By: Wilmer Arellano FIU
Fall 2013
Wilmer Arellano
Wilmer Arellano
Overview
• E-mails
• Introduction to Proposal Style
• General Recommendations
▫ Section Headings
▫ References
• Title Page
Wilmer Arellano
References
•One of the most impressive sites regarding technical writing.
▫http://owl.english.purdue.edu/
•I encourage you to visit this Website. Purdue University’s Online
Writing Lab (OWL)
•IEEE (2006) TRANSACTIONS, JOURNALS, AND LETTERS,
Information for Authors. Retrieved January 10, 2008 from IEEE Web
site:
▫http://www.ieee.org/portal/cms_docs/pubs/transactions/auinfo03.pdf
•C.W. POST CAMPUS APA Citation Style. Retrieved January 10, 2008
from Long Island University Web site:
▫http://www.liunet.edu/cwis/cwp/library/workshop/citapa.htm
Wilmer Arellano
E-mails
• I will use as my broadcast e-mail list the one that
I get from Panther's Soft.
▫ I might reply to personal e-mail accounts if I received
e-mails from them but I will not include them in my
broadcast list.
▫ Please check that your FIU e-mail account is working.
• When you e-mail me please:
▫ Copy all your team members
▫ Include team ID and course # in the subject
▫ Include all the team names in the signature
Wilmer Arellano
Introduction to Report Style
• Technical reports are used to communicate the results of:
▫ research,
▫ field work,
▫ proposals and other activities.
• Often, a report is the only concrete evidence of your work.
• The quality of the project may be judged directly by the quality of
the writing.
• Most technical reports contain the same major sections, although
the names of the sections vary widely, and sometimes it is
appropriate to omit sections or add others.
• Always check for specific requirements and guidelines before
beginning to write your research report.
Wilmer Arellano
General Recommendations
1. Write on both sides paper (save some trees)
2. The report pages have to be numbered
throughout.
Wilmer Arellano
General Recommendations
• Use template at:
http://web.eng.fiu.edu/~arellano/1002/Style/msw
_usletter_format_nov12mod.doc
Wilmer Arellano
General Recommendations
• Some of your Proposal Sections are going to
remain identical in the Final Report.
▫ Use verb tenses that do not need to be updated
 Use the “project is about” rather than “the project
will be”. Later you would need to update the last to
“the project was about”
• Start all your sections with an opening
paragraph.
▫ Do not start with a Figure, a Table or a Result
Wilmer Arellano
General Recommendations
•
•
•
•
Do not start with a Figure, a Table or a Result
You are not writing for yourself
You are not writing for your instructor
You are writing for somebody you don’t know
Wilmer Arellano
General Recommendations
• When Possible use bulleted or numbered lists to
highlight different ideas, topics or other Items.
▫ See next examples
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Publix’s List
• When you write for yourself
▫ Go to Publix
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Publix’s List
• When you write for somebody you know
▫ Go to Publix and buy milk, bread, ham and sodas
Wilmer Arellano
Publix’s List
• When you write for somebody you don’t know
I.
PUBLIX’S LIST
Dear reader, to make things easier for you, I prepared this detailed explanation about what groceries are
required. We need to buy groceries for two different purposes, for the trip we will start tomorrow and for
mom who will stay home. Please do not go to Win-Dixie that we know has great prices, as we want to
take advantage of today’s specials at Publix. In addition to that, our friend Joe works there and he will
help you with the brands we like. This is what we require.
A. For mom staying home
Please buy:
1. 1 pack of six Coca Cola 0
2. 1 Sour dough bread
B. For our trip
We require more because as we are a group of 4
Please buy:
1. 3 packs of six Coca Cola 0
2. 1 Loaf of sandwich bread
3. 2 pounds of ham
Finally, please leave our purchases in the porch and mom’s in the kitchen. Thank you very much for your
kindness.
Wilmer Arellano
I.
HEADING
Introductory paragraph:
Explaining what you want to do, methods to be used, data, information sources,
etc.
Body:
Providing all the detail, figures, tables, explanations, etc.
Important, any figure, table, etc, must be explained in the text use” In Figure 7”
rather than “the figure bellow”.
Concluding paragraph:
Explaining what was learned or obtained and linking to the next Section
Wilmer Arellano
Wilmer Arellano
General Recommendations
• When Possible use bulleted or numbered lists to
highlight different ideas, topics or other Items.
Wilmer Arellano
IV.
MULTI DISCIPLINARY ASPECTS
Our team consists of four members, Mary Smith, Peter Scott, John Martinez and
Alex Miller. Since the autonomous landing RC airplane consists of hardware,
software and aeronautic implementations it is necessary to form a team with
multidisciplinary areas of engineering.
Mary is majoring in Computer Engineering with a strong background in computer
science and math. Mary has a great interest in aviation and holds a commercial
pilot’s license. In obtaining a CPL she studied various subject areas such as
aerodynamics, radio aids, instruments, navigation, meteorology and flight
planning which will contribute to our proposed project. Peter is majoring in
Electrical Engineering he has held many leadership positions on campus and is
founder of a fraternity at University Park.. His Interests include financial
algorithms, robotics, Linux hacking, and RC devices. John is majoring in
Computer Engineering with strong leadership skills along with good technical
skills developed by extensive experience in areas such as CAD, project
management, database applications. He is an electronics and gadget enthusiast. In
addition, experience in other disciplines such as civil engineering adds a valuable
perspective to the projects the group will undertake. Alex is majoring in Computer
Engineering with a great deal of experience with networking gained while
working at a law firm for 5 years. He was responsible for setting up the network
and maintaining it if any problems aroused.
IV.
Wilmer Arellano
MULTI DISCIPLINARY ASPECTS
Our team consists of four members, Mary Smith, Peter Scott, John Martinez and
Alex Miller. Since the autonomous landing RC airplane consists of hardware,
software and aeronautic implementations it is necessary to form a team with
multidisciplinary areas of engineering.




Mary is majoring in Computer Engineering with a strong background in
computer science and math. Mary has a great interest in aviation and
holds a commercial pilot’s license. In obtaining a CPL she studied various
subject areas such as aerodynamics, radio aids, instruments, navigation,
meteorology and flight planning which will contribute to our proposed
project.
Peter is majoring in Electrical Engineering he has held many leadership
positions on campus and is founder of a fraternity at University Park.. His
Interests include financial algorithms, robotics, Linux hacking, and RC
devices.
John is majoring in Computer Engineering with strong leadership skills
along with good technical skills developed by extensive experience in
areas such as CAD, project management, database applications. He is an
electronics and gadget enthusiast. In addition, experience in other
disciplines such as civil engineering adds a valuable perspective to the
projects the group will undertake.
Alex is majoring in Computer Engineering with a great deal of experience
with networking gained while working at a law firm for 5 years. He was
responsible for setting up the network and maintaining it if any problems
aroused.
Wilmer Arellano
Section Headings
• Primary section headings within papers are enumerated by Roman
numerals and are centered above the text. For the purpose of typing
the manuscript only, primary headings should be capital letters.
Sample:
I. PRIMARY HEADING
(TEXT)
• Secondary section headings are enumerated by capital letters
followed by periods (“A.”, “B.”, etc.) and are flush left above their
sections. The first letter of each word is capitalized. In print the
headings will be in italics. Sample:
A. Secondary Heading
(TEXT)
Wilmer Arellano
Section Headings
• Tertiary section headings are enumerated by Arabic numerals
followed by a parenthesis. They are indented, run into the text in
their sections, and are followed by a colon. The first letter of each
important word is capitalized. Sample:
1) Tertiary Heading: (TEXT)
• Quaternary section headings are rarely necessary but are perfectly
acceptable if required. They are identical to tertiary headings except
that lowercase letters are used as labels and only the first letter of
the heading is capitalized. Sample:
a) Quaternary Heading: (TEXT)
Wilmer Arellano
Order of Importance of the
Different Elements
•
•
•
•
•
Title
Abstract
Conclusions
Introduction
The last three are the last to be written
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Title
•
The title page contains several main pieces of
information
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Project Title
Team Number
Student team member names and their Panther ID
University and Department.
The name of the person for whom the report has been prepared.
Course No. and Name
Semester
Date Submitted
Wilmer Arellano
•Double click on the
white area of this slide
to open the Word
page that contains the
Title Page.
•Copy the entire Title
Page and paste it into
a new Word 2007
document.
•My example does not
have any formatting.
Please use some
creativity here
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
EEL-4920 – Senior Design I
Spring 2009
GPS Oriented Autonomous Car (GOAC)
Team Number 17
Team Member 1
Team Member 2
Team Member 3
Team Leader 4
Senior Design II Proposal
Submitted to:
Senior Design I Instructor: Professor Wilmer Arellano
Mentor: Dr. John Smith
04/20/2009
Wilmer Arellano
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
• If a client, organization, or individual has
contributed or will contribute significantly in a
form of technical advice, equipment, financial
aid, etc, an acknowledgement of that
contribution should be included in the
corresponding section.
Wilmer Arellano
ABSTRACT
• An ABSTRACT can be the most difficult part of the
research report to write because in it you must:
▫
▫
▫
▫
▫
introduce your subject matter,
Why your work is important
tell what (was)/(will be) done,
and present selected/expected results,
all in one short (about 50 to 250 words) paragraph.
• The most common type of ABSTRACT is the informative
abstract. A good way to develop an informative abstract
is to devote a sentence or two to each of the major parts
of the report.
Wilmer Arellano
References.
(Do not keep them manually.
Use MS Word Tools)
• It is important to include a References section at
the end of a report in which you list your other
sources.
• Informal or short reports may not have a
references section or only a short one
• while more formal reports will likely have
reference sections, sometimes very lengthy ones.
• Try Zotero
•Click on the pull down arrow of the
citation button.
•Insert new Citation Source so that a
reference that you enter here will appear
automatically in the table of references
Wilmer Arellano
•Follow the format:
•LastName1, Name1; LastName2, Name2; etc.
Wilmer Arellano
VIII.
BACKGROUND
In this section we will review three different projects that curabitur sit aenean. Dui massa quam,
torquent lacus dolor lacus malesuada lacinia aliquam, arcu magna augue amet, vestibulum morbi urna
aliquam non montes mi, commodo a amet. Sapien ut quisque elit sed est aliquam, eu maecenas dictumst
ligula dolor, at integer morbi, praesent odit molestie morbi elementum nulla. Placerat lorem tincidunt
tortor arcu. Tempor in a ad nulla egestas, in felis aliquet magna eleifend semper suscipit, in ac,
maecenas rutrum a viverra. Massa sed id velit risus, nobis convallis dictum mauris, aenean ut, auctor sed
fusce wisi ut.
A.
Autonomous Airplane
This project was accomplished by John Smith and Alfred White at ABC University in 2001 [1].
Integer suspendisse et diam sed feugiat erat, integer integer id mi viverra nibh ipsum, posuere justo
volutpat posuere pellentesque. Fusce quam, blandit orci dapibus ipsum massa, in dis. Dignissim iaculis
sed nulla auctor. Eget eleifend sit phasellus, sed lorem a aliquet eu venenatis nibh, euismod massa class
quam pharetra amet nostra. In general it is not necessary to mention the authors of a reference but
in this case they are relevant to the context.
•Put the cursor where you want to add a
citation
Wilmer Arellano
•This time click the Citation button in the
center and then select the citation from the
list.
Wilmer Arellano
•Insert figure and table captions so they will
appear automatically in the list of figures
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Wilmer Arellano
 Word
2007 handles page numbers
independently for the different
“Document Sections”
 According to the way the page breaks
were inserted, each chapter is a MS Word
Section
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 Go
to the first page, click somewhere on
it and from the Insert Menu select Page
number
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

Go to the first page, click somewhere on it and from the
Insert Menu select Page number (Make sure to use the
pull down arrow)
This will number all sections of the document
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 Now
click just before the first letter of
each chapter and from the insert menu
select Format Page Numbers
 This will give different number format for
the chapters
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Wilmer Arellano
 Go
to the title page and double click on
the page number
 Follow instructions in the next slides
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Double
click on the number and
then click Different First Page.
Do not exit this menu
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 In
the same menu, select Format Page
Numbers
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 Select
lower case roman numbers:
• i, ii, ii
 This
concludes page numbering
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List of Figures
List of Tables
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



You must have a blank page after the Title Page
Insert six line feeds and position the cursor in the first
one
From the References Menu select Table of Contents
This will insert your Table of Contents
Wilmer Arellano
 Position
the cursor in the third of the line feeds
 In the same page and from the same menu
select Insert List of Figures
 This will insert your List of Figures
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 This
same exact procedure is used to
insert the List of Tables
 Select Table from the Pull Down
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 Click
on the References Page and insert
the references
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Wilmer Arellano
 This
procedure will create an extra
heading, delete it
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 The
table of Contents, The List of Figures,
List of Tables and the References must be
updated manually when you change your
document
 Right click on each table and select
Update Field
 Later select Update Entire Table if you
are offered the option
Wilmer Arellano