project report

Organization and Mechanics

Each report shall be submitted electronically in PDF format. Reports shall be double spaced, with adequate margins. Each page shall have a page number and the student's name on it, in the top right margin. A professional appearance to a report will not make up for poor procedures or results, but the lack of such professional appearance will certainly detract from the content, reducing a client's confidence in your work.

Style

While a polished literary style is not necessary in technical papers, they should conform to the elementary rules of grammar, syntax, punctuation, and clarity. Use the past tense and the passive voice (e.g., "The sample was tested," not "I tested the sample.") Contractions are NOT to be used in technical reports. Slang and colloquialisms shall be avoided. Be mindful of subject/verb agreement, and use complete sentences. Be concise, and quantify as much as possible; do not use nonspecific statements such as "The test was good." The tone of the report should be objective – it is not a marketing brochure.

Remember your audience. In some actual business assignments you will be preparing the report for people who do not have technical backgrounds, such as a consortium of business men. In such case, you must avoid the use of jargon and explain complex terms in plain English as much as possible. Therefore do not take shortcuts in class reports in your explanation of procedures and tests just because your professor already knows them. You must assume that you are writing the report for someone such as a client who does not already know the background and details of your project. On the other hand, verbosity is to be avoided. Be concise.

Avoiding Some Common Errors

1. All tables and figures must be mentioned explicitly by number and appear in correct numerical order in the body of the text. That is, Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4 must each be mentioned in the text at least once, and the first mention of Table 3 should not precede the first mention of Table 2.

2. The reference list and text citations must agree and must be accurate. All references cited in the text shall appear in the reference list, and all references listed in the reference list shall be cited in the text.

3. Acronyms and abbreviations should be spelled out the first time they are used unless they are common throughout the discipline. Basic units of measure do not need to be spelled out on first usage. These include: ft, in., lb (customary) and m, mm, kg (SI). Some very common abbreviations (U.S. and U.K. as adjectives; DNA and PVC for nouns) do not need to be spelled out on first usage. 

4. Avoid beginning sentences with a symbol, number, or lower-case letter.

5. The word "data" is plural and takes a plural verb.

6. Closing quotation marks follow periods and commas but precede colons and semicolons.

7. In series of three or more items, include a comma before the final item, e.g., "space, time, and matter."

8. Use "that" to introduce restrictive clauses, "which" for non-restrictive clauses, and observe generally conservative grammar conventions throughout.

9. Number all displayed equations. Plain sequential numbering through the manuscript is preferred, with Appendix equations numbered as, e.g., (A79), or starting a new sequence with (A1).

10. Equations should be numbered, but should not be referred to in text by their numbers alone; e.g., say "substituting in equation (45)" rather than "substituting in (45)."

11. Equations are read as part of the flow of a sentence and are punctuated as such.

12. Explicit multiplication signs (dots or crosses) are omitted, except for scientific notation, grids, vector operators, and when a multiplication wraps to a following line.

13. Values given in scientific notation should be expressed with a multiplication sign preceding the power of 10 (e.g., 3.4×10-18); in tables only, to conserve space, the form 3.4E-18 may be used.

14. Source material must be properly vetted, particularly information from the internet.

Table and Figure Format

Every table and figure should have a concise title (less than a sentence); more extensive descriptions or secondary information should be incorporated in a note to the table or figure. Table titles go ABOVE the table. Figure titles go BELOW the figure.

All tables are typeset with horizontal lines only; no vertical lines are used. Tables should not contain empty rows. Each column, including the first, must have a heading. Column headings should label the entries concisely (one or two words); the first letter of each word is capitalized. Units of measurement should be given in parentheses immediately below the column headings, not listed with the data in the body of the table. To indicate the omission of an entry, ellipsis dots (...) are used.

Figure legends should clearly and concisely label and explain figures and parts of figures. The figure legend should be a descriptive phrase, omitting the initial article (the, a, an). For multi-part figures (i.e., composed of multiple panels) the panels may be designated by letters clearly labeled in the figure itself and in the legend. Or panels may be referred to by position (top right, top left, middle, bottom, etc.). Your report may be reproduced in black and white, and therefore curves on graphs and like items should have distinguishing marks (circles, triangles, and so forth) in lieu of or in addition to color differentiation. All lines (solid, dashed, dot-dashed, etc.) and symbols (filled or open circles, squares, triangles, crosses, arrows, etc.) should be explained in the legend.

Some Practical Tips

For documents generated in word processing applications, the application spell checker should be used. However, the student should verify all spellings suggested by the checker. A spell checker cannot know whether the student meant to, too, or two; coarse or course; plane or plain; and so on.

The student is advised to have another person proofread the report if possible. The proofreader ideally will be reasonably proficient in language skills and technical writing rules.

Useful Reference Works

The following references may be useful in regard to technical report writing.

1. Consult the Chicago Manual of Style, The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, or Strunk's The Elements of Style for guidance.

2. For word usage, consult the current editions of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary or Webster’s International Dictionary, Unabridged.

3. For guidance on engineering terms, refer to McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms, Wiley Dictionary of Civil Engineering and Construction, or Means Illustrated Construction Dictionary.

4. For the presentation of mathematics, refer to Mathematics into Type (American Mathematical Society).

5. For use of SI (metric) units, refer to IEEE/ASTM SI-10, Standard for Use of the International System of Units (SI): The Modern Metric System