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While considerable advances have been made in the technology of software development, costs continue to rise. Research has shown that incomplete, ambiguous or inconsistent requirements specifications are a frequent cause of cost escalation and poor quality of the end product. This thesis reviews the problems in this area and their causes and examines a number of current systems and methodologies designed to better state the users' requirements. Techniques developed by the US Naval Research Laboratory for generating requirements specifications for embedded computer systems are selected for detailed examination and the results, of a limited case study in the application of these techniques to a Navy weapon system are presented. These indicate that use of the techniques need not require a high degree of expertise in computer science and that they are adaptable to new systems. (Author)