I write technical reports for a living, and as such i know how to read a technical report properly. Whenever an article comes up that cites a technical report you can bet that im going to read it!
As such i notice a lot that many authors of articles either dont understand how to properly read a technical report, or dont fully read through it. Leading them to cite a source that contradicts their own point.
Due to the purpose of such reports they tend to be one of the best sources for what happened in a scenario with little bias on what is stated. It's this scientific nature that can also cause people to read them in ways that are incorrect, or cause people to miss-interpret the results.
How do you read a technical report well?
Most technical reports follow the same format: Executive summary, purpose, procedure, results/discussion, conclusion and appendix A/B. If you want to take one thing away from report without reading it fully, you can read the executive summary, as thats the entire purpose of that section (something you can hand to IE, the CEO of a company and give him the gist of what the results were). However citing it without reading through the rest can cause issues if the point the author is attempting to make is not directly, and perfectly aligned with the scenario tested in the report. If trying to take data from the technical report to prove a point that is not aligned with said report, i would suggest pulling data from the appendices and analysing it in your own context. this; however, requires at least some form of credibility on your own part, as you may be interpreting something well above your paygrade. (So to speak)
The next issue authors tend to have is adding bias to a report. This becomes extremely obvious because a proper technical report should not contain the typical words you will find in a biased statement. Specific words to watch for are any form of "definites" (as i call them) such as "will not," "cannot," "never," and "impossible." A proper technical report will address the probability of the results from the scenario. These reports will also avoid writing in the first person, and instead tend to write in more of a third person style, avoiding reference to any people involved in testing.
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