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Engineering 198: Analyze

Library information and resources for ENG 198.

Easy Search - Engineering

The largest category of Engineering writing. Documents that fall in this category evaluate ideas, objects, actions, or their effects and are highly structured in nature.

Design Reports

A design report presents a design and evaluates whether or not it met the project's requirement.

This type of report is of interest to clients, engineers and investors (or stakeholder in general).

A good example is this design report that was presented by Highway England about the progress of a project to improve England's highways.

You might write this type of report about a semester's-long project that you did for a course.

There's no specific place to search for design reports. They are the property of the contractor doing the report and/or the client they are doing the report for.  When done for a government, they will become official reports.  Depending on the contract permissions, design reports may be presented on a project's web page.

Lab Reports

You will write lab reports for experiments that you conduct in your engineering or other science discipline courses. These reports assess the results of experimental work, whether in the lab or in the field. Your professors and/or TAs will be interested in reading these reports. Here is an example of a lab report. Although extremely useful and important, lab reports are not published in their entirety, but often contribute to the methodology or results sections in published articles or chapters.

Review Papers

Review articles assess the state of knowledge in a field, and recommend next steps. They are a good way to get caught up on a particular topic. When you become an expert in a particular field you may be asked to write a review of this field.

Here is a an example of a review article. A good place to look for review articles is Scopus. After you conduct a search with keywords, select "Review" under "Document type" on the left panel, then click on "Limit to".

Note: some articles are labeled "review" but they are not. Review articles should lack a "materials and methods" section.

Bid Evaluations

These reports assess the technical and economic quality of options for a project. For example, here is a standard form for evaluating bids submitted to the World Bank Group for the installation of information systems. These types of reports are important for clients and corporate decision-makers. Bid evaluations are typically confidential to the company.

Calculations

Calculations are critical parts of any publication as they provide proof and clarity to the discovery process.  Be sure your calculations are appropriately labeled and in order.  See this article for included calculations.

Feasibility and Usability Studies

These reports determine the critical factors required for the success of the project. They're read by clients, engineers and governments. A good example of this type of report is the one presented about the MCORE project on Green street.  

Code Comments

These are comments embedded within computer code that may explain the intended process or notes to programmers or others reading the computer program.  Comments are often indicated with markings which the processor ignores.

Environmental Assessments

These reports are written for government employees, clients, and the public to outline environmental outcomes, both positive and negative, for community based projects. The Green Street MCORE project addressed environmental sustainability and pedestrian/vehicular regulations in this report

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