Technical Report Writing

A Guide For Students

by

Martyn Shaw

Department of Engineering and Product Design

University of Central Lancashire

Version 1.2

23rd Oct 2000

Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the support of various lecturers within the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Business Information Management, Univeersity of Central Lancashire, for their proof reading and useful general comments on this report. I would also like to acknowledge the students who have been the authors of some of the worst reports I have ever seen. They inspired me to produce this guide. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't have had this opportunity to learn more about the use of 'Word for Windows'.

Summary This report is concerned with the format and presentation of reports. It is itself presented as an example, hopefully to be followed by students within the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Central Lancashire for the assignments, project reports and so on that they are inevitably required to produce. The various sections of a report are described in detail, along with their relevance to the differing types of report students have to produce. The presentation of data is discussed in terms of communicating the relevant information in the best manner. Appendices show some typical abbreviations, units and multipliers and common mathematical symbols. Some typical graphs and a table have also been included. The purpose of this report is to assist students in writing and presenting better written submissions, which will be of benefit to them both during their course and in subsequent employment.

Contents Acknowledgements Summary Contents Section 1 - Introduction Section 2 - The format of the report 2.1 - Where to start 2.2 - Main divisions of a report 2.3 - Title page 2.4 - Acknowledgements 2.5 - Summary 2.6 - Contents list 2.7 - List of Figures and Tables 2.8 - Abbreviations 2.9 - Introduction 2.10 - Sections or Chapters of report (main body) 2.10.1 - General comments on sections and chapters 2.10.2 - Numbering system 2.11 - Conclusions 2.12 - Recommendations 2.13 - References/Bibliography 2.14 - Appendices 2.15 - Layout, typography and so on 2.16 - Proof Reading Section 3 - Presentation of Data 3.1 - General comments on data presentation 3.2 - Graphs 3.3 - Photographs 3.4 - Tables Section 4 - Conclusions Section 5 - Recommendations References Appendix A - Abbreviations Appendix B - Units and Multipliers Appendix C - Mathematical symbols Appendix D - Example graphs and Tables 2 3 4 5 6 6 7 7 7 8 8 9 9 9 10 10 10 10 11 11 11 11 12 14 14 14 16 16 17 18 19 20 22 23 24

Section 1 - Introduction This report describes and illustrates how a report should look and how it should be arranged. The aim is to help in the production of reports which look good, are easy to read and in which things can be found easily. Many common errors made by novices can easily be rectified by following simple rules of layout. These are explained here and if followed are sure to leave the report reader (often a student's assessor) in a better frame of mind. This has obvious advantages. The report draws heavily on the IEE leaflet 'Technical Report Writing'1, along with two documents available from the library2,3, other style books and the experience of the authors, to produce a style of report adaptable to most students' needs, from a report on a 3 hour library search to a final year project or thesis. The report contains appendices listing commonly used abbreviations, units and multipliers, electrical circuit elements and mathematical symbols, along with some example graph formats, an example table and a circuit diagram. It has been assumed that word processing facilities are available, although most of the guide-lines are not related to the technology being used. Word processors do however provide speling checks, easy editing, page formatting and numbering, automatic contents lists and so on. They cannot help much at the moment with punctuation or technical content however and so there is still have a lot of work to do! The most important thing to remember when writing a report is the person who is going to read it. Students should retain this guide for future use. It is recognised that there are many styles of report in use in different institutions and industry ('house styles') but it is not difficult to adapt, once the essentials of report writing have been mastered.

Section 2 - The format of the report 2.1 - Where to start A report is normally prepared because some work has been done and somebody else needs to know the outcome, either because they have asked for it or because the writer wants to inform or persuade. The work may have been laboratory experiments, library research, design work, mathematical analysis or a combination of these. This normally results in a considerable amount of paperwork, tables, graphs etc.. How then to arrange this material? In order to decide this the following questions should be answered:i) ii) iii) iv) v) vi) vii) viii) What is the purpose of the report? What is the report about? Which sections of the material are central to the main thrust of the report? Which parts are subsidiary information gathered along the way? Which sections are background work which may be useful but not vital? How much is long mathematical analysis, the results of which may be important but the details less so? How much has no relevance at all to the job in hand? Is some necessary material incomplete or not available?

Only the material central to the main aim of the report should go in the body of the report. The remaining useful parts being put in appendices, to be referred to as and when desired. Don't worry if it looks like most of the material will be in appendices this is noy uncommon. The aim is to make the body of the report clear and concise (short!). The irrelevant section should be put to one side, just in case they do turn out to be useful after all. Once material has been arranged in some sort of format as described above, a plan of the report can be made. This may be tackled by drawing up the contents list, thereby formalising the arrangement of the material and helping to get an overview of the report. The section headings in the contents list of this report will help for the basic form, as this should always be the same. More detail of what should appear in each section will be discussed in sections 2.2 to 2.13.

2.2 - Main divisions of a report The following section headings are mostly represented in this report and are generally required for a clear presentation. Those marked with an * are not always required, particularly in a shorter report. Title page Acknowledgements* Summary Contents list List of Figures and Tables* Abbreviations* Sections or Chapters of report (main body) Conclusions Recommendations* References/Bibliography Appendices These items will now be explained in detail. 2.3 - Title page The title page is the first page of the report that the reader sees. It is especially important therefore that it should be neat, not overcrowded and contain the relevant information. The title page should include the title of the report, who wrote it, what course and establishment they are from and the date. These are always required. Additional items may include whom the report is for, company logo, report reference number and a security classification, if appropriate. If the report is to go in a cover with a window, make sure the title and author's name align with the window. 2.4 - Acknowledgements If particular help has been received on the work contained within the report, it is polite to thank the persons involved. This is a suitable place to do that. The language used in the acknowledgements is often less formal than in the rest of the report. For example, in a final year project report you may wish to say 'Thank you to

my mate John who took me down the pub when I was depressed about this report' or something like that. 2.5 - Summary The summary is normally on a separate page. It is a brief (maximum half a page) overview of the contents of the report, its aims and main conclusions. It is normally the last section of the report to be written because the final contents and conclusions of the report are often not known until it is virtually finished. Substantial modifications should be expected as the material is organised, drawn together and seen in perspective. When writing the summary, attempt to give a view of the report in miniature. It may be wise to look at the section headings and lengths to assist here. Be concise and accurate in the use of language in order to keep the length down to half a page or less. Remember that it is primarily the busy reader who reads the summary instead of the whole report. 2.6 - Contents list The contents list is one of the first parts of the report to be sketched out and one of the last to be finalised. It will refer to all sections, divisions and subdivisions of the report and is the reader's guide to navigation within the report. It is not difficult for the report writer to produce a contents list after the report has been written and it provides a useful overview to the report. What should be stressed however is it's use as an aid to planning. The contents list should be drawn up early in the production of the report and provides guidance to the author with regard to what has yet to be written, what sections are misplaced and which are too lengthy or too short. It's usefulness far outweighs the time spent on preparation. The division of the sections and subsections will be covered in section 2.10 of this report. All reports should contain page numbers. In these days of word-processors pagination is an easy thing to do. Many word processing packages, including 'Word for Windows', will produce a contents list from section headings (see 2.15), including page numbers. This can be done during production of the report so that a possible planning option is to enter all the proposed section headings and then review them as the report progresses. When working by hand, page numbers should be the last things that are inserted as they will change as the report is modified. 8

2.7 - List of Figures and Tables This section lists the titles of the figures and tables, their reference numbers and their locations (page numbers). It is not always required, especially in a smaller report. In a large report however there may be reference to figures that are not in the immediate vicinity of the text and in this case, a reference to where they may be found is useful. Think of the reader when deciding whether to include this section. 2.8 - Abbreviations If a lot of specialist abbreviations have been used, it may be worth making a special table of them and putting it here. The table should be in alphabetical order of abbreviation. It is normally only required if the abbreviations are novel or would otherwise not be familiar to the reader. For example, if the report is for an electronics lecturer and abbreviations are being drawn from the field of medicine, it would be appropriate to list them here. When using abbreviations in text, it is normal to use the full term in the first instance, followed by the abbreviation, to be used subsequently, in brackets. For example '...have been investigating the effects that a pub lunch (PL) has on students' afternoon performance. It is found that a PL ...'. 2.9 - Introduction The introduction should outline the aim of the report and the way it is laid out. It often repeats parts of the summary - don't worry about this. It should also introduce the reader to the subject matter in hand, at a level suitable for the intended reader. If there are a range of readers with different backgrounds in mind then there should be sufficient information for the least well informed reader to be able to understand the basics of what is to be explained. This is probably best done by references to books, articles etc. and perhaps to the appendices. The introduction is a companion to the conclusions (see section 2.10) and is the second entry level to the report, after the summary. Some readers will read the summary, decide that they are interested in knowing more and then read the introduction and conclusions. They may not have the time or inclination to read the rest. It can be seen therefore that the introduction should mention the areas of work covered, the types of results presented and the type of conclusions and recommendations reached. It should not however pre-empt those sections.

2.10 - Sections or Chapters of report (main body) 2.10.1 - General comments on sections and chapters This, at last, is where the work will go. Chapters are used to break down the work, if it covers many separate topics. The chapter may be subdivided into logical sections, each of which may be further reduced into subsections. Some common sense must be used here as subsections should not be too long or too short. In this report, for example, the following subsection has been felt necessary as it is related to this section but may be taken as a stand-alone section if desired. Within the main body of the report, only put the work relating to the main theme of the report. All subsidiary work, long mathematical derivations, tables of results and other things not of immediate interest to the reader, should go in appendices. These are dealt with further in section 2.14. In smaller reports, such as this one, it may not be felt appropriate to have chapters, just sections. This is normal and is again up to common sense. 2.10.2 - Numbering system Chapters should be numbered sequentially using normal numbers. Divisions of a chapter are indicated 2.1, 5.6 etc. and subdivisions 2.1.3, 5.6.4 and so on. It is not normally necessary to further sub-divide sections. Note that every block of text should have a unique reference. This means that a division should not be followed by a block of text and then a further subdivision, as this leaves no unique reference to that block of text. An example of this is found above. If the title of section 2.10 was followed by a block of text and then subsection 2.10.1, referring to 'section 2.10' could refer to either the block of text or the text and the following subsection. Graphs and figures in a chapter should bear labels such as 'Figure 2.1' to illustrate the first figure of the second chapter. This makes it easier for the reader to find them. As noted in section 2.13, appendices are normally labelled with capital letters in order to distinguish them from the main text. 2.11 - Conclusions The conclusion section is normally reasonably short. It gathers together the results of the work in the form of what has been learnt that may be useful to the reader. No new work should be introduced in the conclusions; it is not a repository for afterthoughts.

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2.12 - Recommendations Not every report will have recommendations to make. This is more applicable to a company report or a feasibility study. If there are recommendations to be made, they should be clearly ordered and justified by reference to previous sections of the report and/or reference material. It may be helpful to think of them as 'Active Recommendations' in the sense that if the report is approved, these are the activities that would be implemented. 2.13 - References/Bibliography Most people use some books, Internet sites or other reference material when preparing a report. These sources must always be referenced. When quoting a formula or circuit diagram or whatever that was obtained from a book, put in the text a reference to the source. This means that the reader could reproduce the research if necessary and it covers you in case it is wrong. It also protects you from the accusation of claiming others work as your own (plagiarism). In this report references have been made using superscribed numbers. There are other ways which may be preferable in different circumstances1,2,3. 2.14 - Appendices Appendices should be used liberally for anything relevant to the report which would otherwise clutter up the body of the text. This may include tables of data, computer programs used to calculate something, the document requesting the report originally, tedious mathematical analysis, costings and so on. Appendices should be labelled with capital letters, in order to distinguish them from chapters. All appendices should be referred to or they may never be found by the reader. For example '...during a PL, drinks cost on average 5.35 per person (see appendix A for breakdown) whilst food averages 3.95 per person (see appendix B for menu)...' 2.15 - Layout, typography and so on In order to make the report easy on the eye, it is important to pay attention to page layout, typing styles and so on. The following points are worth remembering. Paper size - always use A4 size paper as it can be copied easily.

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Margins - sufficient margin should be left so that the binding does not interfere with the text, graphs etc.. It is normal to use a 30 - 40 mm margin at the left hand edge of the page and 25 mm on the other edges. Only use one side of the paper. Pagination - it is normal to put page numbers centrally in the footers. Page numbers should be continuous throughout the text, including any graphs or diagrams. Occasionally, appendices are numbered individually, using their letter as a prefix. Headers - these may be used to repeat the document title on each page and also the section number and title if desired. Font size - it is normal to use 12 points for the main text and a slightly smaller size for subscripts and superscripts. Always use one and a half or double spacing to make the text much more readable (this document is 1.5 line spaced). Punctuation - do not preceed commas and full stops by spaces or they may get split across line breaks. Use one space after commas, semi-colons and colons and two spaces after a full stop. This makes the text more readable. General layout - when compiling a report, it is often easier for style reasons to edit an existing report. This document may be used for this purpose, if you wish, by replacing the text but leaving the styles and layout the same. You should then not have problems such as section titles at the end of a page and the text on the following page, chapters not starting on a new page and so on. Binding - this is important as it is the first thing that the reader sees and feels as they pick up the report. It should be appropriate to the style of the report. In the case of a final year project, a special binding is required but for most purposes a plastic loose-leaf binder with a clear front is appropriate. Reports should be, in the words of one expert, 'Bound to Impress'. 2.16 - Proof Reading An important part of the production of any report is proof reading. You should try and get at least one and preferrably two or three people to do this for any report. Give each a clean copy of the report to mark up. Your proof readers may be people who 12

can fully understand the material or may be completely ignorant of it. Each will have a different and valuable point of view. Allow and encourage them to clearly mark errors, unclear passages, grammatical and punctuation error's and so on. Don't argue too much with them or they may not do you the favour next time. When you have all the proofs back, go through them all at the same time and do the corrections you agree with and don't do the ones that you don't agree with - it's your report after all! A final stage of proof reading, before printing the finished document, is to check that the page breaks have not fallen in silly places. This occasionally happens so that you get a single word on a page before a new chapter. There are various 'fiddles' that can be used to get over these problems but I leave you to find your own solutions.

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Section 3 - Presentation of Data 3.1 - General comments on data presentation The presentation of the data that has been gathered is vitally important. It is often what the reader is looking for and if it is presented in a garbled manner, it will only serve to confuse. Similarly, if the data is presented in a manner which disguises the true nature of the results, the reader may be initially happy but will eventually find out that they have been misled. Then you will be in trouble. Here then are some tips on the presentation of data, firstly in graphical formats and then, if all else fails, in tabular forms. 3.2 - Graphs It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand words. In the case of technical reports, a well annotated graphical display of the results may save that thousand words of description, and leave the reader with a better impression of what has been achieved. An example of a reasonable graph is shown in Appendix F. Graphs may be in a 'portrait' (vertical) format, in which case they just go in like a normal page, or they may be in a 'landscape' (horizontal) format. In this case they should go in the report so that it must be turned clockwise to read the graph. Take care, as with the rest of the report, that titles etc. do not disappear into the binding when the report is finally put together. A margin of at least 30mm would be wise at that edge. If possible, graphs should be generated by software compatible with the word processor ('Excel' and 'Designer' in the case of 'Word for Windows') and then 'cut and pasted' into the report. This ensure that they are scaled correctly on the page and avoids physical cutting and sticking and subsequent destruction by a photocopier. In general, graphs should have the following clearly visible. Title Axes Scales Key Various lines showing the data Every graph should have a title. This indicates what the data represents and where it was obtained from. Titles should not be too cryptic. For example 'Beer sales (product 14

1) in 'The Ship' (location 44) as a function of time of night' is much better than 'A Graph showing sales of product 1 in location 44'. Axes are the horizontal and vertical (or occasionally radial and circumferential) lines representing the quantities being displayed. They must be labelled clearly and correctly with the quantity and the units being used. Note that the horizontal axis is normally used for the 'independent variable', that is the variable which is being changed or is changing. The vertical axis is then used for the 'dependant variable', the quantity being measured. For example, if plotting a graph of beer sales against time of night, time is the independent variable and therefore would go on the horizontal axis. The words 'against' and 'as a function of' indicate the independent variable. Axes may be non-linear, such as logarithmic, probability etc.. In this case special graph paper must be obtained. Make sure it is the correct way up! Scales are the lines vertically and horizontally where the numerical information is read off. They must be sensibly ranged such that subdivision is easy. Do not use , for exaple, 0,7,14 etc. along the major divisions of normal graph paper as the minor divisions then work out in steps of 0.7. It is much better to use 0,8,16 etc. making the minor divisions 0.8 long, or better still 0,10,20 etc. so that subdivision is easier. A key on a graph is used when there are several different lines on the graph in different colours or styles. A sample of the line style is given along with what parameter has been varied to give a different curve. For example there may be a dotted line for one pub, a dashed line for another and a solid line for the average. The various lines or curves showing the data should be clear and unambiguous. Use different line styles or colours for each line. Beware that if a report is to be photocopied then colours will not come out. If the actual data points that were used to plot the graph are important, rather than just the shape of the curve, then these should be marked clearly with a small 'x', a circle etc., different for each curve. If however the shape of the curve is the important thing then actual data points do not have to be marked. They should however be in a table in an appendix. Sometimes a series of values have been measured for the same value of the independent variable and then the average plotted. In this case it is normal to use 'Error Bars' (short vertical lines with an horizontal tick at either end) to show the range of measured values.

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3.3 - Photographs Photographs of experimental arrangements, equipment layouts and so on can be very impressive and useful in a report but be careful not to over do it. There are dangers associated with photographs, not least processing cost and securing them effectively to the page so don't get too carried away. If you present photographs of, for example, oscilloscope screens, make sure that the graduations are clearly visible and that the axes are clearly annotated. Beware that photocopies will probably be a lot worse than the originals. 3.4 - Tables Within the main text of a report, tables of data should only be resorted to if absolutely necessary. They are generally difficult to read and so most readers will skip over them. If the data is presented graphically, put a table of results in an appendix and refer to it. An example table is presented in Appendix D. Tables should be labelled in the form 'Table 2.1' to indicate the first table of the second chapter. They should also have a title, column headings and row headings if applicable. Lines should be ruled to separate columns.

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Section 4 - Conclusions This report has covered various aspects of the production of a formal report. The technical content of the report has barely been mentioned as this will vary widely, but the general form of data presentation has been covered. From this report it is hoped that the reader will have gained an insight into producing a report which, even if the technical content is poor, will impress the reader with its clarity and ease of use.

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Section 5 - Recommendations The recommendations of this report are as follows, with the section numbers to which they relate. Remember that the reader is of utmost importance (1). Format the report so that it is clear, concise, interesting and easy to use (1,2). Keep the report as short as is reasonable (2). Use sufficient appendices, rather than clutter the report body (2.14). Give references to all material used from books and so on (2.13). Use clear, accurate, annotated graphs to present results (3). Use a word processor if possible (1). Check spellings, punctuation etc. rigourously (1). Get somebody to proof read your report (2.16).

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References 1. 'Technical Report Writing, Joan van Emden & Jennifer Easteal, IEE Professional Brief series, June 1985. 'Theses - A Guide to the Preparation and Presentation of Theses', Aidan Turner-Bishop and Beth Gabb, Lancashire Polytechnic, October 1986. Available free from the library. 'Getting it Right!', Aidan Turner-Bishop, Lancashire Polytechnic, Dec 1986. Available free from the library. 'The Concise Oxford Dictionary', 5th edition, Oxford University Press, 1969. 'Chambers 20th Century Dictionary', New edition 1983, Chambers, 1988.

2.

3.

4. 5.

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Appendix A - Abbreviations In this appendix we list some of the most commonly used abbreviations in the computing and electrical/electronics fields. This list is not intended to be complete and never could be as new abbreviations are being invented all the time. One has to become an expert in 'three letter acronyms' (TLAs) in order to read most technical publications these days. A-to-D ac ALU AM ASK AWGN bit bps C CPU D-to-A dB dc DRAM DSP EEPROM eg EPROM FM FPU FSK HF ie L LHS P ms PC pdf PLL PROM PSD analogue to digital alternating current arithmetic logic unit amplitude modulation amplitude shift keying additive white Gaussian noise binary digit bits per second capacitor, capacitance central processing unit digital to analogue deciBel direct current dynamic random access memory digital signal processor electrically erasable programmable read only memory for example erasable programmable read only memory frequency modulation floating point unit frequency shift keying high frequency (2-30 MHz) that is inductor, inductance left hand side micro-processor millisecond personal computer probability distribution function phase locked loop programmable read only memory power spectral density 20

PSK R RAM RF RHS rms ROM rv Rx s SNR TLA Tx WOM WORM

phase shift keying resistor, resistance random access memory radio frequency right hand side root mean square read only memory random variable receiver second signal to noise power ratio three letter acronym transmitter write only memory (!) write once read many

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Appendix B - Units and Multipliers In this appendix, we attempt to list the units of various electrical quantities, along with the multipliers in use. Quantity Capacitance Current Electromotive force Flux Flux density Inductance Magnetising force Memory Phase Power Resistance Processor power Symbol C I V B L H b B P R IPS Abbreviation F A V Wb T H A/m b B rad W Units Farads Amps Volts Webers Tesla Henries Ampere turns/meter bits bytes radians Watts Ohms Instructions/second

Multipliers exa peta tera giga mega kilo unit milli micro nano pico femto atto E P T G M k m n p f a 1018 1015 1012 109 106 103 100 10-3 10-6 10-9 10-12 10-15 10-18

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Appendix C - Mathematical symbols When writing mathematical formulae, always say what all the variables mean the first time they are used. Be consistent and use the same symbol for the same variable all the way through the report. An example of the first use of a formula in a report is given below.

"We can express this as

p(t,m) = min( [t/20] , [m/pr] )

where

p(t,m) is the number of pints to be drunk in an evening, t is the time until closing time in minutes m is the amount of money available, in pence pr is the price of a pint [x] is the largest integer less than or equal to x min(x,y) is the smallest of x and y "

Future uses of this formula do not require definition of the variables. (No claim is made as to the validity of the equation in particular cases!) Many mathematical symbols are available in many word processors. Regrettably these are often difficult to use. If a word processor is being used to produce the report, there is therefore have the choice of figuring out how it works and adjusting the notation to suit, or filling the symbols in by hand afterwards. Examples of what may be done on 'Word for Windows' are shown below. 1 0 The biggest problems with formulae are ones which take multiple lines. In many cases these must be penned in afterwards. 355 x-1 a exp(x).dx 113 b

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Appendix D - Example graphs and Tables

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Table D.1 - Beer consumption in pints per minute after opening time in two locations. Minutes after opening time 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Ship 0 2 4 6 8 9 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 18 19 19 20 20 21 21 Lamb and Packet 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

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