What significant flaws or deficits exist in the data set that are not fixable at this time and affect the
quality of the results from the model or plan implementation?
There may be other critical issues or requirements that need to be discussed within this section depending on
the specific project’s context and goals. What are they? Describe them and their significance to the project,
the model, the analysis, or the plan.

C. APPROACH or METHOD Section

The words approach and method are often used interchangeably. There are subtle differences between the
two. One might label this section of their report as APPROACH, if what they intend to describe is a
general method or technique for ‘approaching’ the problem. If, however, one intends to describe in detail
specific steps or protocols to be used in solving or studying the problem, then one may label this section as
METHOD. One could have both an Approach and a Methods section within a given report
In this section, you must present a clear and concise description of how you approached or plan to approach
the solution to the problem being addressed. This should include a statement of why the adopted approach
was appropriate for this specific study and a description of the techniques used to develop the plan or solve
the study problem.
In this section also discuss any problems you encountered in trying to implement your approach and how
you solved these difficulties. For example:
"Soil permeability rates were required for the model. This data, however, was not available for
the project’s study site. Soil permeability rates for similar soil types that were known from a
nearby region, namely the Richfield region, were substituted in place of the missing soil
permeability rates.”

D. RESULTS Section
In the Results Section, briefly present the results or outcomes achieved in the project. In this section, a
DESCRIPTION of the results is all that is required- DO NOT include a DISCISSION of the
results in this section. For example,
GOOD Results Statement:
"Response times from station #1 to all locations within the planning area ranged from a maximum
of 25 minutes to a minimum of 2 minutes. Response times from station # 12 to all locations ranged
from a maximum of 35 minutes to a minimum of 6 minutes. Minimum response times from the most

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optima, responding station to any specific location ranged from a maximum of 15 minutes to a
minimum of 2 minutes. See Figure 5 (Minimum response time map) for the distribution of minimum
response times over the planning area”.
Bad Results Statement in that it includes further discussion of the results. The discussion goes in the
Discussion section.
"Response times from station #1 to all locations within the planning area ranged from a maximum
of 25 minutes to a minimum of 2 minutes. The maximum of 25 minutes is beyond the allowable
limits allowed by the Fire District’s Terms of Service agreement with the County and a plan to
mitigate the response times for areas falling outside of the allowable limits is being developed.

E. DISCUSSION of Results Section

The section is primarily for the discussion of results – not for the discussion of approach or method issues.
Discussion of approach or method issues goes in the Approach or Methods Section.
In this section, discuss the significance and ramifications of the results you obtained with respect to:
1. the project or study objectives,
2. the critical design criteria (if appropriate), and
3. other desired outcomes that you specified in your objective or goals statement.
4. surprising or contradicting results. How do you explain the surprises or contradictions?
Example Discussion Statement in that it includes further discussion of the results.
"The response time from station #1 to some locations within the planning area exceeded the
allowable limit of 15 minutes which is the limit specified in the Fire District’s Terms of Service
agreement with the County. For those areas that have a response time beyond 15 minutes, a
mitigation plan needs to be developed. Potential mitigating actions could include the building of
new fire stations to reduce response time to the distant areas, the upgrading of certain narrow
mountain roads so that fire truck travel time is reduced, or full-time staffing of the fire station so
that travel time of firefighters from out-of-station sites can be eliminated.

F. SUMMARY and CONCLUSION

In this section
1. briefly restate the project or study objectives,
2. briefly restate critical results that bear on those objectives, and
3. clearly state the final conclusions about the significance of the results relative to the planning or
project context.
Often, summary and concluding statements, if they are short (e.g., a sentence or 2 or a single paragraph)
are more appropriately placed at the end of the Discussion section if there are not a lot of conclusions
that need to be addressed within the context of the given study..

III. REFERENCE SECTION

Include all critical references to
1. sources of data, if not collected by project personnel,
2. materials used in developing the approach,

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3. references to software systems employed in the implementation of your study,

4. references to others results which you may have used for comparison purposes,
5. other pertinent references.

IV. MODEL ILLUSTRATIONS

If you do not embed the flow charts for your analysis models in the Approach or Method Section of the
report , place them here.

V. TABLES
Any tables of data or results to which you refer in the body of the report can go here. It is also possible to
embed data tables in the Approach or Method Section, and table of results in the Results Section of the
report depending upon where they are referenced in the text.

VI. RESULTS ILLUSTRATIONS

These illustrations will consist mostly of your important intermediate themes and final output themes.
However, any other illustrations of results, such as graphs or photos, etc. would also go here. It is also
possible to embed the illustrations in the Results Section of the report depending upon where they are
referenced in the text.

VII. APPENDICES
Other material that may be of interest to the reader, and which provides more detailed support or data for the
project objective or approach can be placed in appendices at the end of the formal report.

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Example Report Documents

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Requirements

Lab 1 “Finding the Features within"

(Chapter 18 in Getting to Know ArcView)
By Claire M. Hay
For GIS 4850 - Adv. GIS

Date: 2 Feb 2003

GIS 4850 – Adv. GIS, or GIS 4840 – Remote Sensing Report Writing
Requirements

Table of Contents

ABSTRACT _________________________________________________________________________ 1

INTRODUCTION ____________________________________________________________________ 1

OBJECTIVE ________________________________________________________________________ 1

DESIGN CRITERIA__________________________________________________________________ 1

APPROACH ________________________________________________________________________ 1

RESULTS___________________________________________________________________________ 2

DISCUSSION________________________________________________________________________ 3
ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES ___________________________________________________________ 3
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS _____________________________________________________ 4

REFERENCES ______________________________________________________________________ 4

List of Figures
FIGURE 1: FLOWCHART POTENTIAL HOUSING SITE-SUITABILITY MODEL ...................................................... 2
FIGURE 2: FINAL MODEL OUTPUT SHOWING 3 CENSUS TRACTS WITHIN COBB COUNTY, GEORGIA THAT MET
ALL THREE MODEL CRITERIA. ................................................................................................................. 2
FIGURE 3: OUTPUT FROM ALTERNATIVE B. .................................................................................................... 4

List of Tables

TABLE 1: PORTION OF EDITED ATTRIBUTE TABLE........................................................................................... 3

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Abstract

Introduction
A person with a family that includes school aged children is being transferred by their company from the
West Coast to Georgia. The family plans to buy a new house after arriving in Georgia. However, before
arriving in Georgia, the family would like to gain some idea of possible housing areas that might meet their
requirements for quality of life and schools for the children. The family is primarily interested in houses
within low population areas and in houses that are close to middle schools for the 13-year old daughter. The
employee’s company provides her with access to the ArcView Desktop GIS software and with a spatial data
set that consists of 1) Census Tract information containing population data for 1990, 2) Georgia County
boundary information, and 3) middle school location information for the State of Georgia. The employee
develops a simple site-suitability model to identify potential housing areas within Georgia that rudimentarily
meet the housing needs and desires of her family. The specification, implementation description, and results
of that site location model are described below.

Objective
The objective of this simple site-suitability model was to identify areas with low population levels that
contain middle schools within Cobb County, Georgia.

Design Criteria
Potential housing sites should be in lower population areas relative to the average population level of the
State of Georgia. In addition, the selected areas should be relatively close to middle schools so that the 13-
year old daughter can attend school within her own neighborhood. A review of taxing level data for the
State of Georgia, revels that Cobb County Georgia has lower tax levels than other counties in Georgia.
Thus, if the other two criteria described above are met, areas within Cobb County, Georgia are to be
preferred.

Approach
The model developed to identify potential housing areas that met the design criteria described above is
shown diagrammatically in Figure 1. The flowchart of the model identifies the required initial data inputs,
namely Census tract Data for Georgia that contains population information, county boundary information
for Georgia, and middle school location information for Georgia.
From the Census Tract population information for 1990, it was determined that the average population level
across all census tracts was 5,768 persons. Therefore ‘Low Population areas’ were defined as areas with a
1990 population level less than the average, i.e., with a population level < 5,768 persons. The Middle
School data was intersected with the Low Population information to determine whether any of the low
population areas contained middle schools. Several census blocks met both the Low Population criterion
and the middle School criterion. The intermediate output from the above overlay process was called ‘Low
Pop Areas w/Middle Schools’.

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Figure 1: Flowchart Potential Housing Site-Suitability Model

Lastly, from the Georgia County data Cobb County was selected since the tax levies for that county are
lower than other Georgia counties. The Cobb County boundary area was intersected with the ‘Low Pop
Areas w/Middle Schools’ information to determine whether any areas met all three design criteria.
<Notice, I haven’t told you yet whether any areas met all three design criteria. That information goes in the
results section.>

Results
The results of the Housing Site-Suitability model are shown in Figure 2 below. It can be seen that three
census tracts (shown in yellow) within Cobb County met all three site-selection criteria.

F
i
g
u
re 2: Final Model Output showing 3 census
tracts within Cobb County, Georgia that
met all three model criteria.

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Discussion
The priority criteria to be met were low population amount and close to middle schools. The third criterion -
located with Cobb County was desired but not required in comparison to the other two criteria. Luckily, all
three model criteria were found to be met within 3 census tracts in Cobb County. It was possible however,
that Cobb County might not have contained low population areas with middle schools. In that case, other
census tact areas of Low Population with middle schools outside of Cobb County would have been
considered.
The low population criterion was implemented based upon total population level within each census block.
Since the census blocks were not of equal geographic size a better criterion would have been to use
population density (population/sq. mi). Areas were selected as ‘low population’ solely on the basis of total
population within the boundaries of the census block. However, several census blocks were selected
because their total population was relatively low. Their population levels were low only because the area of
the census block was very small. In fact these census blocks had very high population densities, thus
violating the intent of the ‘Low Population’ criterion.

Alternative Approaches
The model could
Table 1: Portion of edited Attribute Table
have been enhanced
had population
density (persons per
acre) been used
instead of absolute
population numbers.
If the size of the
census tracts were all
about the same then a
‘de facto’ population
density would have
been implied.
However, the census
tracts did not all have
roughly the same area. To evaluate the effect of using population density instead of absolute population
levels, the model was rerun. First a population density field was added to the Census tract data. The
population density field was used to determine areas of low population instead of the absolute population
(pop_90) field. A portion of the edited Attribute table with the additional ‘population Density’ field added
is shown in Table 1: Portion of edited Attribute Table. The results of the second analysis are shown in
Figure 3. As can be seen by comparing Figure 2 with Figure 3 there are still areas with in Cobb County that
meet all three model criteria, however, the census tracts selected based upon absolute population level are
different than those selected using population density.

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Figure 3: Output from Alternative B.

Summary and Conclusions

This exercise serves as a demonstration of how to present a spatial analysis exercise or the development of a
spatial model. It provides an example report document based upon an actual student exercise that is
comparable to the types of exercises students will be running in class.

References
ESRI, 1992-2000. Getting to Know ArcView GIS. ESRI Press.