Using a wide variety of composition skills, proposals present research on a specific topic and use that research to make a formal suggestion for a future course of action. As a technical document, proposals must be informative, persuasive and precise. Proposals should include an introduction, an explanation of the problem the proposal addresses, a description of the proposal's objectives, a detailed explanation of the proposed solution and methodology, a list of resources required to enact the solution and a concluding argument for the solution's merit. Within a technical writing classes, the composition of a formal proposal provides students with an opportunity to produce documents they can submit to actual organizations.
Technical definitions analyze a technical concept such as a scientific principle, a piece of complicated machinery or some type of technical apparatus. A technical definition assignment breaks down a concept into an easy-to-understand document that provides a full explanation for the lay audience. The document itself divides the concept up into thematic pieces such as "History of the Term," "Application" and even "Etymology." It then uses primary and secondary resources to explain each thematic subsection, yielding a comprehensive definition. An activity requiring the composition of a technical definition benefits students by requiring them to translate technical terms and concepts into accessible and understandable language.
Instruction manuals focus on task completion. They are essentially step-by-step how-to instructions related to the completion of a specific task. They emphasize concision of language, as well as readability. Because the instruction manual must be clear, concise and easy-to-follow, successful completion of this activity requires students to produce an instruction manual that can actually be used to complete the task in question. An instruction manual itself focuses on a singular task. The author explains the process of completing that task in detailed steps that can be used by the reader, as you might receive with a piece of furniture that needs to be assembled. Upon completing an instruction manual, students could share their manuals with peers and determine whose manual was easiest to follow in terms of completing the task it described.
Reports, whether a formal research report or a feasibility report, are specifically structured technical documents that present and analyze information relating to a specific topic. Similar in many ways to a research paper, reports break down information into discrete and distinct sections such as "Methodology," "Discussion," "Evaluation" and "Conclusion," so as to produce a readable and precise technical document. The purpose of reports is to make recommendations pertaining to their area of focus.