COMP 208/214/215/216 Lecture 9Report Writing

Report Writing

• Almost all projects involve the writing of a report or dissertation which carries the bulk of the marks.

• Your project will be judged on its report– The merit of a project will not be

recognised if the report is bad– A good, balanced, report can show a

project to its best advantage.

Before writing your report

• Consider what is required from the report– Typically there will be clues as to what should be

in the report in the instructions or guidelines

• Consider your audience– They can be assumed to know some things– This will help determine the balance and what

requires detail

• Be aware of the target length– This determines the amount of detail– It is always possible to report a project in 1 page or

in a hundred pages.

Structuring Your Report• I recommend a top down approach:

– Chapter Headings– Section Headings– Sub-section headings– Paragraphs within sub-sections

• Examine the structure– coverage, balance, detail

• Write the paragraphs Of course you may change the structure as you

write. A structure permits work allocation between people, and allows flexibility in the order of writing.

Generic Report Structure

• Title Page: title, author, date, course

• Abstract: a one page summary

• Acknowledgements: people to thank

• Contents: to sub-section level

• List of figures and tables: optional

• Chapters: introduction, body, conclusion

• References: in proper format

• Appendices: labelled A, B, etc, to give details, eg, design diagrams, user manual.

Group Project Report Guidelines

Your team report should be no more than 10 pages. It should contain:

Details of the team members and a summary of their roles on the project

An overview of the application: what it does, who is intended to use it; why they might want to use it

A description of what was achieved on the project An evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the project Suggestions for future developments A one-page discussion of how your project related to the codes

of practice and conduct issued by the British Computer Society A bibliography of materials used on the project.

• Only a single “Chapter” - so straight to sections.

Sections

1. Members and Roles 2. Application Description 3. What was Produced 4. Evaluation 5. Extensions 6. Professional Issues 7. Bibliography.

Sub Sections

For each section, decide what you want to say in in each section, and the order in which you want to say it. Example: 2. Application Description

2.1 Application Domain 2.2 Types of User 2.3 Typical Queries 2.4 Typical Reports.

Evaluation is Important

• Give a balanced, critical appraisal• Talk about weaknesses as well as

strengths– Better to show you recognise things that

could have been better than to pretend everything is wonderful when it is not

• Discuss things that you would do differently with hindsight.

Format of the Report• Deciding on the format at the outset makes life

easier when you bring the report together• If there are guidelines, follow them. Otherwise you

need to decide on– Fonts: Times Roman is recommended for text;

constant width (e.g. courier) for code– Font size: 12 recommended, no less than 10.

Headings proportionally bigger– Use single column, justified, with reasonable

margins, with page numbers, monochrome– Line spacing: One and half is best: single is ok;

double too much.

Style• The style should be clear, but formal

– Avoid “I” as much as possible– Keep sentences as short as possible– Avoid abbreviations and slang– Use simple words

• do not utilise esoteric or arcane terminology

– Do not use contractions (don’t, it’s, isn’t)– Do use the past tense– You are writing a report, not a narrative story.

Do not write stuff like

After I’d written the program I compiled it, but all I got was a lot of errors. I tried putting everything on different lines, but it still wouldn’t compile, so I separated out the declarations. Still no luck. So I went to see Dave Shield and he told me that I was running C code through a JAVA compiler, and when I used the C compiler it did sort of compile, and after a bit I got it to run fine. But now I found that it was giving the wrong answer so I went to the pub. The next day I realised I’d used + when I meant * in the relevant line and then it worked ok.

Write instead:

“The program was successfully written, compiled and debugged.

Spelling

• Always use a spell checker – but remember that you may be using correct words in incorrect places:– there is no apostrophe in its. “It’s” is a

contraction of “it is”. “Belonging to it” is its– They left their books over there– “Alot” is not a word. “A lot” or “allot”– separate is correct. seperate is not.– Relevant is correct. Relevent is not.

Belonging to them A place

much give out

Grammar

• Try to use correct grammar– Do not run sentences together:

• Not “the program was a success, it did everything the user wanted. Use a semi-colon, or start a new sentence

– Sentences have verbs in them:• Not “There are two kinds of input device. Keyboard

and mouse.” Either one sentence:• “There are two kinds of input device, namely keyboard

and mouse”, or put a verb in the second sentence• “There are two kinds of input device. These are

keyboard and mouse.”

Wrong use of comma:either semi colon orfull stop

No verb in this “sentence”If in doubt use short sentences (with verbs)

Abstracts

• A short summary of the report or dissertation.

• Summarise the background, approach and results

• Not just a contents listing• Do not use references in the abstract• Do not use acronyms in the abstract.

Figures and Tables

• Diagrams and Tables are very useful to help explain some things and to present results

• All figures and tables should– Have a number (chapter.figure). Figure

3.4 is the fourth figure of chapter three– Have a caption eg,

• Figure 3.4: Architecture of the system.

References and Use of Sources• In the text refer to sources by name and

date– one author: Houndscrounger (1997)– two authors: Mills and Boone (1967)– three or more authors: White et al. (1994)

• Make sure you refer to your sources in the text wherever it is appropriate to do so.

• Attributed quotation shows you know the literature: Unattributed quotation or paraphrase is Plagiarism.

Use Sources To:• Give the source of any quotations, diagrams etc

that you use. – Never use someone else’s words without citation

• To identify context– “Many planning systems exist (e.g. Tate (1967), Lyle

(1985), Sugar and Venables (1994)).”

• To justify your claims:– “Z-Sat is provably NP-complete (Jobsworth (1943)).”– “It has often been said that user interfaces should be

user friendly (e.g. Diaper (1981)).”

• To provide background– “For a fuller description of the notation, see Marley and

Scrooge (1967)).”

Bibliography

• You must give full details of every work cited and used in the project.

• Details comprise:– All authors and initials– Date of publication – Journal/Collection (for papers)– Publisher and Place of Publication (for

books)– Page numbers (for papers).

Bibliography - Examples• Book:

– Thom, A.W., Dick, J., and Harris, K.P., (1957). Principles and Practice, Clarendon Press: Oxford.

• Journal:– Lenin, V.I., (1917). Reason and Revolt, International

Journal of Computer Science, Vol. 3, No. 4. pp. 54-67.

• Collection:– Hill, C., and Dale, W., (1998). Using Colour Effectively. In

Fell, D.R., (ed), Interface Design, Blackwell, Oxford. pp. 234-287.

• Web Site– Castro, F. (1965). Database Design. Available from htpp://www.fidel.cu/dbdes (25 January 2000).

– For web-sites, you should give the URL and the date you last accessed it.

Appendices• Use appendices to include detailed

material to substantiate the report: eg,– Code listings– Requirements statement– Design documents (original and revised)– Screen shots– Test data and runs– Questionnaires– User manual

• Label the appendices: – Appendix A, Appendix B, Appendix C, etc.

User Guides• Should include:

– Overview of software: what it does; who it is for

– hardware requirements– how to install the software– how to run the software– how to use the software– how to quit

• Write in terms appropriate to target user.

Summary

• Think about the structure• Use a consistent, appropriate layout• Write clearly, in a formal style, using

correct grammar and spelling• Cite all your sources• Give full details of the sources in the

bibliography• Make sensible use of appendices.

Final Deliverables• Portfolio (one per team)

– See Lecture 8 for details

• Group Non-plagiarism Declaration (one per team)

• Individual Submission (one per student)– A statement of what you (personally) have learnt (1-2 pages)– A completed Peer Assessment form– Form available from the module web-pages