Transcript Could be

MAE126B Report Writing Lecture
Refer also to MAE126A Report
Writing Lecture
Final Report Structure
Title, abstract, and table of contents (1%). List of figures, tables not
required.
1. Introduction: project definition, background including literature
survey and basic theory (4%)
2. Methods
– 2.1. Theory, Experimental Method (5-10%) [What does one need to
know to understand the project. How and what data was collected?]
– 2.2. Team assignment and organization, work schedule, Tasks
accomplished or not (give reason if not accomplished) (3%)
3. Results
– 3.1. Results of design / experiment (8-13%)
– 3.2. Errors and limitation (4%)
4. Discussion and Conclusions. Future Work / Recommendations (8%)
5. References (1%)
Consider midterm report as preliminary final report
Methods
• Provide enough detail to allow someone else
to replicate your design / experiment
Content
• A short and clear report is better than a long, confused, and
repetitive report. The report should be at most 8 pages +
title page + table of contents + appendix.
• A good structure with subheadings is important.
• The methods section should describe the experimental /
design approach for the entire quarter. How are you going
to analyze the data? How are you going to evaluate the
performance of the design? Etc
• Figures and tables need captions.
– Captions should be detailed enough to understand the figure
without consulting the text.
– All figures and tables have to be referred to in the text.
• Include Gantt CHart
Example Insufficient Captions
Example Insufficient Captions
Formatting
• Report specs: double space, font size 11 or 12, margins
0.5 in, 8 pages. List of figures/tables not required.
• Avoid bulleted lists. A report should consist of free
flowing text. Use tables instead of bulleted lists, when
necessary (in that case tables require captions and
should be referred to in the text).
• Proofread report for language and correct references
to figures.
• Number each section and subsection.
• Use large fonts for text in figures (e.g. axis labels).
– In matlab use "set(0,'defaultaxesfontsize',13);" at the
beginning of every m file