Gail Palmer Mechanics and Style School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology

Professional Communication Skills School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology 2 Mechanics and Style  Consistency  Capitalization  Italics  Abbreviations  Acronyms and initializations  Numbers  Enumeration  Equations

Professional Communication Skills School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology 3 Consistency  Capitalization  Italics  Abbreviations  Acronyms and initializations  Numbering sequences  Symbols  Equations  Spelling

Professional Communication Skills School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology 4 Capitalization  Capitalize the first word in a sentence  Capitalize proper nouns  Capitalize titles of books, periodicals, published and unpublished reports, articles, and document sections according to IEEE guidelines  Capitalize references to specific figures, tables, chapters, sections and equations

Professional Communication Skills School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology 5 Italics  Italicize titles of journals, books, newsletters, and manuals  Italicize letters, words, terms, and equation symbols  Italicize foreign words  Italicize words or phrases being emphasized  Italicize names of specific vessels

Professional Communication Skills School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology 6 Abbreviations  Abbreviate terms and words in graphics and bibliographies  Abbreviate certain words and phrases in your text  Abbreviate standard units of measure  Avoid inventing abbreviations

Professional Communication Skills School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology 7 Acronyms and Initializations  Capitalize acronyms and do not use periods. (When acronyms become integrated into the language as common nouns, e.g., laser or radar, they are no longer capitalized.)  Spell out the phrase and follow it with the acronym or initialization in parentheses when using the acronym for the first time. Then use the acronym by itself:  Hypertext markup language (HTML) is a common programming language. Most graduate students are familiar with HTML.

Professional Communication Skills School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology 8 Acronyms and Initializations (2)  Provide a list of terms in the front matter of the document (if numerous acronyms and initializations appear in the document)  Form the plural of an acronym by adding –s without an apostrophe:  GTAs  PALs

Professional Communication Skills School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology 9 Numbers  Spell out a number if it begins a sentence  Four students made 100 on the test.  Fifteen students will give their presentations today.  Spell out the pronoun one  One is expected to give five oral presentations.  When one speaks, it is important to make lingering eye contact with the audience.  Use numerals for dates, time of day, pages, figures, and notes

Professional Communication Skills School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology 10 Numbers (2)  Use Arabic numerals followed by a percent sign (%) to express percentages (except at the beginning of a sentence):  His number of filler words decreased by 17%.  Ninety-five percent of all students will improve their oral presentation scores on their final presentation.  Spell out the first number when one number immediately follows another in a sentence:  The circuit used two 2-bit adders.  The circuit used three 2-bit adders.

Professional Communication Skills School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology 11 Numbers (3)  Use the following guidelines for forming American and British numbers:  Form integers of two to four digits without any punctuation or spacing:  Use a period (.) to indicate the decimal point and use an initial zero (0) for numbers less than 1.0:  Form numbers of five digits or more by using a comma (,) to mark off groups of three digits, starting at the decimal point: 27,45170,000700,254.51

Professional Communication Skills School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology 12 Numbers (4)  Use the following guidelines for forming international numbers:  Form integers of two to four digits without any punctuation or spacing:  Use the comma (,) to indicate the decimal point and use an initial zero (0) for numbers less than 1.0: 74,57,4520,254  Separate numbers of five digits or more by using a period (.) to mark off groups of three digits, starting at the decimal point: ,51

Professional Communication Skills School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology 13 Numbers (5)  Adopt one of the following formats for writing numbers:  Use Arabic numerals instead of words for both cardinal and ordinal numbers: 4 chips 4 th chip  Write out numbers between one and ten and two-word fractions that do not follow an integer: Four chips 1 ½ hours one-half hour

Professional Communication Skills School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology 14 Enumeration  Use enumeration in documents to identify sequences of chapters, sections, page numbers, figures and tables, equations, footnotes, and appendixes.

Professional Communication Skills School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology 15 Chapter/Section/and Outline Enumeration 11  1.1  22  2.1  2.2 33  3.1  3.2

Professional Communication Skills School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology 16 Pagination  Front matter: use lower case Roman numerals  ( i, ii, iii, iv, v, etc.)  Body: use Arabic numerals sequentially throughout starting with page 1 (do not show the page number on page 1)  End matter: continue the sequential Arabic numerals begun in the body of the document

Professional Communication Skills School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology 17 Figures  Number sequentially using Arabic numerals (no decimals)  Capitalize the word figure when a number follows it  Do not abbreviate the word figure  Follow the figure number with a period (.), skip a space, and begin the title with a capital letter  Begin the figure title at the left edge of the figure  Put the figure title under the figure  Put the figure title inside the lines surrounding the figure  Write the title as though it were a sentence – capitalize only proper nouns and the first letter of the first word

Professional Communication Skills School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology 18 Tables  Number sequentially using Arabic numerals (no decimals)  Capitalize the word table when a number follows it  Do not abbreviate the word table  Follow the word table with a period (.), skip a space, and begin the title with a capital letter  Center the table title at the top of the table  Put the table title inside the lines surrounding the table  Capitalize only proper nouns and the first letter of the first word in the title

Professional Communication Skills School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology 19 Equations  Number sequentially all equations discussed in the text  Do not number equations that are part of a series of intermediate steps and that are ot specifically discussed  Use the abbreviation Eq. followed by an Arabic numeral to number equations

Professional Communication Skills School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology 20 Equations (2)  Integrate equations into the body of the document by including in the text one or more explicit references to each equation  Include only the primary equations in the body of the document (detailed derivations and calculations correctly belong in appendices)  Set off equations from the text by displaying them centered on the longest line, and with equation numbers  The number of the equation is set flush right and is enclosed in parentheses

Professional Communication Skills School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology 21 References  Number references chronologically (according to the order in which they appear in the text)

Professional Communication Skills School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology 22