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

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

3. References
One of the most impressive sites regarding technical writing.
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:
C.W. POST CAMPUS APA Citation Style. Retrieved January 10, from Long Island University Web site:

4. s
I will use as my broadcast list the one that I get from Panther's Soft.
I might reply to personal accounts if I received s from them but I will not include them in my broadcast list.
Please check that your FIU account is working.
When you me please:
Copy all your team members
Include team ID and course # in the subject
Include all the team names in the signature

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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

8. 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

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

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

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

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

14. General Section Structure

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

18. 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

19. 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)

20. 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.

21. 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:
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:
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:
Website
Lynch, T. (1996). DS9 trials and tribble-ations review. Retrieved October 8, 1997, from Psi Phi: Bradley's Science Fiction Club Web site:
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:

22. 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:
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 Message: get GENEALOGY REPORT

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

24. 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

25. 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

26. 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.

27. 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.

28. 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

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

33. Insert two new pages

34. Copy and Paste the outline into your document last page
Delete information regarding to Title page
Make sure you have the most current version

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

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

38. Insert a new page

40. 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

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

42. Another Example
Observe that Sub Sections must remain within their section

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

44. 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”

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

47. Center Primary Heading

48. Use Italics for secondary, tertiary and quaternary headings

49. Use Bold for all headings

50. Use automatic color for all headings

51. Apply the new style to the executive summary

52. This is how it would look like

54. Repeat as Needed

55. 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

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

57. Put the cursor where you want to add a reference

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

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

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

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

63. 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

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

65. 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

66. 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

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

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

70. In the same menu, select Format Page Numbers

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

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

73. Base the style on Heading 1

74. Under Format select “Numbering”

75. Under Numbering select “None”

76. Under Format select “Borders”

77. Under Borders select “None”

78. List of Figures List of Tables
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables

79. 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

80. 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

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

82. Click on the References Page and insert the references

84. This procedure will create an extra heading, delete it

85. 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