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Project Grading and Technical Report Writing Format
Grading of project assignment(s) will be based on the following grade percentages.
  • (50%) In-depth investigation of project topic

  • (20%) Report part of the project

  • (30%) In class presentation
  1. These three parts must be submitted on the due date. Any missing part will result in a zero grade for that group and/or student.

  2. All group members must be present during the submittal process -- any missing group member will receive zero grade.

Each report must contain the following title page. Failure to comply will result in grade penalty.

Writing a good technical report is very important in communicating with your colleagues. The report must be clear and well organized so that the reader can understand your message.
You should have the following information in your report:
  1. Reports must be written using a computer. Handwritten reports will not be accepted.

  2. List the names and student numbers of each team member at the begininning of the report along with the title and the date. You must also include course code, course name, instructor name, semester, name of department and university in the title page. An example of a title page is available here.

  3. Introduce your subject to the reader. Define the purpose and the requirements of the homework. State your approach for accomplishing the homework and list the important steps to achieve this. Identify each step. For example, a theoretical part can give basic information about how you computed certain component values, an experimental part can include wiring diagrams and the measurement equipments. Do not try to write obvious details but give only essential points. Nobody likes to read long reports - keep it simple and short.

  4. Experimental procedure must be clearly stated. First of all give complete circuit diagram that is used in the test set-up. Label each component, i.e., the part number and/or the value of every circuit element must be given so that someone else can recreate the experiment if necessary.

  5. List all the equipments used in the measurement and specify which meter yielded which data. Measured data must be distinguished from the calculated values. Note the scaling of the meters/oscilloscopes.

  6. If a drawing, i.e., a circuit schematic, is required, it must be well drawn by a suitable computer program, i.e., Microsoft Visio, XCircuit and XFig (for Linux). Scanned drawings from some other sources (internet, book, etc.) will greatly reduce the quality, and possibly the grade, of your report.

  7. If a graph is used to visualize the data, title, the axes labels and their scales must be given. All figures and tables must have a caption identifiying what the figure/table is about, i.e., Figure 1, Table 1. While Figure captions are placed under the figures, Table captions are placed over the tables.

  8. Last section of your report should compare your experimental results with the theoretical ones. Make observations and draw conclusions from the results of your work. Specifically state why you believe or disbelieve the experimental result (you may have made a mistake during the experiment). Discuss whether you achieved the projects goals and requirements. If not explain the reason why the requirements are not met. What was the problem and what should have been done to correct it? Discuss the results.

  9. A reference section at the end should give the name of the sources that you used during the preparation of the report (i.e., name of a book, technical papers, etc.). References should be numbered within brackets, i.e. [1].
    Three examples of format for references (book, journal, conference) are given below.

    1. Z. Lubosny, Wind Turbine Operation in Electric Power Systems, Springer Press, 2003.
    2. E. Koutroulis, K. Kalaitzakis, "Design of a maximum power tracking system for wind-energy-conversion applications," IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, vol. 53, no. 2, April 2006.
    3. I. Schiemenz, M. Stiebler, "Control of a permanent magnet Synchronous Generator Used in a Variable Speed Wind Energy System", Electric Machines and Drives Conference IEMDC 2001, 872 - 877, 2001.


  10. An Appendix section should include the manufacturer datasheets of any device that is used in your report.

  11. For an A4 paper (210x297 mm) you should leave 40 mm from the left and 30 mm from the top, bottom and the right of the page. Font size should be 12 point Times New Roman and one-and-a half spacing (double spacıng between paragraphs) should be used throughout the text. Put the page numbers on the top right hand side of the page. Title page should not be numbered.
© 2000-2009 Deniz Yildirim, deniz@ieee.org