Sample Professional Format Format is the layout and typography of a document. Typography includes the style and size of type for a document. Layout includes the type of paper, margins, line spacing, paragraphing, and pagination. Typography Use of initial capitals in titles and headings. Capitalize the first letter of the first and last words--no matter what the words. Capitalize the first letter of every included word except for articles, conjunctions, and prepositions that have fewer than four letters: a, an, and, as, but, for, in, nor, of, on, or, out, the, to, up, and yet. Layout Title or Major Heading For a major heading, skip three lines from the top margin (or previous section) and place the heading. Use a font larger than the text (14 or 18 points), initial capitals, and boldface. For minor reports, the major heading serves as the report's title. First Subheading Subheadings are 12 or 14 points, flush left, and boldfaced. For all subheadings, skip two lines before and one line afterwards. Use initial capitals. First Sub-Subheading. Sub-subheadings are in 12 point type, boldfaced, and followed by a period. Skip one line before the sub-subheading. Begin the sub-subheading's text one space after the period. Use initial capitals for sub-subheadings. Second Sub-Subheading. If you have one sub-subheading, you must have a second. Otherwise, the first sub-subheading has nothing to be parallel with. Second Subheading Layout If you have one subheading, you must have a second. Otherwise, the first subheading has nothing to be parallel with. "Introduction" and "Conclusion" are descriptive because the audience expects particular kinds of information from them. References When incorporating the opinions, data, and illustrations of other sources into your writing, you must give credit to those sources. One style is the Author-year referencing system. Within the text of the article or report, references should be cited by giving in brackets the last name of the author(s) and the year of publication of the reference. The year should always be enclosed in brackets; whether the name of the author(s) is enclosed depends on the context. The two possibilities are illustrated as follows: Recently, a new chemical process was developed for eliminating nitrogen oxide emissions from diesel engines [Perry and Siebers, 1986]. Recently, Perry and Siebers [1986] developed a new chemical process for eliminating nitrogen oxide emissions from diesel engines. 1
Authors For three or more authors, list the first author's name as follows: [Lee and others, 1972]. If there is no author listed, give the first word (not articles, conjunctions, or prepositions) of the document: [Manual, 1983] or ["Plastic," 1989]. If you have two documents with the same author and year (for example, two documents by Jones in 2003), then assign the reference listings as follows: [Jones, 2003a] for the citation that alphabetically appears first at the end, and [Jones, 2003b] for the citation that appears second at the end. Book Author, Title in Initial Capitals and Italics, edition # (City of Publication: Publisher, Date of Publication). Fox, R.W., and A.T. McDonald, Introduction to Fluid Mechanics (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1978). A Manual of Style, 12th ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1969). McElroy, W.D., Cell Physiology and Biochemistry, 3rd ed., Foundations of Modern Biology Series (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971). Article Author, "Title in Initial Capitals and Quotation Marks," Journal Name in Italics, vol. #, no. # (Date), page #s. Owyoung, A. "High Resolution Coherent Raman Spectroscopy of Gases," in Laser Spectroscopy IV, ed. by H. Walther and K. W. Rothe (New York: Springer- Verlag, 1979), pp. 175-182. Perry, R.A., and D. L. Siebers, "Rapid Reduction of Nitrogen Oxides in Exhaust Gas Streams," Nature, vol. 324, no. 2 (August 1986), pp. 657-659. Steeper, R.R., "Reducing Nitrogen Oxides With Ammonia Injection," Phys. Rev., vol. 13, no. 2 (1983), pp. 132-135. Newspaper Author (if known), "Title in Initial Capitals and Quotation Marks," Newspaper Name (Date), section #, page #s. Luoma, J.R., "U.S. Hunts New Ways to Clean Up Wastes," New York Times (3 January 1988), pp. 15, 18. "Plastic Explosives Blamed for Airline Disaster," New York Times (3 January 1989) sec. 2, p. 11. Report Author, Title in Initial Capitals and Italics, Report # (City of Publication: Publisher (Company or Agency), Date). Borcherdt, R.D., Results and Data From Seismologic and Geologic Studies Following Earthquakes of December 7, 1988, Near Spitak, Armenia SSR, vol. 1, USGS OFR 89-163-A (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Geological Survey, 1989). Guide to Operations, IBM Personal Computer Hardware Reference Library #1502490 (Boca Raton, Florida: IBM Corporation, 1984). Spent Fuel Storage Requirements, DOE RL-88-34 (Richland, WA: Department of Energy, 1988). Sheldon, K.E., Analysis Methods to Control Performance Variability and Cost in Turbine Engine Manufacturing (Blacksburg, VA: Virginia Tech, 4 May 2001), pp. 156-158. Patent Patent Holder, Patent # (Date of Patent). Lyon, R.K., U.S. Patent No. 3,900,554 (August 1975). 2
Brochure Author, "Title in Initial Capitals and Quotation Marks," brochure (City of Publication: Publisher (Company or Agency), Date). Cheng, D., "Chemtronix XT Manometer," brochure (Asheville, NC: Chemtronix Corporation, 1974). Interview Speaker's Name, Speaker's Affiliation (City of Interview: Date of Interview), type of interview. Lee, R., Engineer at Apple Corporation (San Jose: 5 June 1987), phone interview. Letter Author, Affiliation (City: Date of Letter), recipient of letter. Alley, C.D., Plant Manager of Mason- Hanger Pantex Plant (Amarillo, TX: 3 March 1989), letter to Amarillo Globe News. Web Site Author, "Title," web listing in italics (City: Publisher, Date). Thole, Travis, "Exploring the Possibility of Primitive Life on Mars," http://tc.engr.wisc.edu/tcweb/uer/uer97/ thole.html (Madison: Undergraduate Engineering Review, November 1997). Varian Corporation, "Smithsonian Researchers Use High-Tech Digital Imaging Device to Study Collections," http://www.varian.com/ (Palo Alto, CA: Varian Corporation, 13 February 2002). What is reference management software? Reference Management software is specifically designed to enable you to create a database or library of references which can then be stored, searched and used in conjunction with word processing packages (such as Word) to input references as you write an article or create independent bibliographies. Source: http://fbox.vt.edu/eng/mech/writing/index.html E.g. BiblioExpress Record the reference details 3
Reference exported from BiblioExpress to MS Word Key features of the software include Creation of a database of your references You can create one large database or several separate ones for individual research projects. The software allows you to input any type of reference from journal articles and book chapters to theses, government reports or web pages and email communication. Key features of the software include Importing references: directly from bibliographic databases Each record input can have additional information attached beyond the bibliographic information such as keywords, abstracts and links to the web addresses (URLs) if they exist. The more information you add to each reference - including data such as where copies are held or if the item is on order through inter-library loans - makes the package more user friendly and meaningful to you as a researcher. All the information is then reachable within your database! References can be imported directly from key online bibliographic databases such as Web of Science, Medline, etc into specified databases/library within your reference management package. References can be imported with abstracts and keywords attached to extend the usefulness of your database. Having input references either manually or electronically, these can be searched and added to your document {articles, lecture notes, essay} in order for a bibliography to be created at the touch of a button. The software interacts with most word processing packages and translates the intext references into a fully formatted bibliography following the selection of an appropriate style. The style chosen will determine how the intext reference is displayed (author/date (Harvard) or numeric (Vancouver)) and how the formatted bibliography at the end is displayed. The styles available include those required by submission to specific journals such as the British Journal of Sociology, Lancet, MLA Bibliography, Nature, etc. The process is very straightforward and makes the software almost invaluable. 4
Bibliographies can be created by searching your database for key terms or authors etc. and displaying references according to a chosen style. The packages support several hundred styles. Additional features of the software The integrity of the database is maintained by the use of standard keyword/author names and journal abbreviations from managed lists to ensure consistency within the database. The software also detects duplicate records during the importing process, so aiding the integrity of your database. 5