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

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