Report Writing Outline of Workshop Contents of a Report Formatting Pages Tables and Figures Referencing How to get started Common Mistakes Some General Suggestions Some Tools in Word Sections Styles Captioning Cross referencing Table of Contents Generation 1
Contents of Report in Order of Occurrence Title Page no page number only one page Executive Summary Provides the highlights of the work. Designed to provide crucial information to a senior manager and allow them to decide if they need to read the report Table of contents List of Figures List of Tables Note that executive summary through to List of Tables use Roman numerals for page numbers i, ii, iii. Page numbers are reset and use numbers at Introduction Contents of Report in Order of Occurrence Introduction (present and past tense) Background (past tense) Similar work in the area of your report i.e. literature review Body of your work (past tense) Details of project (including methodology and results) IGEN rule: Maximum three deep E.g 1.0 My academic life 1.1 My life at university 1.1.1 My favorite subjects Deeper sectioning is confusing - you are not writing an engineering design code MS Word can do this automatically 2
Contents of Report in Order of Occurrence Conclusions (present and past tense) Details summary of findings No new information References All documents in references must be referenced in text. Appendix Details that are to onerous to be in the body of the report E.g. Detailed calculations, drawings, surveys, model outputs Report Formatting 1.5 margin on left side 1.25 right side and top and bottom 12 pt font 1.5 spacing between lines Justified Text Report to be cerlox bound 3
Report Formatting Figures and Tables You must refer to figures in the text. If a figure is included, it should be referred to Place them in line with text or on page after first mention Copy and paste from application to MS Word Captions Tables label above Figures label below Center Tables and Figures Referencing Referencing is required to acknowledge other people s (authors) contribution to your report. It is required when you present something that is not a direct result of specific activities that you have done. Even when you paraphrase other s work it needs to be referenced. Failure to give appropriate acknowledgement for others work in your report is a serious offense which has resulted in ejection from the university. The Library has information to help you avoid plagiarism. http://www.library.ubc.ca/home/plagiarism/ 4
Referencing Format for Referencing Numbers or names and date (use endnotes or Endnote software for automatic tracking) methods: name and date text (Dunbar, 1992) more text numbered text [3] more text footnotes or endnotes text 2 more text Name and date method is more flexible Place reference marker in text at end of sentence or at location of author reference Referencing Quotation is when you repeat text from other work verbatim in your report. Format for Quotes Quotes longer than 5 lines require a separate indented paragraph Place reference after quote E.g. "In research papers and manuscripts submitted for publication, words that would be italicized in print are best underlined" [94]. 5
Referencing Listing of references in Reference Section For names and dates referencing (e.g. Temeng, 1997; White and Olson, 1992;Beer et al., 2002) Temeng, A., 1997. A Computerized Model for Truck Dispatching in Open Pit Mines. PhD Dissertation, Michigan Technical University. White, J. and Olson, J., 1992. On improving truck/shovel productivity in open pit mines. In Proceedings 23rd Conference on Application of Computers and Operations Research in the Mineral Industry, SME. pp. 739-746. Beer, F. P., Johnston, E. R., and Dewolf, J. T., 2002. Mechanics of Materials, 3rd ed., McGraw-Hill. For numbered referencing 11. Ulrich, Karl, T. Product Design and Development, 2nd ed, Irwin, McGraw-Hill, Toronto, ON, 2000. 12. Personal communication, Dr. Pierre Berube, October 13, 2004 Number in order of appearance in report Be consistent! Use Chicago Manual of Style for details How to Get Started No single way to approach this You are likely to get better at it with practice Some tips: Do the table of contents (i.e. outline of report sections) first Keep in mind the story you want to tell. What do you want the reader get from the report. provides structure Add appropriate Figures and Tables Write the introduction last 6
How to Get Started Tips (Continued) Put excessive details in Appendices Ask yourself, is this information pertinent to the overall message that you want to convey? Keep in mind that the person reading the report likely has time constraints! Try to compartmentalize themes and ideas to avoid repetitions and allow the reader to follow through your story. Only write things that you understand enough to talk about intelligently. Quality above quantity. Only put in the report what is required to convince the reader of what you are trying to communicate. Some Common Mistakes Use of First Person I we, us, our. This is unacceptable in a technical report Failure to reference figures taken from others Do not use contractions don t won t can t. These are not acceptable in a technical report. Avoid slang terms, and informal language (e.g. nowadays) 7
Some Common Mistakes Problems arise when too many words come between the subject and verb of a sentence. Twelve ounces of adhesive (were/was) added. A number of highly respected engineers (were/was) confused about the ethical aspects of this issue. Either the old manual or the recent procedures (is/are) acceptable. Either the recent procedures or the old manual (is/are) acceptable. Some Common Mistakes Putting too much faith in a spell-checker theirfor there to for too nailed for mailed nuclear for unclear trailfor trial form for from At best, annoyance At worst, readers will seriously question your ability as a writer At the very worst: Careless in spelling Technically careless 8
General Comments\Suggestions How you package your work is as important as the quality of the work you are presenting Don t get too personal or detailed: We went to the machine shop and spoke with the chief machinist, Bob, and his assistant, Jose, after they had finished their coffee break. We had a lively discussion about how to build the part. They had some good ideas. In the end, we chose the simplest method which was to bend the metal sheet around a firm horizontal bar that Jose had brought from his backyard. Ask yourself: Is this information contributing to the message that you are trying to convey? General Comments\Suggestions Often a good idea to write the numbers from one to ten as words and all other numbers as figures. two transistors 232 stainless steel bolts three linear actuators 12 capacitors If a number begins a sentence, spell it out. Thirty-two cubic metres of soil were removed. Be concise: Previous investigations suggested that the foundation is liquefiable in the event of a large earthquake and that further investigation is warranted. However, this is surprising since all our observations show that the foundation is composed of very competent rock. or We observed only competent rock in the foundation. This cannot liquefy in the event of an earthquake. No further investigation is necessary. 9
Tools in Word Sections Ensure each section is designated with a section break Styles Setup up styles for each type of text to ease formating Use of Normal for entire document is impractical. Base a series of text styles on normal and adjust accordingly Captioning Captions entered using the caption tool or with a custom field code can be cross-referenced with ease Cross referencing Use for figures, tables, and references. Makes editing and updating document easy Table of Contents Generation If the above have been followed, tables of contents, list of figures and tables can be easily inserted 10