Report Writing Guidelines for Electrical and Computer Engineering Students, Study notes of Communication

Download Report Writing Guidelines for Electrical and Computer Engineering Students and more Study notes Communication in PDF only on Docsity! Report Template Joe B. Student and Dan Simon * Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Cleveland State University Cleveland, Ohio 44115 May 20, 2004 Abstract Every report should have an abstract. The abstract summarizes the report using between 100 and 200 words in a single paragraph. The purpose of an abstract is so that a reader can quickly get an idea of the main points and contributions of the paper. The author often writes the abstract last. This is because it is after the body of the report is written that the writer gains a good overview of the contents and results of the report. All reports submitted to me should follow the format shown in this template. Also, if you use this template for reports in your courses, you will be in good shape. However, be aware that CSU has a separate template for theses and dissertations. 1. Introduction All reports should have an introduction. One purpose of the introduction is to introduce the problem. For instance, the background of this report template is as follows: I receive a lot of reports from students, a lot of them have common errors in writing, grammar, and organization, and all of them are in different formats. It looks more professional if all the reports that I collect are in the same format. This is especially true if the reports are distributed to other people, or if they are put up on the Internet. Another purpose of the introduction is to summarize the paper. The introduction can be considered as an extended abstract, or the abstract can be considered as an abbreviated version of the introduction. The introduction should summarize the report sections. Section 2 of this report discusses section headings, and Section 3 discusses fonts. Section 4 discusses .... Finally, Section 8 contains some concluding remarks. Most reports will not have this many sections. A total of between four and six sections is more typical. 2. Section headings * Email addresses j.b.student@csuohio.edu, and d.j.simon@csuohio.edu. This work was supported in part by ASQL Grant # 123-AB-65789-TGL-458923. Report Template J. Student and D. Simon Page 2 of 8 The section headings are begun with numbers. The section headings begin with a capital letter, but all of the other letters in the section headings are lower case. In addition, make sure that the section heading (or subheading) and the first two lines of the following text are on the same page. This section is wrong because the section heading is on a different page than the first two lines of the section. You can enforce this in Microsoft Word by selecting the section heading and the first two lines of the section, then selecting the menu item Format → Paragraph, then checking the check box “Keep with next.” 2.1. Subheadings Subheadings are numbered with an additional numeral such as 1.1, 1.2, etc. If you have a 1.1 subsection, then you must also have a 1.2 subsection. It does not make sense to have a 1.1 subsection without a 1.2 subsection. This would be like trying to divide a pie into one piece. If you want the pie to be in one piece, then don’t divide it. If you want to divide it, then you have to divide it into at least two pieces. Similarly, if you want to divide a section into subsections, you have to divide it into at least two subsections. Note that the headings style used in this template can be automated by using the Microsoft Word menu item Format → Bullets and Numbering → Outline Numbered. 2.2. Title Every word in the title is capitalized, except for prepositions, articles, and conjunctions (words like of, or, and, the, etc.). However, the first word of the title is always capitalized. The title should be concise, typically 10 words or less, and should avoid acronyms unless they are commonly known. Include your name, affiliation (e.g., Cleveland State University), and mailing address below the title. Include the date of the report below the title. If the work was done as part of your thesis research, include your advisor as your coauthor. If the work was done as part of a class project, do not include your advisor as your coauthor. Include the authors’ email addresses as a footnote on the first page. The footnote should also acknowledge any financial support that helped you in your work. This is the only time you should use a footnote in the paper. 3. Fonts, justification, paragraphs, and spacing Section headings and subheadings are 14-point font. The title is 16-point font. All the other text in the report is 12-point font. Never use all capital letters (this includes the report title and the section headings) unless you want to convey the impression of yelling. All fonts should be Times New Roman. A new paragraph is indicated by skipping a line. Indents should not be used. The justification is flush left, ragged right. Don’t force all of the lines to end at the same point on the right margin. Report Template J. Student and D. Simon Page 5 of 8 “figure” and “section.” If you want to refer to a specific section, then always capitalize the word “section” − for example, “In Section 6 we discuss tables and figures.” If you are the word “section” in a more generic manner, then do not capitalize it − for example, “In this section we discuss tables and figures.” This is like personal titles. For instance, if you are using a title with a specific person you capitalize their title, but if you are not using the title with a specific person’s name then you do not capitalize the title. “The history books tell us that President Washington was the first president of the United States.” Or, “One of the pickiest professors I’ve ever seen is Professor Simon.” Always insert a blank line before and after each table. Jamaica Lebanon 1999 1.98 3.14 2000 2.45 3.03 Table 1 − Average soybean prices (dollars per bushel) The same general rules apply to figures. Also, figures should always have a white background. Matlab often creates figures with a gray background, but you need to change it to white (using Matlab options) before you put it in a report. The figure axes should always be labeled and legible. You can use color, but make sure the lines will be distinguishable if the report is printed in black and white. Figure 1 is a bad figure. Although it uses different colors for the lines, which is good, both lines are solid. So when the report is printed on a black and white printer the two lines will not be distinguishable from one another. Also, part of the background is gray, which is bad. Conserve toner! Also, the numbers on the axes are too small. Finally, the axes are not labeled. Figure 1 − Bad figure Figure 2, on the other hand, is a better figure. The entire background is white. The lines are different styles (one is solid and one is dashed) so they will be distinguishable when printed on a black and white printer. The axes are labeled (including units) and the two traces are labeled with a legend. Finally, the axis labels and numbers are large enough to Report Template J. Student and D. Simon Page 6 of 8 read. All of this formatting can be done within Matlab. Notice that Figure 2 has gridlines, which (in general) provides a more professional appearance to a graph. Figure 2 − Good figure Speaking of units, when referring to some quantity and its units, separate the quantity from the units with a space. For instance, the minimum voltage in Figure 2 is −1 mV. Note the space between the “−1” and “mV.” You would never write, “Today for lunch I had 10bananas.” Instead you write, “Today for lunch I had 10 bananas.” Your microcontroller voltage supply is not “5V.” It is “5 V.” When you use the word Table, Figure, Section, Chapter, or some other designator, along with a number, the designator must always be on the same line as the number. Table 1 shows soybean prices, but this sentence is not correct because the word “Table” and the number “1” are on separate lines. In Microsoft Word you can insert a space that does not allow a line break by typing Ctrl-Shift-Space. So instead of typing T-a-b-l-e-<space>-1, you should type T-a-b-l-e-<Ctrl-Shift-Space>-1. 7. References and appendices Most reports should include references. It is hard to imagine a report without references. References should be arranged either alphabetically or in order of appearance in the text. (I prefer alphabetical, but most journals and authors prefer order of appearance.) Every reference that is listed should be referred to in the text. References should be referred to with the reference number in square brackets. When the reference list is finally presented at the end of the report, the word “References” is not preceded by a number; that is, the references section is an unnumbered section. The purpose of including references is so that the reader can look up those references. Make sure the reference has enough information so that the reader can obtain the references. Reference [1] shows how to refer to a thesis or dissertation. Note that at the beginning of a sentence, a reference must be preceded by the word “Reference.” However, in the middle of a sentence, the reference is never preceded by the word Report Template J. Student and D. Simon Page 7 of 8 “Reference.” For example, [1] shows how to refer to a thesis or dissertation. Reference [2] shows how to refer to a journal publication. Reference [3] shows how to refer to a web page, but internet references are generally discouraged because the links get broken so quickly. Reference [4] shows how to refer to a conference publication, and [5] has a template that can be used for writing a thesis at Cleveland State University. Reference [6] shows how to refer to a book, and [7] shows how to refer to a contributed chapter in an edited volume (i.e., the chapter author is different than the book editor). Appendices are included after the references, and are labeled Appendix 1, Appendix 2, etc. Appendices contain material that is not essential to understanding the report, but that an interested reader can refer to for the sake of completeness. For instance, detailed mathematical proofs, block diagrams, and program listings could all be included in appendices. 8. Conclusion All papers should have a conclusion. This template has discussed various aspects of report writing. The student who attempts to follow these guidelines will see a marked improvement in his or her written communication skills. Like anything else, good writing takes practice. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t get it right the first time. Just keep practicing. One purpose of a conclusion is to summarize the report. For instance, in this report we discussed how sections should be numbered, and how the title should be formatted. We also discussed what types of fonts should be used at various points of the report. We talked about spelling, punctuation, and equation formatting. We talked about the proper use of tables and figures, and finally we talked about how references should be formatted. Another purpose of the conclusion is to summarize the benefits and drawbacks of the material that was presented. For instance, I could say that the benefit of this report template is that students now have a guideline that will improve their writing skills. However, a drawback of this template is that students may feel that they are spending more time on writing and report formatting rather than technical research. Each student needs to strike a balance between time spent on technical work, and time spent on writing and other communication skills. The final purpose of the conclusion is to present ideas or proposals for future work that could be conducted either by the author or by someone else. For example, this report could be expanded in the future by including additional grammatical rules and guidelines. Finally, it should be noted that a paper could violate a lot of the rules discussed here and still be an excellent paper. For instance, you could use different margins, right justification instead of ragged right margins, different font sizes or styles, different capitalization rules, or a host of other choices. The important thing is to be consistent. It does not matter too much if you capitalize the first letter of every word of your figure