Research Skills for Engineering Students

Technical reports describe the progress or results of scientific or technical research and development.. They are useful for finding information on current research and research that is conducted outside of the academic publishing world.

Technical reports are intended to present research findings to sponsors, or employers, such as the federal government. When the government conducts research they may require that reports of the research be made available for public disclosure. Unlike scholarly journal articles, technical reports are usually not peer reviewed and are not published through a traditional publishing agency, they are considered to be "grey literature." This can make it more difficult to find technical reports as the agency or sponsor may not make reports available online. 

Technical reports usually appear as part of a numbered series from the issuing agency. These numbers are important and are often the easiest way to find a specific report or document. Each agency has its own numbering system, however technical report number systems usually include the following elements:

• agency, society, or company delineator
• year code
• specific number for each report

Some examples of numbers are:

• NASA-TM-111279
• N96-29630/6GAR
• EPA/456/R-99/002
• FHWA-RD-97-028 2
• SAE 2001-1096

Content adapted from: Speare. M. (n.d.). LibGuide: Technical reports. https://libguides.lib.umanitoba.ca/c.php?g=298094&p=1988029

There are multiple resources for locating technical reports and depending on what your are looking for you may need to consult several sources. Reports can be found in Summon, but they may be catalogued as books and certainly not all reports can be found in a Summon search. Similar to selecting an appropriate subject database, choosing the right technical report resource may depend on the topic you are searching. 

If you cannot find what you are looking for through one of the resources on this page, contact a librarian.