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EN2315 Professional Studies & Construction - LABORATORIES
Introduction
Report writing is a method of communication and needs to have an appropriate style and layout. If
you are writing to a close friend you might adopt, intuitively, a particular style of writing that may
contain colloquialisms, slang terms and abbreviations such as “didn’t”, “couldn’t” and so on: if you
are writing, say, a formal letter to your bank manager, your letter will contain none of these.
Similarly, a report is a formal document that requires formal prose.
A report needs to have not only a formal style of writing but also a standard layout: we will
use the recommendations given by the British Standards Institution (BSI) for the presentation of
research and developmental reports. For undergraduates, these recommendations will have to be
modified slightly (there might be no history of experimental work for current investigation).
Grammatical rules for the English language provide the necessary framework in which
authors produce their work: the framework for the presentation of reports should be seen in a
similar way.
Writing will be in the passive voice (e.g. “dial gauge readings were taken”) and not in the
active voice (e.g. “we took dial gauge readings”). Experimental work will be referred to in the past
tense (“the time to collect 26kg of water was recorded”); contents of the report will be referred to in
the present tense (“figure 4 shows the limit of proportionality to be 350 MPa”); apparatus that will
continue to exist for some time after the experimental work could be referred to in the present
tense (“the engine test rig comprises of two-stroke IC engine coupled to a …”), but apparatus
constructed only for the purpose of the work and subsequently dismantled will be referred to in the
past tense (“there was an arrangement of levers to provide equal loading at the nodes”).
There are many references in the library to help improve your writing and you are strongly
encouraged to read these in your own time, e.g. Van Emden, 2005.
Planning the Work
A five-point plan for the basis for a successful planning procedure for reports is:
1. define the objective
2. gather the information
3. analyse the information
4. draw conclusions
5. draft the abstract
Report contents
Text shall be typed in MS Word (or similar) using Times New Roman, 12pt font, with 1.5 line spacing
and 3.2cm margins (1 ¼ inch), using sections & sub-sections as required. Nothing shall be written in
the margin because the binding of any document will either prevent or make difficult the reading of
any text within this width. Your report should not exceed 12 pages.
The Title Page consists of the Title of the Lab Report and the Abstract, which is an
informative précis of the entire work; it will give a description of the methods, results and main
conclusions and be a stand-alone piece of text that the reader can understand without having to
refer to the report.
On the next page will be the Table of Contents. Each line entry shall give the report section
number or sub-section number, the section or sub-section and only the start page number. Figure 1
below shows an example of a contents page, which also demonstrates the format for reports where
multiple experiments are completed in a single laboratory session.
Page No.
1. Introduction 1
2. Theory 2
2.1 Impact of a jet
2.2 Venturi meter
3. Experimental procedure and results 5
3.1 Impact of a jet
3.2 Venturi meter
Etc.
Figure 1. Contents page example
The rest of the report should contain numbered sections on:
1. Introduction
2. Theory
3. Experimental procedure
4. Results
5. Discussion
6. Conclusion
7. References
Appendices containing information pertinent to the report, but which does not form a unique part of
the report, could be included if required.
BS4811:1972 provides guidelines for report writing, and relevant extracts are provided below.
1 Introduction
BS4811 clearly states the requirements of an introductory section:
“Every report shall have an introductory section which should include in the first paragraph a
succinct statement of the objective of the work […] The introduction should bring out the salient
features of the work in a concise manner […] It should not anticipate what is to be said in later
sections of the report […] and, in particular, it should not include:
(1) detailed experimental procedure and/or theoretical reasoning;
(2) detailed discussion of the results as a repetition of the discussion section;
(3) simple repetition of the contents of the Abstract.”
Essentially, your first paragraph shall inform the reader of the purpose of your work. Do not start
this paragraph with the words: “The object of the experiment is to ...” (it is better to use the
adjective “experimental” with nouns such as work, programme etc.). For industrial reports, the
paragraph(s) that follow would give the background to the experimental work and would include
statements and citations to referenced work on what had been obtained before. In undergraduate
reports, a background of experimental work may not exist, but you could place the work in context
and refer briefly to underlying theoretical analysis. One or two paragraphs should be sufficient but
write more if you think it necessary.
2 Theory
Instead of copying out a rigorous theoretical analysis, you could start with the basic, governing
equations, give a statement on the assumptions (if any) made in the theory and then state the
EN2315 Professional Studies & Construction - LABORATORIES
Dr J D Millington 3 Cardiff University
result(s). You should give a citation (in the text) to a reference (bibliographic details in your
Reference section), by finding a book in the library that covers the theory.
3 Experimental Procedure
The procedure (and results) obtained from the work might fall naturally into sub-sections, in which
case give the sub-sections titles and numbers. Structured in paragraph format, all experimental
details should be covered with appropriate justification or rationale provided for key features of the
procedure.
4 Results
4.1 Tables
Each table of results shall have a table number and a title above the table. Each table shall have a
citation in the text, for example: “from the pressure measurements, local velocity values have been
calculated; these are shown in Table 5.” Each set of tabulated values shall have a heading giving
quantity, symbol (if used) and units.
4.2 Figures
Each figure, whether it is a graphical plot or a diagram showing a drawing of the equipment, shall be
accompanied with a figure number and title at the bottom of the figure. Whenever possible, the
figure should be presented in the portrait format with the dependent variable being plotted on an
axis parallel to the long edge of the paper.
Axes shall not have arrow heads at their ends, and division marks on an axis shall not be
closer than 20 mm. Data points should preferably be shown by small circles, squares or triangles
with a dot in the centre; crosses, either vertical or inclined, may be used when all other options have
been exhausted. Do not use colour to differentiate between curves on the same figure; use
different legends (e.g. circle and square) and perhaps different line types (e.g. continuous, broken).
Give a legend key to describe the curves. Keep figures free from extraneous text and lines, such as a
right angle and a calculation to determine a slope. It would also help to show a thin-lined grid.
When inserting figures from other software (e.g. Excel) using “copy” and “paste” use the
“Paste special” and select ‘Paste as picture’. This will avoid you embedding the original excel file into
your document, which will make your Word file very large and unmanageable.
5 Discussion
BS4811 states: “The discussion is the interpretation of and / or commentary on the results and the
reasoning on which the conclusions are founded.” For example, in a figure showing the variation of
local air velocity across a horizontal section of a rectangular duct, the figure might show low
velocities near the duct walls and a maximum value at a position not on the centre line. Your text in
the discussion should give reasons for this behaviour. It is in the Discussion section that an estimate
of the precision of your results should be given.
6 Conclusions
A clear description of what should appear in this section is stated by BS4811: “The conclusions
represent a clear and orderly presentation of the deductions made after full consideration of the
results of the work […] the details of an involved argument or result should not be included.”
7 References
You should follow the published ENGIN referencing style, as covered on your Year 1 Library Skills
session.