MAE126B Report Writing Lecture

Refer also to MAE126A Report Writing Lecture

Final Report StructureTitle, 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