A technical report (also scientific report ) is a document that describes the process, progress, or results of technical or scientific research or the state of a technical or scientific research problem. It might also include recommendations and conclusions of the research. Unlike other scientific literature , such as scientific journals and the proceedings of some academic conferences, technical reports rarely undergo comprehensive independent peer review before publication. They may be considered as grey literature . Where there is a review process, it is often limited to within the originating organization. Similarly, there are no formal publishing procedures for such reports, except where established locally.
19-467: Historical documents are original documents that contain important historical information about a person, place, or event and can thus serve as primary sources as important ingredients of the historical methodology . Significant historical documents can be deeds , laws, accounts of battles (often given by the victors or persons sharing their viewpoint), or the exploits of the powerful. Though these documents are of historical interest, they do not detail
38-404: A book or a newspaper article , or unstructured like a handwritten note. Documents are sometimes classified as secret , private , or public. They may also be described as drafts or proofs . When a document is copied , the source is denominated the " original ". Documents are used in numerous fields, e.g.: Such standard documents can be drafted based on a template . The page layout of
57-623: A document is how information is graphically arranged in the space of the document, e.g., on a page. If the appearance of the document is of concern, the page layout is generally the responsibility of a graphic designer . Typography concerns the design of letter and symbol forms and their physical arrangement in the document (see typesetting ). Information design concerns the effective communication of information , especially in industrial documents and public signs . Simple textual documents may not require visual design and may be drafted only by an author , clerk , or transcriber . Forms may require
76-412: A document. It has become physical evidence being used by those who study it. Indeed, scholarly articles written about the antelope are secondary documents, since the antelope itself is the primary document." This opinion has been interpreted as an early expression of actor–network theory . A document can be structured, like tabular documents, lists , forms , or scientific charts, semi-structured like
95-494: A limited lifespan, or even stored in digital formats, then lost track over time. Some companies and government entities are attempting to increase the number of documents that will survive the passage of time, by taking into account the preservation issues, and either printing documents in a manner that would increase the likelihood of them surviving indefinitely, or placing selected documents in time capsules or other special storage environments. Document A document
114-460: A phenomenon, whether physical or mental." An often-cited article concludes that "the evolving notion of document " among Jonathan Priest, Paul Otlet , Briet, Walter Schürmeyer , and the other documentalists increasingly emphasized whatever functioned as a document rather than traditional physical forms of documents. The shift to digital technology would seem to make this distinction even more important. David M. Levy has said that an emphasis on
133-579: A sharp tool, e.g., the Tablets of Stone described in the Bible ; stamped or incised in clay and then baked to make clay tablets , e.g., in the Sumerian and other Mesopotamian civilizations. The papyrus or parchment was often rolled into a scroll or cut into sheets and bound into a codex (book). Contemporary electronic means of memorializing and displaying documents include: Digital documents usually require
152-414: A specific file format to be presentable in a specific medium. Documents in all forms frequently serve as material evidence in criminal and civil proceedings. The forensic analysis of such a document is within the scope of questioned document examination . To catalog and manage the large number of documents that may be produced during litigation , Bates numbering is often applied to all documents in
171-403: A technical report may be produced is when more information is produced for an academic paper than is acceptable or feasible to publish in a peer-reviewed publication; examples of this include in-depth experimental details, additional results, or the architecture of a computer model. Researchers may also publish work in early form as a technical report to establish novelty, without having to wait for
190-534: A visual design for their initial fields, but not to complete the forms. Traditionally, the medium of a document was paper and the information was applied to it in ink , either by handwriting (to make a manuscript ) or by a mechanical process (e.g., a printing press or laser printer ). Today, some short documents also may consist of sheets of paper stapled together. Historically, documents were inscribed with ink on papyrus (starting in ancient Egypt ) or parchment ; scratched as runes or carved on stone using
209-458: Is a written , drawn , presented, or memorialized representation of thought, often the manifestation of non-fictional , as well as fictional , content. The word originates from the Latin Documentum , which denotes a "teaching" or "lesson": the verb doceō denotes "to teach". In the past, the word was usually used to denote written proof useful as evidence of a truth or fact. In
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#1732844842014228-453: Is defined in library and information science and documentation science as a fundamental, abstract idea: the word denotes everything that may be represented or memorialized to serve as evidence . The classic example provided by Briet is an antelope : "An antelope running wild on the plains of Africa should not be considered a document[;] she rules. But if it were to be captured, taken to a zoo and made an object of study, it has been made into
247-531: The Computer Age , "document" usually denotes a primarily textual computer file , including its structure and format, e.g. fonts, colors, and images . Contemporarily, "document" is not defined by its transmission medium , e.g., paper, given the existence of electronic documents . "Documentation" is distinct because it has more denotations than "document". Documents are also distinguished from " realia ", which are three-dimensional objects that would otherwise satisfy
266-422: The daily lives of ordinary people, or the way society functioned. Anthropologists , historians and archeologists generally are more interested in documents that describe the day-to-day lives of ordinary people, indicating what they ate, their interaction with other members of their households and social groups, and their states of mind. It is this information that allows them to try to understand and describe
285-561: The definition of "document" because they memorialize or represent thought; documents are considered more as two-dimensional representations. While documents can have large varieties of customization, all documents can be shared freely and have the right to do so, creativity can be represented by documents, also. History, events, examples, opinions, stories etc. all can be expressed in documents. The concept of "document" has been defined by Suzanne Briet as "any concrete or symbolic indication, preserved or recorded, for reconstructing or for proving
304-453: The lawsuit so that each document has a unique, arbitrary, identification number. Technical report Technical reports are today a major source of scientific and technical information. They are prepared for internal or wider distribution by many organizations, most of which lack the extensive editing and printing facilities of commercial publishers. Technical reports are often prepared for sponsors of research projects. Another case where
323-588: The often long production schedules of academic journals. Technical reports are considered "non-archival" publications, and so are free to be published elsewhere in peer-reviewed venues with or without modification. Many organizations collect their technical reports into a formal series. Reports are then assigned an identifier (report number, volume number) and often share a common cover-page layout. Technical reports used to be made available in print, but are now more commonly published electronically (typically in PDF ), whether on
342-410: The technology of digital documents has impeded our understanding of digital documents as documents. A conventional document, such as a mail message or a technical report , exists physically in digital technology as a string of bits, as does everything else in a digital environment. As an object of study, it has been made into a document. It has become physical evidence by those who study it. "Document"
361-460: The way society was functioning at any particular time in history . Greek ostraka provide good examples of historical documents from "among the common people ". Many documents that are produced today, such as personal letters, pictures, contracts, newspapers, and medical records, would be considered valuable historical documents in the future . However most of these will be lost in the future since they are either printed on ordinary paper which has
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