Formal Analytical Report

I will be providing the topic Its related to my second assignment

Assignment 3 requires that you write a comparative analysis of two or three different pieces of equipment to meet a need in your workplace. For those working from home or currently not working, you can still conduct a comparative analysis; you will simply focus on a piece of equipment that might be useful to you at home – for example, you might have recently lost a lawnmower and now need to conduct a comparative analysis to determine the most valuable choice for replacement. You should conduct your comparison based on three to four objective factors, to provide an informed perspective based on the need your report is designed to meet.

Details

A true technical comparison can be based on many factors – cost, equipment serviceability, replacement pieces, warranty, etc. – so you are only required to choose the three or four most relevant criteria to your comparison. In the example of the lawnmower above, one key factor might be power source – an electric lawnmower has less range than a gas-powered lawnmower, due to the need for it to be plugged in or due to a limited storage capacity. This would be an essential factor in making a decision about whether the replacement is required for a larger or smaller lawn, for example.

Other key factors in creating a comparative analysis are demonstrating the need for the comparison to be conducted, and the credibility of the method you’ve chosen to make the comparison. These topics will be developed further in Module 5, but to summarize here, your report will require some contextualizing information (background, scope, methodology) in order for it to make sense to your audience. To that end, you will need to provide a complete report introduction as part of the final assignment. Chapter 19 in your textbook provides a good foundation in the nature and contents of a formal report; refer to it when planning your topic.

Finally, since technical reports are a more formal type of document – and are often written to external clients or audiences – they will need to include some prefatory information (a table of contents, list of illustrations, transmittal document, and summary) so they can be used by multiple audiences.

Overall, the length of the technical report should not exceed twenty pages, from beginning to end. This includes the prefatory and supplemental material. Below is a rough set of guidelines on the length of each section:

Prefatory material – Letter of Transmittal, Executive Summary, Table of Contents, List of Illustrations – about 5 – 6 pages.

Introductory material – Purpose, Background, Scope, Methodology – about 3 – 5 pages.

Discussion/Analytical material – Individual comparative sections – about 7 – 10 pages.

End material – Conclusions, Recommendations, References page – about 3 pages.

Appended material – length varies, depending on whether any material has been appended or what type of information is included.