1. Writing the Formal Report
Len Trombetta and Dave Shattuck
ECE Department, UH

2. Technical Writing: Rational
Engineers and scientists communicate frequently through oral presentation and technical writing. Everyone’s job is easier if this is done clearly, concisely, and accurately.

3. For ECE 2100…
The Formal Report is to be done on a computer - it is not part of your lab notebook. Each person will turn in a separate Formal Report. For the most part, your Formal Report has the same format as the Lab Handout.

4. Submission Use Blackboard Assignments with this title format:
For submission of the Methods Section: LastName_FirstName_Methods_Summer2017.docx
For submission of the Formal Report:
LastName_FirstName_Formal_Summer2017.docx
DO NOT your report to the instructor.
DO NOT submit a .pdf file.
Papers submitted with an incorrect title format will lose 5 points from the grade.

5. Sections of the Formal Report: Front Matter
Title Page
Paper Title
Course name, instructor, and semester
The name of your lab partner
Please do not include your own name in your formal report
Abstract Page
Title
Abstract

6. Due Friday July 21 to Blackboard/TurnItIn
Report Body
Introduction
Research Question
Background
Methods
Results
Discussion
Conclusion
Due Friday July 21 to Blackboard/TurnItIn

7. Back Matter Acknowledgement References Appendices
For this report, you will need to include an appendix showing your “raw” data (i.e., your measurements).

8. Who Is My Audience ?
You are writing for someone “at your level”, i.e., someone who knows more or less what you know about circuit theory and the lab, but who has not done the experiment.

9. See the Sample_Formal_Report on the ECE 2100 Website
General Format
Font: your choice, but no smaller than 12 pt. Times New Roman
Margins: 1” all sides
Spacing: 1.5 lines
Equations, Figures, and Tables must be formatted as instructed later in this presentation.
Length: 8 pages max, not including front matter and back matter.
Other Formatting: heading styles, paragraph spacing, … your choice.
See the Sample_Formal_Report on the ECE 2100 Website

10. Abstract Short version of your entire paper. Quantitative conclusions
Include the important aspects of all parts of your paper.
The abstract is not the same as an introduction.
Quantitative conclusions
State conclusions, including numerical results and other quantitative information as appropriate.
Do not include references, figures, or equations

11. Introduction Include: Your motivation for doing the project
An introduction to what you are going to do.
A summary of what you did.
A historical review (if any) and a summary of previous efforts (if you know of any).
Keep this short and sweet. Leave out the poetic musings.

12. Research Question
Your informal report handouts posed a research question. You need to develop a research question for your project.
One or two research questions should succinctly summarize the question you are trying to answer.
Make sure you answer your research question, either in your discussion or in your conclusion section.

13. Background Theoretical issues concerning what you are about to do
Development of equations, and circuit analysis (if any) go here
Design considerations (if you have designed something as part of the project)
Information gathered from books or the web that is relevant to your project

14. Method
Include information so that someone at your level could reproduce the experiment.
Procedure: what exactly did you do and how did you do it?
Data: what kind of data did you collect? Do not show the data here, but describe what things you measured.
Data Analysis: how did you analyze the data?
Technical issues
Resistor power dissipation
Effect of meter resistance …

15. Results State concisely what happened.
Use tables, charts, and/or figures as appropriate.
Explain everything, even if it seems trivial.
What were the principal sources of error?
How did you decide what your error was?
Was the error reasonable or did something happen to make your measurements suspect?

16. Discussion How did things turn out? Any surprises?
How did your results compare with what you expected?
How might the experiment be improved next time?

17. Conclusions Summarize results.
State concisely and clearly the most important thing learned from the experiment.

18. Proper Referencing
There are (at least) two reasons for referencing something in your paper:
You want to avoid plagiarism.
You want to provide your reader with information that you find useful. This is a professional courtesy.
To plagiarize is to present work that is not yours (including text, figures, tables, equations…) as if it were your own. Plagiarism is a clear violation of the Academic Honesty Policy. Don’t do it.

19. Proper Referencing
Every item in the References list must be cited individually.
It is common to use a number following the sentence [1].
It is not sufficient to simply list your references at the end of the report.
When using numbered references: The first reference cited must be called “1”.
Do not list references you have not cited somewhere in the body of the paper.

20. Proper Referencing
Each reference must have a page number or other mechanism for pointing the reader to the exact location of the source.
“…can be found in most text books on circuit theory [1, pp. 27 – 32].”

21. Proper Referencing
Do not use figures or sentences from handouts, from the text, from lecture notes, or from another student’s report, without a proper reference. This is plagiarism.

22. Proper Referencing
Quotations: Direct quotations must be set off in “quotes” (like that).
Information from any source must referenced even if you are not quoting it directly.
Avoid excessive quotation (even if properly referenced). It indicates laziness, if not plagiarism.

23. Papers that do not have an appendix of raw data will lose 10 points.
In general, appendices are optional. However, for this paper, you MUST include an appendix that shows your data, as described in the Project handout.
An appendix must have explanations and descriptions written out, just like the body of the report. Do not simply attach graphs or figures or tables with no explanation.
Papers that do not have an appendix of raw data will lose 10 points.

24. Figures
All figures are numbered sequentially beginning with “1”, and have captions. The captions go below the figure.
All figures must be discussed in the text before the figure is shown. The figure should be shown soon after discussing it.
Figures must be computer-generated.

25. Tables
All tables are numbered sequentially beginning with “1”, and have titles. The titles go above the table.
All tables must be discussed in the text before the figure is shown. The table should be shown soon after discussing it.
Use a grid.

26. Equations
All equations must be numbered, and referenced, if appropriate.
Equations are part of a sentence, and must be punctuated appropriately. They do not stand alone.
Use an equation writer (not just the keyboard characters).

27. “Formal” Writing
Make sure your writing is “formal”. Avoid slang. Avoid the kind of language and sentence structure you would use with friends in the hallway or at a sporting event.

28. Examples of Informal Writing
“Let’s face it – everyone wants to understand a little something about circuits!”
“We worked really hard but we just couldn’t get the thing to work the way we wanted.”
“Then we put a really big capacitor in parallel with the resistor.”
“We turned the thing on and there were all kinds of sparks and smoke! It was way cool!”

29. No Lists or Instructions
Formal reports should not contain “lists”, like this slide; write everything out in sentence form.
Do not give instructions. There is a temptation to do this in the Methods section; don’t.

30. …but English is not my native language!
…then get someone to proofread your paper.

31. Formal Report Format Document
Use the current version of the formal report format document, which is called FormalReportFormat_9feb2016.docx This is available on the course web site. A sample formal is also available there; this is a useful guide for formatting.