Use of Appendices in a Technical Report

Dr. Faith A. Morrison
15 October 2007
Modified 19 March 2008

Unlike a title, an introduction, a conclusion, etc., an appendix is not required in a report.  An appendix is a section at the end of a report that holds information that is not essential to the understanding of the report.  It may seem that information that is not essential should just be omitted from the report.  This is often the case.  There is some "non-esential" information, however, that may need to be available to some readers of a report.  Items to be included in an appendix include,

1. Raw data. Most readers of a report will not need your raw data, but the person who picks up your project after you leave it will be very interested in the raw data.  Also, you may wish to have an archive of your raw data, and including it in the appendix of a report is a good way of organizing such an archive.
2. Equipment instructions.  A report typically gives a general desciption of methods used and also detailed disscussions and interpretations of the results.  It is not necessary in a report to give step-by-step instructions on how to operate a particular piece of equipment.  Having such a step-by-step instructions would, however, be very useful for your own records in case you need to go back to that equipment, and it would be quite useful to the person who takes up the work after you.  It may be helpful to include such instructions in an appendix.
3. Derivations.  A technical report should be as short as possible.  In the service of this goal, detailed derivations are often not included in the body of the report.  In preparing the report you may have spent a great deal of effort in tracking down a particular derivation, however, and you may wish to be sure that you can find and comprehend the derivation some time in the future.  You can make sure that you (and your readers) have access to such derivations if you include them in the appendix.  If the derivation is easliy accessed in a published source, however, it is better to cite the derivation rather than repeat it.

Since the appendix contains "non-essential" information, it can be stripped from the report when the document circulates, saving paper and shortening the report (always a good thing).  It is therefore very important to never place anything essential in an appendix.  Any data, tables, graphs, lists of nomenclature, names, addresses, etc. that is needed to justify or understand the content of the report should be contained in the report and not in an appendix.  If you are confused as to whether to include information in the report or in the appendix, imagine circulating the reort without the appendix.  If it can be done, the information can go in the appendix; if it cannot be done, you must find a place for that information in the main body of the report.

Some details on writing appendices:
1.  If there is only one appendix, call it the Appendix, not Appendix A.  Most reports have only one appendix.  Certainly nothing you write for your undergraduate degree will require multiple appendices.
2.  If there are multiple appendices, call them the Appendices and designate them by letter or number (letter is more common, e.g. Appendix A, Appendix B, etc.).
3.  Title your appendices following the style you would use for a figure or table caption.  For example, "Appendix A:  Raw data of pressure versus flow rate."