University of New HavenTagliatela College of Engineering

02 February 2015To:

From:

Re: Lab topic

This is the memo of transmittal, since we are treating this as an internal report. If this were an external report the memo would be replaced with a letter of transmittal, written as a formal letter with titles, addresses, etc.

This should be a 1-2 paragraph non-technical description of what you’ve done. Include a brief snapshot of findings and any anomalies encountered.

Throughout your report be consistent with font type, size, spacing, indentation, etc. Word can make this quite difficult sometimes.

Title of report – no more than three lines

Your NameNames of Team Members

Name of Your DepartmentName of Your Institution

Date Experiment PerformedDate report written

Abstract

Consists of no more than 150-250 words. States the major objectives (if there are some for the experiment). Briefly describes the methods and materials employed, especially if they are novel or unfamiliar. For established methods, a name for the technique or key equipment is given. Summarizes important results and conclusions.

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Table of Contents

Abstract............................................................................................................................................................. iExecutive Summary......................................................................................................................................... iiiIntroduction...................................................................................................................................................... 1Literature Review............................................................................................................................................. 1Methods and Materials..................................................................................................................................... 1Data and Results............................................................................................................................................. 2Discussion........................................................................................................................................................ 2Conclusions and Recommendations................................................................................................................3Works Cited..................................................................................................................................................... 4Appendix.......................................................................................................................................................... 5

Appendix A: Title of Appendix A...................................................................................................................5Appendix B: Title of Appendix B...................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.

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Executive Summary

Similar to an abstract but targeted to those who may be making decisions based on the content of the report. Larger audience, external sponsor. Clear and concise statement of results and conclusions. Length varies but typically about 5% of the total report. Consider this the most strategic portion of the lab report.

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Introduction

Here, headings are 14 point Arial, flush left, and boldfaced. Use initial capitals. Headings can be more specific than “Introduction”, “Literature Review” – just keep the titles short enough to fit on one line. Use line spacing to preserve hierarchy of sections. Being consistent is the most important part.

If your experiment has particular objectives, list them in order of importance. Provide background on the experiment, including relevant theory on which the experiment is based. Theory may be included, equations are numbered sequentially. Include a discussion of previous important studies, and cite your references.

Indent all paragraphs, or all paragraphs except the first paragraph. Again, consistency is what matters. Be careful with spacing between paragraphs to not upset the special hierarchy of headings and subheadings.

If you have a long or complicated report, use the last paragraph of the “Introduction” to lay out what’s ahead in the report. This mapping serves as a transition to the report's middle.

Literature Review

For thesis work, where the uniqueness of the research must be established to provide a broad context for the work, you can separate out relevant previous work into its own section. For our lab reports you can probably just include this in the “Introduction” section.

Methods and Materials

Now we’re getting into the meat of the report. Here is where you talk about what you did and how you did it. This is not just copying the (expertly written) lab procedure that you followed.

Remember your target audience when deciding how much detail you need to go into for commonly accepted methods. You should provide a description of apparatus/equipment (and maybe a picture of the setup). Call out more detailed information like serial numbers in a table in an Appendix. If you’re working with materials, a table of properties may belong here or in the appendix.

This section probably will be quite long. Take as much space as you need to explain what you have done, but remember: clarity is always more prized than word count for engineering documents.

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Data and Results

Here’s where you present pertinent data in formats (graphs, tables, diagrams, etc.) that reveal critical relationships (trends, correlations, etc.). More ‘raw’ (directly measured) data probably belongs in an Appendix (if anywhere), but can be presented here if it doesn’t disrupt the flow and helps you tell your story.

Table 1. Remember, Table captions go above and Figure captions go below. You should describe either in full sentences, so that a reader can get an idea of what you did by just looking at the pictures.

Planet Diameter (km)

Gravity (earth ratio)

Year (earth days)

Temperature (K)

Mercury 5,100 0.40 88 700

Venus 12,600 0.90 225 700

Earth 12,800 1.00 365 350

Mars 6,900 0.40 687 320

Jupiter 143,600 2.70 4,333 150

Saturn 120,600 1.20 10,759 138

Uranus 53,400 1.00 30,686 90

Pluto* 12,700 ??? 90,885 80

*Corresponding data on Neptune not available.

Discussion

This can either be its own section, or be combined into a larger “Results and Discussion” section. Your choice.

Here you interpret the data and results in light of what you expected, and/or make comparisons to published information. Identify and explain any unusual or surprising results. You must back up your statements!

Identify significant sources of error and assesses the reliability of your results. Again, you must back up your statements.

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Figures and tables should be called out in the text. For example, look at that cool car in Figure 1. Make the size of figures look good and fit in with the surrounding text. My personal preference is for something about 85-90% of the text width.

Figure 1. And by cool I mean the camper in the background, not the little thing on bicycle wheels. Remember, for figures the caption goes below.

Conclusions and Recommendations

And this is the section we really take it home. Restate significant limitations, assumptions or violations of assumptions that qualify the conclusions. Assess the extent to which each objective has been met. Provide recommendations (derived from the conclusions) for future work.

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Works Cited

Here’s where you put things you referenced/cited. Format needs to be consistent but I don’t really care APA/MLA/Chicago. There just needs to be enough information to easily find your source. If you’re looking for somewhere to start with formats I suggest the IEEE Transactions Style.

This really should be on its own page, but it’s not a hard requirement. Try to do so unless it looks stupid.

[1] Chyu, M. K., “Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop for Short Pin-Fin Arrays with Pin-Endwall Fillet,” Journal of Turbomachinery, vol. 112 (1990), pp. 926-932.

[2] Clements, Terry C., “Request for Testing of Centrifugal Fan with Adjustable Inlet Guide Vanes,” memo to Pat Hodges (Birmingham, AL: Sewel Manufacturing, 24 August 2005).

[3] Kays, W., and Crawford, M., Convective Heat and Mass Transfer (McGraw Hill: New York, New York, 1993).

[4] Alley, Michael, Writing and Speaking Guidelines, Penn State University, Accessed November 25, 2014, http://writing.engr.psu.edu/

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Appendix

Appendix A: Title of Appendix A

Now for the appendices, where you put information that is interesting, helpful, or informative, but not vital to your telling of the story. You can assume that only highly interested technical readers will look at the information contained here.

Examples include detailed diagrams of LabVIEW code, theoretical derivations or uncertainty calculations, detailed list of equipment with serial numbers and bias accuracies, etc. You can have as many appendices as you’d like. Each one starts on its own page.

Figures/tables should either appear in the main document or the appendix, not in both. They can be referenced in the main text though, so we use the labeling system Figure A-1, Figure A-2, Table A-1, Table A-2, etc.

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This template is based on the work of Michael Alley at Penn State, more useful information at http://writing.engr.psu.edu/

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