SURVEY OF READER PREFERENCES CONCERNING THE FORMAT OF NASA LANGLEY-AUTHORED TECHNICAL REPORTS

The U.S. government technical report is a primary means by which the r esults of federally funded research and development (R&D) are transfer red to the U.S. aerospace industry. However, little is known about thi s information product in terms of its actual use, importance, and valu e in the transfer of federally funded R&D. Little is also known about the intermediary-based system that is used to transfer the results of federally funded R&D to the U.S. aerospace industry. To help establish a body of knowledge, the U.S. government technical report is being in vestigated as part of the NASA/DoD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Resea rch Project. In this article, we summarize the literature on the U.S. government technical report and present the results of a survey of U.S . aerospace engineers and scientists that solicited their opinions con cerning the format of NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC)-authored tec hnical reports. To learn more about the preferences of U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists concerning the format of NASA LaRC-authored t echnical reports, we surveyed 133 report producers (i.e., authors) and 137 report users in March-April 1996. Questions covered such topics a s: (a) the order in which report components are read; (b) components u sed to determine if a report would be read; (c) those components that could be deleted; (d) the placement of such components as the symbols list; (e) the desirability of a table of contents; (f) the format of r eference citations; (g) column layout and right margin treatment; and (h) writing style in terms of person and voice. Mail (self-reported) s urveys were used to collect the data. The response rates for report pr oducers (i.e., authors) was 68% and for users was 62%.