Document Structures

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I. Homework

Document Objectives:

 To dissect a problem into knowns and unknowns;

 To document a logical progression in solution process;
 To critically reflect on final answer(s) in order to develop intuition.

Page Header Format:

Presentation of work in a neat, organized, and professional manner is to follow
the layout shown in Figure 1. Multiple pages must be stapled together to avoid
losing sheets. On each page, your name, course and assignment title, date, and
page number out of the total number of pages in your submission should be
included. Problems should be numerically ordered in the same way as given in
the assignment. Analogous to keeping a proper logbook/notebook of work
activity in your future career, it is important to date each page for accurate
chronology. In the workforce, this is important for establishing a record of time
that can be important for patent filings or intellectual property litigation.

[COURSE NAME]:
[NAME] [DATE] #/#
[ASSIGNMENT TITLE]

Figure 1: Header format for each page of homework submission.

Problem Format:
Unless stated otherwise, homework may be submitted on 8.5” × 11”
engineering paper or white printer paper. When starting a new homework
problem, start with a new sheet of paper.

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I. Homework

For each problem, the following five sections are required:

1. Given: A brief statement of the useful data given in the problem.

2. Find: What are you being asked or expected to solve?
3. Diagram: Type of schematic depends on the course: kinematic diagram
showing system origin, coordinate axes directions, and pertinent
dimensions; free-body diagrams showing forces and moments; simple
2-D, orthographic view diagram showing appropriate system
boundaries/control surfaces.
4. Solution: A list of appropriate assumptions you invoke to simplify the
solution process while maintaining an acceptable degree of accuracy;
your step-by-step approach including important equations/formulas,
their simplifications based on stated assumptions, and your final
answer(s) in correct units. If a problem requires a graphical solution
(plot), use Excel or MATLAB to build the plot. Print the plot and
attach the paper to your homework.
5. Conclusion: Is your final answer consistent with expectations? How
does it compare with your intuition or other available data? What does
the answer physically mean in the context of the problem? Are the
final units consistent with the input units?

Your final answer(s) must be encircled or boxed, as shown in the homework

example of Figure 2.

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I. Homework

Penny Penguin ManAV: HW 1 1/10/2020 1/3

1) Given : - Well-insulated room heated by electric heater

- 5 kJ of electrical work input

Find : Change in energy of room air, ΔE

Diagram :

Win = 5 kJ

ΔE =?

Solution : Taking system to be the volume of air, the first

law of thermodynamics is written as:

𝑄 − 𝑊 = 𝛥𝐸
Assume no heat transfer (adiabatic) since well-
insulated  Q = 0. Work input to system is a
negative quantity by convention, so that
W = Win = -5 kJ:

0 − (−5 𝑘𝐽) = 𝛥𝐸
𝛥𝐸 = 5 𝑘𝐽

Conclusion : The work done on an adiabatic system must

be equal to the increase in energy of the
system.

Figure 2: Homework format example.

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II. Engineering Report Structure

Document Objectives:
An archival of acquired and analyzed information intended to stand alone on
its comprehensiveness of detail. Creating a comprehensive document of your
project is important for recording your novel solutions, designs, and final
products. The main purpose of the Engineering Report is to deliver such
important information about engineering problems, methods, solutions and
implications of your studies to readers.

Sample Usage:

 Design projects
 Contract/consultant work
 Comprehensive laboratory report
 Theses and dissertations

General Organization:
With all details of the investigation documented, audiences should be able to
comprehend the significance of your solutions and engineering decisions. In order
to effectively communicate this information, a well-organized Engineering
Report will:
 Identify target reader groups;
 Demonstrate importance and impacts of the investigation;
 Outline objectives and goals of the project;
 Describe plans to study the problems identified or requested;
 Summarize your methods and approaches concisely;
 Inform results achieved by authors/team;
 Conclude important findings and solutions for the posed problem(s).

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II. Engineering Report

Format:
The Engineering Report follows the basic structure below:
1. Cover Page
2. Executive Summary
3. Table of Contents
4. List of Figures and Tables
5. Nomenclature
6. Main Body:
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Background
6.3 Methodology
6.4 Sample Calculations
6.5 Results
6.6 Discussion
7. Conclusions
8. References
9. Appendices

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II. Engineering Report

1. Cover Page:
The cover page includes your name (or names of all group members),
course title and number, name of institution, paper title, submission
date, and instructor name to whom the work is being submitted.
A paper title should not be too broad, but rather sufficiently specific
with distinguishing details and methods of the particular work to
better help readers identify whether your work is appropriate for their
purposes at first-glance. For example, the title “Scanning Electron
Microscopy of a Ceramic-Metallic Composite Material” is neither too
long, nor too general. It contains appropriate keywords and details to
convey to prospective readers interested in plastics, for example, that
it may not contain the information for which they are looking.
2. Executive Summary:
An executive summary is a brief overview of a report designed to give
readers (specifically, supervisors or customers) an overview of the
problem and outcomes use in for decision making. For some
reports/articles intended for publication in the general scientific
literature, this is more commonly called the “Abstract” rather than
“Executive Summary,” and is usually limited to only several hundred
words of condensed technical detail. Executive summaries typically
have multiple paragraphs or pages, being proportional to the length of
the document.
A subpar executive summary is a sure way to lose readers. After
reading the executive summary, your audience should understand the
main points you are making and your evidence for those points without
having to read every part of your report in full. Guidance for the
executive summary is given below:
 The purpose is to provide key information up-front, such that
while reading the report, a reader has expectations that are
fulfilled on a continuous basis. The key to a good summary is
the first few sentences, which must contain the most essential
information that you wish to convey.

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II. Engineering Report

 The summary must include problem definition, purpose, brief

details of approaches, important results, and major conclusion.
 The summary is to be written as if the reader is totally
uninformed about your project and is not necessarily going to
read the report itself.

 The Executive Summary is to be one page with one figure

maximum, and cannot be fully completed until the project report
is complete.
An example executive summary structure is shown in Figure 3.

Background and Approach

Project purpose, description, stages, methods

Key Findings
What are your main, specific results?
 Here’s one key result supported by NUMBERS!
 Another key result supported by NUMBERS!
 …

Conclusions
What do your results show?
1. Here’s one conclusion from the results.
2. Here’s another conclusion from the results.
3. …

Recommendations
What actions should be taken from your conclusions?

Figure 3: Executive summary structure.

3. Table of Contents:
The table of contents must begin on a new page. The page is provided
with a heading, “Table of Contents.” This page presents the structure
of the report by providing a list of section headings/subheadings and
their respective page numbers. The table of contents should list the
section name and starting page number for each section of the report
in the order of appearance.

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II. Engineering Report

Page numbers for “front matter” (comprising the Executive Summary,

Table of Contents, List of Figures, List of Tables, and Nomenclature)
that precedes the main body of the report is to be numbered lower-
case Roman numerals, with Arabic numerals used in main sections of
the report. Note that the cover page is not included in the table of
contents. The appendices are placed at the end or the report in the
order that they are referred to in the main body.
An example table of contents structure is shown in Figure 4.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary .................................................................................................. i

Table of Contents..................................................................................................... ii
List of Figures ......................................................................................................... iv
List of Tables .......................................................................................................... vi
Nomenclature......................................................................................................... vii
I. Introduction ...........................................................................................................1
II. Background ..........................................................................................................4
III. Methodology .......................................................................................................9
IV. Results ..............................................................................................................15
V. Discussion ..........................................................................................................21
VI. Conclusions ......................................................................................................26
References ..............................................................................................................28
Appendices
Appendix A: MATLAB Program for ODE Solver ...........................................30
Appendix B: Sample Calculations .....................................................................32

Figure 4: Example table of contents structure.

4. List of Figures and Tables:

In many engineering and technical reports, schematics and illustrations
are important and effective methods to deliver critical details of work
plan, configurations of apparatus, concepts of designs, layouts of

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II. Engineering Report

process, etc. Illustrated and tabulated information must be

summarized to aid readers skimming for information, using sections
titled List of Figures and List of Tables . Figure and table numbers
must be arranged according to the order of presentation, and include
the associated captions and page number of appearance in the right-
hand column. The captions of tables and figures must be descriptive
enough and must correspond to the captions and locations found in
the text. An example list of tables is shown in Figure 5.

List of Figures

Figure 1: Surface oil visualization of stall cell pattern ............................................... 5

Figure 2: Critical-point topology of stall cell .............................................................. 7
Figure 3: Lift curves for three primary stall types at equal Reynolds number ......... 13
Figure 4: Test section setup for airfoil PIV data acquisition .................................... 15

Figure 5: Example list of figures.

5. Nomenclature:
Symbols and abbreviations are used to represent variables and names
used throughout the document. Writers declare an alphabetical list of
all symbols to standardize the use of the quantities and letters
throughout the report in the Nomenclature section. Acronyms and
abbreviations must be spelled out at their first appearance in the text,
regardless of the presence of the Nomenclature section; sometimes,
acronyms and abbreviations are added at the end of the nomenclature
in a separate list.
The alphabetical listing of symbols is arranged in the following
sequence: all ordinary symbols are listed first, followed by the
superscripts and then the subscripts. Finally, auxiliary symbols are
defined; for example, overbar and underscore for vectors and averages,
or accent marks for time-dependent components. When mixed with
Roman and Latin alphabets, the list is arranged in the following
sequence: all Roman letters (in alphabetical order, with the capital
letter of each symbol before lowercase letters; for example “A” followed

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II. Engineering Report

by “a”, then “B”) first, followed by all Greek symbols (in the order of
the Greek alphabet, capital letters before lowercase letters).
Word has an alphabetical sort function that will accomplish this for
you. A sample Nomenclature listing is shown in Figure 6.

Nomenclature

AR wing aspect ratio

a speed of sound
CL airfoil lift coefficient
c airfoil chord length
D cylinder diameter
Re Reynolds number
Δ change in quantity
δ boundary layer thickness
Г circulation

Subscripts
0 reference point
1 first camera exposure gate
2 second camera exposure gate
max maximum value

Superscripts
T matrix transpose

Abbreviations and Acronyms

ABS Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene
CFD Computational Fluid Dynamics
NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration (United States)
POD Proper Orthogonal Decomposition

Figure 6: Example nomenclature listing.

6. Main Body:

The main body is where you follow-through on “what you told the
readers you were going to tell them.” The body is organized into
sections (headings and subheadings) to logically guide the reader
through this information, and will vary according to the nature of the

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II. Engineering Report

particular work. The requirements of your project should help you

identify appropriate section headings to accomplish this organization.

6.1 Introduction
The Introduction of an Engineering Report addresses the problems
to be solved, describes the goals of the project, discusses current
limitations and alternative solutions of the problems, emphasizes
the uniqueness of your work, and summarizes what engineering
judgement was made based on the work done in this project. In
order to demonstrate the importance of the problems, writers
typically start with motivations of the project and an overview of
current technologies, along with relevant technical challenges.
Authors are then set-up to clearly define the problems to be solved.
The Introduction section may conclude with a brief outline of the
structure of the rest of the report.
A good introduction must have:

 Problem Identification: formulate the problem to be

improved or eliminated.
 Motivations: Explain why the problem is important. Avoid
grandiose statements, such as: “Since the beginning of
time…”
 Objectives: Itemize what you are trying to accomplish.
 Scope: State the focus of your investigations and analyses.
 Limitations: Consider what constraints you would face.
 Organization (optional): How the report will be organized.

6.2 Background
In this section, you should provide background to the problem you
intend to solve, including background research on the previous
works and existing solutions. A literature review provides a detailed
background of the issues and methods that have been studied by
previous workers in the area. The Background may consider the
following aspects depending on the project question(s) being posed:

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II. Engineering Report

 What are the past and present issues in the field?

 Are there solutions which have been attempted by others?
 What defines this problem as unique from previous cases?

In order to conduct an effective review and background research,

the whole process includes:

 Searching for related works using library databases;

 Sorting and prioritizing the retrieved literature;
 Analytical reading of articles;
 Critical assessment of existing literature;
 Comparison across studies;
 Organizing the content into a coherent narrative.

6.3 Methodology
The Methodology section describes actions taken to investigate the
problem(s) and the rationale for the application of specific
procedures or techniques used to identify, select, process, and
analyze information applied to understanding the problem. This
section allows the reader to critically evaluate the overall validity
and reliability of methods used in the course of the study. The
methodology section of an engineering report answers two main
questions: How were the data collected or generate, and how were
the data analyzed?
This section describes how the assigned (or formulated) problem is
tackled by using analytical, numerical, and experimental
approaches to generate engineering solutions. Selected methodology
is crucial for any branch of scientific investigations because an
unreliable method produces unreliable results and, as a
consequence, undermines the value of your interpretations of the
findings. Therefore, authors must provide detailed information
about project plan, materials, product design, process design,
experiments, instrumentation, measurements, and evaluation
methods using theoretical and numerical tools by which the writers
can reach a final solution.
The Methodology section should answer the following questions:

 How was a certain method chosen?

 Is a selected method appropriate to study objectives?

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II. Engineering Report

 How were data collected and processed?

 What theoretical/analytical techniques were used?
 How was the prototyping or simulation developed?
 What is the quantified uncertainty of the data?
 How was the product or process design developed?
 How was the design solution evaluated?

6.4 Sample Calculations

Sample Calculations should be a presentation of how the test data
were manipulated to arrive at the given results. Show each
calculation that is performed, including substitution of numerical
values and units. If a particular calculation is done repeatedly,
simply show one complete calculation. Do not show elementary
calculations that would be obvious to any engineer. Even if
spreadsheet software is used for data reduction, a complete sample
calculation is necessary.

6.5 Results
The Results section is where you report the findings of your study
based upon the methodologies you applied to gather information.
The results section should state the findings of the studies arranged
in a logical sequence without bias of interpretation. A section
describing results is particularly necessary if your report includes
data generated from your own measurements and simulations. This
section summarizes and displays those findings and achievements
from the project. Results are displayed primarily in the form of
visual and textual representations from performed analyses. The
text points out the most significant portion of design refinements,
products, processes, experiments, and computations. The processed
data will be summarized in a chart of graph to represent your
findings and their significance. When visual representations are
used, writers may want to indicate key trends or relationships and
highlight expected/unexpected findings. The main text should tell
the reader when to look at a table or figure and introduce the
contents of the table or figure. It is important to indicate any key
features or trends to which the reader should pay attention, and
draw a conclusion from the table or figure which answers original
questions put forth in the Introduction.

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II. Engineering Report

6.6 Discussion
The purpose of discussion is to interpret, synthesize, and describe
the significance of your findings, and to explain any new
understanding or insights about the problem after you have taken
the findings into consideration. For reader convenience, the
Discussion section is often merged with the Results to form a
Results and Discussion section. The discussion will always connect
to the introduction by way of the original questions or hypotheses
you posed, but it does not simply repeat or rearrange the
introduction; the discussion should always explain how your study
has moved the reader's understanding of the engineering
challenges declared at the end of the introduction. In this section,
writers can offer an assessment of whether their decisions were
appropriate to reach the final engineering and scientific
judgement. To effectively assess, discussion must include a brief
explanation for results, comparisons with the offered hypothesis,
and unexpected findings. If the comparison was made with
existing literature, a clear statement must be provided whether
your work confirmed previous studies or created a new engineering
solution. More importantly, an explanation can be offered for how
your new solution could be applied in broader contexts.

7. Conclusions:
The Conclusions section is intended to help the reader understand why
your project should matter to the audience after they have finished
reading the paper. A conclusion is not merely a summary of the main
topics covered or a re-statement of your investigations. This section
provides final comments about the major findings you have arrived at
in the Results section. Authors also can introduce possible insights and
creative approaches for the engineering problems based on the results
of your study. A well-written conclusion demonstrates your
understanding, significance, and impact on the field through the
considered study. The conclusion also addresses how a previously
identified gap in the literature has been addressed by findings from
your project.
A good Conclusions section answers questions such as:
 What was learned through the project?
 What remains to be learned?

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II. Engineering Report

 What are weaknesses and shortcomings of the work?

 What are the strengths of the results?
 What are possible applications of the work?
 What are next steps you would recommend?

8. References:
All findings, figures, and data for which you cannot claim credit in
producing must be referenced, with complete citation details provided
in this section. References are not “general sources for the reader to
refer.” Rather, specific statements in YOUR report that draw upon
facts and work from OTHER sources are “references.” The references
section contains the complete details of each source cited, so that
someone with further questions about the finding or data being offered
can locate it.
Failure to cite references is referred to as plagiarism.

9. Appendices:
An appendix or appendices are containers for lengthy material that
would otherwise detract from the flow of discussion in the main body
of the report. An appendix does not relegate the material to a lower
status within your document, but rather aids organization and flow of
ideas. For example, you may have written a software program used for
data analysis. Software is not a figure or a table, and inserting a
subheading to present the lines of code would detract from the main
point of how you used the software. Such material belongs in its own
section, called an appendix. An appendix can be created for examples
as follows:

 Detailed calculations
 Lengthy or multiple-page tabulations of data
 Custom computer program listing
 Mathematical proofs
 Detailed descriptions/drawings of specific equipment

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II. Engineering Report

Every appendix should have a title. With more than one appendix
present, the title should be formatted as “Appendix [A, B, C, etc.]:
[Title]” with alphabetical letters following the order in which the
information is referenced within the body. (Yes, you must tell the
reader in the body text where the information can be found and what
it contains!) The start of each appendix should contain a short
description of what information is being presented (the quantity to be
solved for in the sample calculation, the kind of output produced by
the computer program listing, etc.) as an introductory paragraph.

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III. Technical Presentation

Document Objectives:

Visual aids (“charts” or “slides”) are intended to accompany oral commentary

from a presenter to explain findings to an audience. It is often necessary to
present your work directly to audiences with the aid of slides. In the age of
information, it is not uncommon for slides to function as stand-alone “reports”
as they facilitate rapid technical communication. Slides can even be used for
budget proposals. For the purposes of slide organization, it is important to
keep in mind that slides are a linear form of presentation, and the audience is
engaged in a linear way.

Sample Usage:

 Class project presentation

 Rapid visual updates when written forms are cumbersome
 Presentation of research paper
 Thesis/dissertation defense

Format:
In organizing your presentation, the following paradigm can be effective:

 Tell the audience what you’re going to tell them (outline/roadmap).

 Tell them.
 Tell them what you told them (numbered list of conclusions).
In other words, include a roadmap/outline slide that tells the audience where
you will take them and what they should expect to hear. This leads into the
presentation of your key results/points (“tell them”). A concluding remarks slide
should then summarize the key points you made. Such a delivery is intentionally
repetitive to ensure that your points are effectively communicated.

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III. Technical Presentation

Just as writing a technical report requires attention to the prospective reader,

technical presentations require attention to the prospective audience in
formatting your work. Below are five key ideas for formatting slides:
1. Use clear font/sizes and colors. Avoid colored backgrounds and light font
colors. Black backgrounds are far less visually pleasing when considering that
white-background graphs are inserted on top; it gives a fragmented
appearance. Information on top of white backgrounds is easier to see, and
white backgrounds avoid additional ink when printed. Similarly, avoid light
colors, especially yellow. Such colors often do not display well on a screen.
Do not use a fancy font; Arial is often most clear.
2. Always number your slides (except the title slide). This is analogous to a
page number in a report, aiding reference of particular slides during
discussion. Do this in PowerPoint by going to Insert > Slide Number.
3. Do not overcrowd your slides. Remember, the delivery and reception of
information in slide format is inherently linear. Don’t run circles (nonlinear)
around your audience! A good way to focus your message on each slide is to
prepare a succinct title for each slide, similar to section headings in a
technical paper. Draw a box around your take-away point.
4. A good rule-of-thumb to determine an appropriate number of slides is to
take the time allotted for your talk (perhaps 30 minutes) and divide by 2.
The rate of 2 minutes per slide is typically adequate for speaking at a good
pace and devoting attention to the material on the given slide without
“dragging on.” Rehearsing tends to go faster in your mind. If you have more
information than you think you can present in the allotted time, but
anticipate a question regarding additional information, a professional tip is
to include “back-up slides” that are placed after your concluding slide. There
is no penalty for the number of back-up slides.
5. Above all, remember that a presentation is not a written paper. You may
be called upon in your career to write a report for documentation purposes
and also present the paper. Avoid the temptation to lift entire blocks of text
from your paper and regurgitate it on the screen. Reading to your audience
word-for-word from a slide is an effective form of sleep medication. Don’t let
the slides do the talking for you! No more than six lines of text should be on
a given slide.
Examples of bad and good slide designs are shown in Figure 7 and Figure 8,
respectively.

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V. Technical Presentation

Figure 7: Example of a poorly-prepared slide.

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V. Technical Presentation

Figure 8: Example of a well-prepared slide. Refer to Figure 10 for specific deficiencies addressed.

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