Professional Competency and Report Writing
This domain tests whether your written output could be relied on by a client, a court or a regulator: structured, traceable, and separating fact from opinion.
Structure examiners expect
Title and document control, terms of reference, executive summary, methodology and data sources, results and analysis, conclusions, recommendations, appendices (calculations, photographs, test certificates), references. The executive summary must be readable alone and must contain the conclusions - but nothing that is absent from the body.
Writing rules
- Past tense for what was done; present tense for what is true.
- Separate observation, interpretation and recommendation, sentence by sentence.
- Every number carries a unit and a source; every claim carries a reference such as a code clause or test report number.
- Match significant figures to measurement precision; do not report 0.3512 mm from a 0.1 mm gauge.
- Use tables for repetitive data and labelled drawings for geometry.
- Control versions: report number, revision, date, author, checker, approver.
Worked example
Distress investigation text: "The 0.35 mm crack at grid C-4 exceeds the 0.30 mm limit for exposed conditions in ACI 318 (observation plus code reference); the probable cause is insufficient cover (inference); a cover-meter survey of 10 percent of columns is recommended (action)." Three sentences, three clearly labelled statuses - evidence stays distinct from opinion.
Traps that cost marks
New findings appearing only in the summary; conclusions that restate results without answering the terms of reference; recommendations with no supporting evidence; missing units; unlabelled photographs; copied text without citation.