Technical Report Standards and Suggestions !

GENERAL INFORMATION Technical engineering reports are formal presentations of analysis solutions, design solutions or test results. To be useful, the report must clearly and concisely communicate the results of your work. The technical report should not contain superfluous or unsupportable material. Each word should be essential and used in a clear and understandable manner. Quality, not quantity, is the key to a successful report. SPECIFICS This section includes specifics with regards to layout, organization, the narrative itself, tables, figures, and equations, and appendices. LAYOUT 1. Submissions should be a compilation of all required material in a single bound document (or single file in the case of electronic submissions). 2. All narrative portions should be typed, all written portions or calculations should be clearly legible. Eleven point Times New Roman font and and 1.15 spacing should be used. 3. A minimum of 1 inch margins on all sides (Word normal margins) should be used. 4. All pages should be numbered sequentially. Appendices should be included in the numbering (either sequentially or with separate system e.g. A1, A2, B1, etc.) 5. In general, pages will be oriented vertically. If a page is presented so that it must be turned 90 degrees to be read, it will be placed so that the reader will have to turn the report clockwise to read the page. Electronic submissions should utilize section breaks and rotations to ensure readability is entirely vertical on the screen. ORGANIZATION 1. Title Page: should contain the course title and CRN, the professors name, the report title, date assigned (or conducted) and completed, and complete names of all team members. 2. Abstract: includes a summary of the entire report (WITH CONCLUSIONS) and should answer the why, how, and how well? This should be a synopsis of the report and is written last. 3. Table of Contents: lists all important sections and appendices along with page numbers. 4. Body of the Report: this section varies depending on the type of report, with further details presented in points 3 and 4 of the Narrative section below. 5. References: includes a list of all outside sources used to complete the report. Please note that to place a work in this section, it should actually be cited within the narrative. 6. Appendices: includes large amounts of tabulated data, annotated sample calculations, detailed mathematical derivations, and other supporting material which may be essential to the completeness of the report, but would be distracting or unwieldy if placed in the main body.

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Technical Report Standards and Suggestions !

NARRATIVE 1. No first person that means no I my me mine we our ours us etc. This can be done. As a note, passive sentences are acceptable (but not the only solution). 2. PROOFREAD!! This is probably the easiest of all, but does mean more than just spelling and grammar check in Word. Actually read through the entire lab before submission. Word may not catch things like a fowl odor rather than foul odor, course rather than coarse, defiantly rather than definitely, and my all-time favorite specific gravesites instead of specific gravities. 3. The body of a report for laboratory exercises should contain: a. Introduction: includes an objective of what you are determining, purpose of why you are conducting the lab, the logical, theoretical approach including critical theory necessary to understand the effective conduct of the lab, and any assumptions used during the experimentation. Please note that for certain types of reports, the theory may be significant enough to justify placing it in a section separate from the introduction. b. Materials and Methods: contains a brief description of the procedures followed, as well as a description of materials and equipment used (where appropriate). c. Results and Discussion: includes results and observations as well as a discussion about the validity and significance of these results. Errors and limitations on results should be presented in addition to correlation to published data (where appropriate). Please note the term human error is insufficient to describe potential errors more detail is needed along with a logical justification for how these errors impact experimental results. d. Conclusions: correlates results to the lab objective. Does not include any new information but rather summarizes what has already been presented. 4. The body of a report for design or analysis problems should contain: a. Introduction: includes the purpose and background of the design problem including why the analysis was performed, lists relevant specifications, design requirements, conditions (assumptions) that are essential to the validity of the performed analysis (referencing reliable sources) and problem constraints. Please note that for certain types of reports, the assumptions may be significant enough to justify placing it in a section separate from the introduction. b. General Approach: develops the general solution procedure and completely explains the logical and theoretical approach to solving the design problem. Governing equations and a complete methodology should be included. c. Results and Discussion: presents the end product of the design or analysis process including the thinking and reasoning process. Discuss and compare results in a factual manner using tables and figures as appropriate and a discussion on the validity and significance of the results. Also discuss the results with respect to any assumptions made and the potential impact of these assumptions as well as any other limitations associated with the results presented. d. Conclusions: summarizes and emphasizes the findings of the work presented addressing the purpose presented in the introduction. Does not include any new information but rather summarizes what has already been presented.

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Technical Report Standards and Suggestions !

FIGURES, TABLES, AND EQUATIONS 1. Fully label all tables and figures. This means including the word Table or Figure, a sequential number, and a complete caption that should be fully understandable without having to read the body of your report. Labels should be below the specific table or figure. Drawings, pictures, and graphs are all figures, while items in rows and columns (even if scanned) are considered tables. 2. Fully label all equations. This means including the word Equation and a sequential number, as well as fully defining all symbols utilized within the equation. 3. Refer to all tables, figures, appendices, equations, attachments, etc. in the text and by number. For example As shown in Figure 1 not As shown below or As shown in the figure below.

APPENDICES 1. Appendices should be labeled alphabetically and should include a title in addition to the alphabetical label (e.g. Appendix A Tabulated Raw Data from Torsion Lab Conducted March 2012). 2. The main body of the report must reference all appendices. These should be listed in order of how they are presented in the main report. Thus Appendix A is the first referenced within the report, Appendix B the second, and so on. This may mean that appendices are ordered based on how they are referenced, not necessarily based on size or relative importance of appendix items. 3. If figures, tables, and equations are incorporated into the appendices, they must still adhere to the requirements stated in the previous section.

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