Report writing

W.S. Harwin, 9th February 2025

Some quotes

The last thing one knows in constructing a work is what to put first.

• Blaise Pascal

When you can't write, it is because you don't know what you want to say.

• Mike F Ashby, 2005

Plan

1. Your report write up should tell a story. Think about who you are writing for - in this case it is probably the examiners and your peers. So you can assume you are writing for people who are technically literate but may not know what your project is about. You need to convince them you have something substantial to say. Avoid any material that does not contribute to the story. If it is of peripheral importance you can put it in an appendix but make sure you don't hide stuff in the appendix that is key to understanding what you have done.
2. Write an outline first and your abstract and conclusions last. Work on the structure of your report in the early stages will make the writing much easier. Have a look at Ashby, "How to Write a Paper" [1]. You could also ask chat-gpt or similar AI to write a Harvard outline for you and adapt that to your report.
3. Put your name on it, this is something to be proud of. Also include a date (it shows priority and helps keep revisions in order)
4. You must have an introduction and conclusions, other sections (abstract, methods, results, discussion etc are optional - but the course documents may require you to include more).
5. Write good captions for your figures and tables. You should be able to understand 80% of your report by simply scanning the introduction and reading the table and figure captions, and the conclusion. Label axes and put in dimensions where appropriate.
6. Acknowledge and cite the work and contribution of others. Give a good indication that you have read books, papers and well regarded articles on the internet.

Notes

• Make sure you explain why your project is relevant.
• Try to produce figures as vector graphics (formats such as .svg .pdfs) rather than screenshots. This means that it is then possible to zoom in and see the details.
• Don't wait until the deadline, early preparation will make meeting the deadline less stressful
• Detail the key ideas
• Make sure you explain the meaning of any equations and the associated variables.
• Use figures and tables that are relevant to the report and not as decoration.
• Conclusions should have no new data

Submission checklist

• Use the tools to spell check and grammar check
• Attribute any colleagues and coauthors especially if this is a group project.
• Make sure all figures and tables referenced in the main text
• Make sure all figure and table captions describe the purpose of the figure/table.
• Check you acknowlege colleagues who have contributed to the work
• Check the format of your references, ideally there should be at least an author, a title, a date and the source. It should be an easy task for the reader to find the reference.

Reference

1. Mike Ashby "How to write a paper" (April 2005), Cambridge-MIT MDP Resources library (http://www-mdp.eng.cam.ac.uk/web/library/enginfo/reports/How_to_write_a_paper_2005.pdf)).