1. Guidelines for Formal Report ChE 477 (UO Lab) Larry Baxter & Stan Harding Brigham Young University

2. Content and Format Letter of Transmittal Short letter with summary that is separate from report and is addressed to your supervisor. Front Matter Table of Contents List of Figures List of Tables Executive Summary Summarize objective, methods, results, and conclusions in less than one page. Introduction Have a one-sentence statement of objective. Don’t be embarrassed to say, “The objectives of this investigation are …”

3. Content and Format Theory Develop model that describes what should happen independent of data (a curve fit is not a model). Base model on coursework where possible. Apparatus & Procedure Minimize replication of available instructions. Focus on issues not obvious to you at the start or things to avoid. Results, Analysis, and Discussion Largest single section of report. Focus on interpretation of data (this is why they pay me the big bucks). Include statistical analysis of data.

4. Content and Format Conclusions & Recommendations Concise, focused on objective, with no new information in conclusions. References Cite all work that is not yours. Appendix Same as earlier, including suggestions for improving experiment and partner evaluation. Optional Nomenclature

5. Content and Format Figures All figures should be numbered and have captions at the bottom. Figures should not appear on a page earlier than the page on which it is first cited. Axes should be labeled at bottom (or top) and left (or right), not in the center. Use full range of figure. Don’t leave large blank areas. Tables All tables should be numbered and have captions at the top. Headers and Footers Include title of report in header and page number in footer. Roman page numbering starts with title page (but no number appears on title page). Arabic numbering starts with summary (but again the summary page is not numbered).

6. Dangling Constructions Ensure the subject of introductory sentences agrees with that of the remainder of the sentence. Having studied the costs, several questions arise. Having studied the costs, we posed the following questions. To obtain more precise data, surrogate chemicals were used. To obtain more precise data, investigators used surrogate chemicals.