MAE126B Report Writing Lecture

1. MAE126B Report Writing Lecture Refer also to MAE126A Report Writing Lecture

2. 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

3. Methods • Provide enough detail to allow someone else to replicate your design / experiment

4. 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

5. Example Insufficient Captions

6. Example Insufficient Captions

7. 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