By: Wilmer Arellano FIU Summer 2012 Style Guidelines By: Wilmer Arellano FIU Summer 2012

Overview E-mails Introduction to Proposal Style General Recommendations Section Headings References Title Page

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

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

Introduction to Proposal 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.

General Recommendations Write on both sides paper (save some trees) A 12-point Times New Roman font and single line spacing should be used for the text. Headings can be done in bold or using a larger font. 1” page margins have to be used. The report pages have to be numbered throughout.

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

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

General Recommendations When Possible use bulleted or numbered lists to highlight different ideas, topics or other Items. See next examples

Publix’s List When you write for yourself Go to Publix

Publix’s List When you write for somebody you know Go to Publix and buy milk, bread, ham and sodas

Publix’s List When you write for somebody you don’t know

General Section Structure

General Recommendations When Possible use bulleted or numbered lists to highlight different ideas, topics or other Items.

Section Headings (TEXT) A. Secondary Heading 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

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)

References 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.

References. Do not keep them manually. Use MS Word Tools Books: Author. (year, month day). Title. (edition) [Type of medium]. volume (issue). Available: site/path/file Example: [1] J. Jones. (1991, May 10). Networks. (2nd ed.) [Online]. Available: http://www.atm.com Journals: Author. (year, month). Title. Journal. [Type of medium]. volume (issue), pages. Available: site/path/file [2] R. J. Vidmar. (1992, Aug.). On the use of atmospheric plasmas as electromagnetic reflectors. IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci. [Online]. 21(3), pp. 876–880. Available: http://www.halcyon.com/pub/journals/21ps03-vidmar Papers Presented at Conferences: Author. (year, month). Title. Presented at Conference title. [Type of Medium]. Available: site/path/file [3] PROCESS Corp., MA. Intranets: Internet technologies deployed behind the firewall for corporate productivity. Presented at INET96 Annu. Meeting. [Online]. Available: http://home.process.com/Intranets/wp2.htp Website Lynch, T. (1996). DS9 trials and tribble-ations review. Retrieved October 8, 1997, from Psi Phi: Bradley's Science Fiction Club Web site: http://www.bradley.edu/campusorg/psiphi/DS9/ep/503r.html Article from an Internet Database Mershon, D. H. (1998, November-December). Star trek on the brain: Alien minds, human minds. American Scientist, 86, 585. Retrieved July 29, 1999, from Expanded Academic ASAP database Last two examples from: http://www.liunet.edu/cwis/cwp/library/workshop/citapa.htm

References Reports and Handbooks: Author. (year, month). Title. Company. City, State or Country. [Type of Medium]. Available: site/path/file Example: [4] S. L. Talleen. (1996, Apr.). The Intranet Architecture: Managing information in the new paradigm. Amdahl Corp., CA. [Online]. Available: http://www.amdahl.com/doc/products/bsg/intra/infra/html Computer Programs and Electronic Documents: ISO recommends that capitalization follow the accepted practice for the language or script in which the information is given. [5] A. Harriman. (1993, June). Compendium of genealogical software. Humanist. [Online]. Available e-mail: HUMANIST@NYVM Message: get GENEALOGY REPORT

Order of Importance of the Different Elements Title Abstract Conclusions Introduction The last three are the last to be written

Title The title page contains several main pieces of information 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. (Your mentor and me) Course No. and Name Semester Date Submitted

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

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.

ABSTRACT An ABSTRACT can be the most difficult part of the research report to write because in it you must: introduce your subject matter, 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.

Follow this link for Executive Summary Format An Executive Summary is an accurate representation of the contents of a document in an abbreviated form. Executive Summaries are summaries provided for readers who do not have time to read the entire document. The Executive Summary must be a self standing document, sufficient in content to ensure that the reader can completely understand the contents of the Project. To make reading easy use Bold Face or lists to indicate sections. You don’t need to write about all sections, just mention the most relevant Follow this link for Executive Summary Format

The Normal Style Create a new word document and modify the Normal Style

Insert two new pages

Copy and Paste the outline into your document last page Delete information regarding to Title page Make sure you have the most current version http://web.eng.fiu.edu/~arellano/4010/Lecture%20II/Proposal%20Outline.doc

Remove all numbering and formatting Select the whole outline and click Style Normal

Insert page breaks as indicated in next slide just after: ACNNOWLEDGEMENT and ABSTRACT Center them and use Bold Capital Letters

Insert a new page

Insert a Page Break as indicated in next slide, just Before the first letter of each section starting with Executive Summary This is a different type of page break

Click on the pull down arrow of breaks in the Page Layout menu and select next page

Another Example Observe that Sub Sections must remain within their section

Place the cursor just before Executive Summary Select the indicated Multilevel list Select Define New Multilevel List

Select levels 1 thru 4 and: Link levels to style headings 1, 2, 3, 4 Set for levels 1 and 2: Number Alignment Left Aligned at: 0” Text Indent 0” Set for levels 3 and 4: Aligned at: .25”

Edit the Headings according to IEEE style Click the pull down arrow

Center Primary Heading

Use Italics for secondary, tertiary and quaternary headings

Use Bold for all headings

Use automatic color for all headings

Apply the new style to the executive summary

This is how it would look like

Repeat as Needed

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

Follow the format: LastName1, Name1; LastName2, Name2; etc.

Put the cursor where you want to add a reference

This time click the Citation button in the center and then select the citation from the list.

Insert figure and table captions so they will appear automatically in the list of figures

Insert figure citations to the figures, just as we did before

In the same form you should introduce caption for tables. Make sure that you select Table from the pull down menu

Page Numbers 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

Page Numbers Go to the first page, click somewhere on it and from the Insert Menu select Page number

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 both sections of the document

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

Page Numbers Go to the title page and double click on the page number Follow instructions in the next slides

Double click on the number and then click Different First Page. Do not exit this menu

In the same menu, select Format Page Numbers

Select lower case roman numbers: This concludes page numbering i, ii, ii This concludes page numbering

For the ACKNOWLEDGEMENT and the ABSTRACT to appear in the table of contents, they need to be “styled” as Titles

Base the style on Heading 1

Under Format select “Numbering”

Under Numbering select “None”

Under Format select “Borders”

Under Borders select “None”

List of Figures List of Tables Table of Contents List of Figures List of Tables

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

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

This same exact procedure is used to insert the List of Tables Select Table from the Pull Down

Click on the References Page and insert the references

This procedure will create an extra heading, delete it

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