Writing Lab Reports, Scientific and Survey Papers

ExJobbs and D-level projects

This section will provide some basic information regarding D-level (10p) and Master thesis (10p or 20p) projects. In any cases the following R/D structure should will provide maximum efficiency:
Pre-study
In the pre-study we are interested in gathering all the necessary information regarding the topic under consideration (visit the following page). During the pre-study phase, all uncertainties and critical factors needs to be identified (this is called the state-of-the-art). An overview of the expected project is also sketched. With the completion of the pre-study a report should be prepared (follow the instructions given here). This report provides the basis for the work that will follow. The previous statement implies that: WITHOUT A PRE-STUDY REPORT YOU CANNOT CONTINUE WITH THE REST OF THE PROJECT. So first you need to finish this step, wait for a day or two to get an approval for your pre-study report and then you can continue with the implementation phase.

Implementation
During the implementation phase you will develop the software package under consideration.

Technical report
A technical report (TR) should explain what you did, why you did it, what you discovered, and what is significant of your findings. The report should identify clearly what is novel about your work, and how it relates to prior knowledge. There should be a focused topic. The topic should be developed in a thorough, logical, and orderly fashion. Throughout, the author should be helpful to the reader.

The report should include the following components: descriptive title, author name and affiliation, date, informative abstract, list of keywords, body, acknowledgments, and list of references. Additional separate appendices, where appropriate, may also be included. The standard four-part outline for the body of a technical report is motivation (introduction), methods (state-of-the-art), results (experimental results) and discussion (conclusion).

There is no minimum or maximum length requirement--the length should be appropriate for what you have to say. Many TRs are about 20-30 pages long, but it is not uncommon for TRs to be significantly longer. Regardless of length, it is usually an effective strategy to explain in successive layers. For example, lengthy TRs often begin with a relatively short overview section for readers who wish an executive summary. Quality and conciseness, not quantity, will be rewarded.

The report should follow the structure given in the following example. This example uses LaTex which is the only decent format for research reports. If you are not familiar with LaTex you may consult the following link.

What is the purpose of lab reports and scientific papers:
  • Persuade others to accept or reject hypotheses by presenting data and interpretations
  • Detail data, procedures, and outcomes for future researchers
  • Become part of the accepted body of scientific knowledge when published
  • Provide an archival record for reference and document a current situation for future comparison
Format

 The typical lab report includes: title, abstract, introduction, main body (your contribution), results, discussion, references and literature.

Title
  • Reflect the factual content with less than ten words in a straightforward manner
  • Use words researchers and search engines on the Internet will recognize
Abstract and keywords

Summarize in a concise paragraph the purpose of the report, data presented, and major conclusions in maximum 200 words. Keywords should highlight key terms and phrases from the text of the report. You can use either the IEEE Computer Society - Keywords, the ACM Computing Classification System or the following.

Introduction
  • Define the subject of the paper: "Why was this study performed?"
  • Provide background information and relevant studies: "What knowledge already exists around the subject?"
  • Outline scientific purpose(s) and/or objective(s): "What are the specific hypotheses and the experimental design for investigation?"
Main body (your contribution)
Provide enough details for the reader to understand the experiment without overwhelming him/her. When procedures from a technique found in another book or another report are followed exactly, simply cite the work and note that details can be found there.
Results
  • Concentrate on general trends and differences and not on trivial details.
  • Summarize the data from the experiments without discussing their implications
  • Organize data into tables, figures, graphs, etc.
  • Title all figures and tables; include a legend explaining symbols, abbreviations, or special methods. The caption of the figure goes always under the figure.
  • Number figures and tables separately and refer to them in the text by their number, ex. "Figure 4 depicts the results ...", and "it can be seen from Fig. 4 that the results ...", pay attention to the capital letter in both cases and the abbreviation in the second case.
Discussion
  • Interpret the data; do not restate the results.
  • Relate results to existing theory and knowledge.
  • Explain the logic that allows you to accept or reject your original hypotheses.
  • Speculate as necessary but identify it as such.
  • Include suggestions for improving your techniques or design, or clarify areas of doubt for further research.
References & literature
Cite only references in your paper and not a general bibliography on the topic unless you are working on a survey paper. Below there are some brief instructions on the bibliography. For more information have a look at the IEEE Transactions BibTeX Style. The details required in order are: name/s of author/s, editor/s, compiler/s or the institution responsible, title of publication and subtitle if any (book titles in Italics, other publication in “”), series title and individual volume if any, edition if other than first, publisher, place of publication, volume if any, number if any, page number(s) if applicable and finally year of publication.

Examples:
  • B. D. Cullity, Introduction to Magnetic Materials. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1972.
  • A. Castaldini, A. Cavallini, B. Fraboni, P. Fernandez and J. Piqueras, “Midgap traps related to compensation processes in CdTe alloys,” Phys. Rev. B., vol. 56, no. 23, pp. 14 897–14 900, 1997.
Two very nice GUI based tool for BibTex management are the following: General style
  • Strive for logic and precision and avoid ambiguity, especially with pronouns and sequences.
  • Keep your writing impersonal; avoid the use of the first person (i.e. I or we).
  • Use the past tense and be consistent within the report.
  • Write numbers as numerals when greater than ten (i.e. 156) or associated with measurements (i.e. 6 sec).
  • Have a neutral person review and critique your report before submission.
  • The paper must be submitted in latex format and also in PDF or Postscript format. In rare occasion I might accept open file formats like *.odt, *.sxw, *.ods, *.sxc, *.odp, *.sxi, *.odg and *.sxd. NO MICROSOFT file formats are accepted. The figures are also submitted in separate files (preferably *.eps).
  • Make sure that the paper prints well on black-and-white printers, not color printers.
Proofreader's marks

When submitting your work you should expect some feedback from my side. In the following links you will find explanations on the provided comments: Link1, Link2, Link3, Link4, Link5.

Further consulting

* adapted from:
  • http://www.studygs.net/labreports.htm
  • http://standards.ieee.org/guides/style
Survey Paper

Very often, literature survey is the first step in identifing a research topic. This article describes few steps in literature survey.
Collecting recent research papers:
  • from library
  • from internet
  • from the proceedings of international technical conferences. Many conferences have their own web site and usually have abstracts published in web. This helps you to identify what are current topics in the research community. You can go one step further by looking up authors' personal page to download the paper.
  • What I should do with all the research papers I've collected?
    You can write up one page summary for each paper with following content:
    1. Aim: What is the main purpose of this paper? What's the problem(s) the author(s) attempt to attack? What is the ultimate goal for this research?
    2. Contributions: What is the contribution of this paper to this field? How does this paper distinguish itself from others?
    3. Limitations: What are the limitations of the proposed approach in this paper? Does the proposed scheme limit to certain conditions?
    4. Comparison: Is there any similar research papers available? If so, what is the difference among them?
    5. Observation: What is my personal observation/opinions of this paper? Is there any alternative solution (or better solution) than the proposed scheme?
    6. Questions: Do not expect to fully understand all of the content in this paper! Highlight the sections that you don't understand.
    Make a copy of this checklist and attach it to each paper you read. Shuffle it and organize it in any combination you prefer. You might come up with different ideas and realize the connection among several papers. Put the author and title of that paper on the top of this survey sheet. You may include your own personal index number, if available. At the end, you should be able to classify all the published papers into several categories. This helps you to organize all the research papers and their contributions.
Final instructions

When you are about to deliver your final reports and master thesis you should have the following things in mind:

  1. The only acceptable file format for reports is LATEX (*.tex) accompanied by a bibliography file (*.bib) created by either JabRef or BibTexMng
  2. The images provided must be in postscript format (*.eps) accompanied by the corresponding source files from DIA (*.dia) or Inkscape (*.svg). The previous imply that if you have diagrams, flow-charts, etc then you must create them using one of these programs. DO NOT convert existing GIF or JPG images into postscript files. The results will generally look awful. If on the other hand you have a regular image then you can convert it into postscript. So if you have a diagram like the one to the left at the bottom of the page then you need to use DIA or Inkscape, otherwise you provide the JPEG or GIF etc (bottom right example).
  3. Ask someone to read your report for syntax, grammar and spelling errors. We are not in an English literature program but a report is more appealing to readers when it is easy to be read.
  4. All the references that you use for your report should be submitted in a seperate folder. That is, if you have journal articles, conference papers, technical reports etc that you reference then you have to provide them as well. Books are of course an exception to this rule.

General comments

  • Proof read and spell-check. Ask for someone to read your report; we usually overlook our own mistakes, a third person will not make the same mistake!!!
  • Make sure the references comply with the IEEE Transactions BibTeX Style.
  • Figures: Citing a figure has two variants: 1) "Figure 2 depicts the ....." and 2) "....... whereas in Fig. 2 we see ..." The difference has to do with the location of the word figure in the sentence.
  • Equations: Similar to citing figures there are two cases for equations: 1) "Equation (3) corresponds to the wavelet ....." and 2) "..... in conjunction with Eq. (2)"
  • Citing a reference with multiple authors: "Chen et al. in [1]" (Please not the full stop after al and also the italics)
  • DO NOT use footnotes. Incorporate them in the text.
  • Do not leave gaps between text and punctuation marks. " ... proposing a system ." should be "... proposing a system."
  • Use 10pt fonts. No smaller and no bigger than that.