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Report
Writing Tips
General:
- Refer to
Mid-term report format for suggested
section titles
- Organize the report to "tell the
story"
- Strive for readability rather than
bulk (large number of pages)
- Be concise
- Use 1.5 line spacing
- Choose 11 or 12 point sans-serif
font
- Do not use any font colors other
than black
- Use one column of text
- Employ reasonable
margins
- Do not use "justified" paragraph
formatting
- Refer to
2016 example final report
Cover Page:
- Include team members' photos and
names, team name, project name, course name, year, mid-term or final
report
- List team member's names in the
order they appear in the photo
- Exclude a page number
- Use a larger font
Table of Contents:
Figures and Tables:
- Scan, rather than take photos of
sketches
- Use the Design Group copier to scan
sketches
- Use the Design Group copier or
Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to add contrast and remove background from
sketches - here are instructions
- Use this information and software
applications to process scanned drawings and images
- Re-draw sketches that can't be made
legible
- Include "call-outs" to point to and
describe important features in figures and tables
- Figures (photos and sketches) and
tables (charts and graphs) should be inserted in the body of the report, not in
a separate section at the end
- Embedding figures and tables within
the body of the report is ok
- Flow text around figures and
tables
- Scale figures and tables as
appropriate for the page
- Insert figures and tables near where
they are referred to in report body
Captions:
- Refer to Caption Tips for instructions on how to insert
figure and tables and create captions
- Each figure and table should have a
descriptive caption beginning with: "Table 1", "Figure 3" to refer to them in
the body of the report
- It is ok to "bundle" related figures
with designations: "Figure 1a", "Figure 1b", etc
- Captions should be brief and not
include narrative text
Body:
- Insert a blank line between
paragraphs
- Break up long paragraphs
- Break up concentrations of text with
figures or photos
- Start a new section on a new page
rather than on the very bottom of the current page
- Avoid having an isolated single line
of text from a paragraph at the bottom of the page
Content:
- Adopt a professional and scientific
tone
- Avoid hype
- Define what is meant by "innovative"
or "innovation" or other "marketing" words
- Avoid colloquialisms such as
"doable", "awesome", "fantastic", "pain-point", "lock-down", "on the other
hand", "a lot of", etc
- Include justifications for all your
decisions
- Include reasons for your
judgments
- Include references for all quotable
material
- Strive to be concise by merging
sentences
- Avoid repetition, duplication, and
redundancy
- Avoid repetition, duplication, and
redundancy
- Delete "in order to" if removing it
does not change the the sentence's meaning
- Use past tense when referring to
completed activities
- Avoid cliches
like the plague
- Compare your project prototype to
existing products
Bibliography:
- Single space reference
items
- Insert blank line between
references
- Examples of adding references in the
body of the report
- ... end of sentence.
[7]
- ... end of sentence. [7, 8,
9]
- Example of listing url references in
the Bibliography
- [7] Reference
- References can use any format,
but must remain consistent throughout Bibliography
- Employ this method for listing url
references in the Bibliography
- Include both the webpage title
and url
- Make the url
"clickable"
- Example:
- [7] Perspectives in
Assistive Technology Homepage
[7] http://engr110.stanford.edu
Appendix:
- Insert calculations, analyses, and
supporting figures, photos, tables, and Bill of Materials here
Other:
- Have someone outside your team
proofread your report
- Include corrections to your mid-term
report in your end-of-term report
- Email your report in Word and/or pdf
format
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