Customer Reviews

How To Prepare Defense-Related Scientific and Technical Reports: Guidance for Government, Academia, and Industry

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How to Prepare Defense-Related Scientific and Technical Reports is a combination how-to book and style guide with information that could very well be applied to any industry. Although the amount of detail is tremendous, this is one of the first books I have read that really provides step-by-step guidance for a professional scientific report with no need to pick and choose portions out of each chapter. The chapter sequence is well-designed and walks you through each aspect of the technical report.

Rice provides a history of the technical report, a background on his approach to this subject matter, and his background in providing technical expertise while serving on a committee on scientific and technical reports for the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the National Information Standards Organization (NISO).

The chapter contents give an excellent combination on ANSI/NISO technical report guidelines, beginning with formatting: report number formats, preparation of abstracts, and details of publishing requirements. I was also surprised at the amount of detail written about author and non-author responsibilities, report review and distribution, and marking requirements for both classified and non-classified documents.

The book contains an almost step-by-step guide to the front matter, body text, and back matter of a scientific report, covering every topic from cover page to heading levels to footnote symbols and their use.

Much attention was also given to the organization and design of reports, providing not only contextual guidelines for report publication, but also an ample amount of graphic examples for tables, columns, margins, image areas, placement of warning notices, emblems, and other graphical inserts contained in the report. There are detailed descriptions and accompanying illustrations for the orientation of tables and figures, which are great for future reference.

And just when I was sure this book only detailed the issues of print publication, Mr. Rice provides a section on the role of the editor in online markups and explains that the print versions are still favored because they provide an easy-reading alternative versus the eye strain of online reading.

Walter Rice has covered everything from cover page to appendix and then gives you more. He provides everything you need to write a successful scientific report--all in one book! If you are planning on writing a scientific technical report, I suggest you read this book first. After absorbing the guidelines provided in this book, all you will need are the words.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that the Defense Department has a written set of standards on how to write technical reports -- ANSI/NISO Z39.18.1995. It also has it's own style guide, 60 pages long, complete with it's own set of approved abbreviations, i.e. DOTMLPF - doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, and facilities.

This book is written by a member of the committee that produced ANSI/NISO Z39.18.1995 and is written with the combined goals of explaining the requirements along with doing so in a manner that can be easily understood and followed by the person charged with preparing documents. As such, this work is not written like the documents is is telling you how to write. In fact, it is written so that you can make sense out of it.