What is a Technical Report?

A technical report is a document written by a researcher detailing the results of a project and submitted to the sponsor of that project. Many of Georgia Tech's reports are government sponsored and are on microfiche. DOE, NASA and the Department of Defense are top sponsors.  A number of U.S. Government sponsors now make technical reports available full image via the internet.

Although technical reports are very heterogeneous, they tend to possess the following characteristics:

• technical reports may be published before the corresponding journal literature
• content may be more detailed than the corresponding journal literature, although there may be less background information since the sponsor already knows it
• technical reports are usually not peer reviewed unless the report is separately published as journal literature
• classified and export controlled reports have restricted access.
• obscure acronyms and codes are frequently used