1. By: Wilmer Arellano FIU Fall 2009
Style Guidelines
By: Wilmer Arellano FIU
Fall 2009

2. Overview E-mails Introduction to Proposal Style
General Recommendations
Section Headings
Writing 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 # in your subject
Include all the team names in the signature

5. Official Notifications
I will consider you informed of a particular topic when:
I post it in the Website or
When I your FIU account or
When I announce it in class

6. 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.

7. General Recommendations
Write on both sides paper (save some trees0
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.

8. 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

9. General Recommendations
First line of each paragraph is indented
When Possible use bulleted or numbered lists to highlight different ideas, topics or other Items.
See next example

12. 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

13. 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)

14. Writing 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.

15. Writing References
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:

16. Writing 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

17. Writing References See:
shop/citapa.htm

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

19. 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

20. 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.

21. 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 done,
and present selected 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.

22. 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
Remove the list under “Project Summary”
Change “Project Summary” to “Executive Summary”

23. 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

24. Insert a new page

25. Copy and Paste the outline into your document
Delete information regarding to Title page

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

28. Insert page breaks as the one inserted before for after:
AKNNOWLEDGEMENT and
ABSTRACT
Center them and use Bold All Capital letters

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

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

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

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

40. Apply the new style to the executive summary

41. Heading Style 2 is already available with a minor modification
Heading Style 2 is already available with a minor modification. Use it where it applies

45. Repeat as Needed

46. There is a problem when we use it the second time
Wrong Secondary numbering
There is a problem when we use it the second time

50. 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

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

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

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

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

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

58. 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

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

60. 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

61. 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

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

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

65. In the same menu, select Format Page Numbers

66. Select lower case roman numbers: This concludes this step
i, ii, ii
This concludes this step

67. List of Figures List of Tables
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables

68. You must have a blank page after the Title Page
Insert six line feeds and position the cursor in the first one
From the Reference Menu select Table of Contents
This will insert your Table of Contents

69. Position the cursor in the third of the line feeds
In the same page and from the same menu select Insert Table of Figures
This will insert your Table of Figures

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

71. Click on the References Page and insert the references

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

74. 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