The Introduction and Conclusions act as a frame for the body of the report, which is where you present your own work. The information should be organised so that the reader can follow the development of your project. You will therefore need to put some thought into ordering the sections and choosing concise but informative headings and subheadings.

The body of the report:

• presents the information from your research, both real world and theoretical, or your design
• organises information logically under appropriate headings
• conveys information in the most effective way for communication by means of:
  • figures and tables
  • bulleted or numbered lists
  • formatting to break up large slabs of text.

Presentation conventions and section headings

Provide informative headings

Headings should tell the reader exactly what type of information is contained in the section. They should be specific and content-focused rather than just labels. Devising informative headings as opposed to label headings right from the planning stage will help you to clarify exactly what you want to achieve in each section and subsection. Compare these pairs of headings:

Make all headings consistent and parallel in structure

This means that headings should follow a similar grammatical form. In the following table, each heading is structured differently:

Example: Inconsistent headings

Usually, it is not difficult to convert such headings to a common form. In this example, all have been changed to noun phrases. This is the most commonly used format for section headings in an informational report.

Incorporating figures and tables

One of the purposes of engineering reports is to convey information as clearly and simply as possible. For this reason, figures and tables are commonly used. Anything other than a table (e.g. maps, charts, schematic diagrams, circuit diagrams, drawings, graphs, images) is called a figure.

• Each figure and table must have a number and a descriptive title.
• Each figure and table must be referred to in the text of the report.
• Figures and tables should be placed just after they are first referred to in the text.

The edge effect

Click on the comment buttons in the sample text below to learn more.

As the volume of liquid per unit length increases, a bulge will form in an attempt to reduce the surface energy of the channel as shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1: Stable states of liquid microchannels on hydrophilic strips bonded to a hydrophobic substrate. A) Lecturer's comment:
Where a figure consists of more than one part, each part is identified by letter, A, B etc. The letters should appear on the images themselves as well as in the caption. Low volume per unit length resulting in uniform channels B) higher volume per unit length resulting in a single bulge state after a certain contact angle is exceeded (image adapted from Gau et al, 1999) Lecturer's comment:
Figures and tables copied from someone else's work, published or unpublished, must be referenced. This applies to someone else's data, even if you created the figure or table you present it in. The citation should be placed in brackets after the figure or table title, and the source included in the References list.

Other than hydrophilic strips on a hydrophobic substrate, sharp edges can be used to contain liquid microchannels. Figure 2Lecturer's comment:
Each figure or table must be referred to by number in the text and presented as close to the first mention as possible. shows how contact with a sharp edge allows a droplet to hold more liquid than would otherwise be possible.

Figure 2: Diagram Lecturer's comment:
For anything apart from a table or graph, begin the caption by stating what the figure is, e.g. diagram, flowchart, map, SEM image. Then describe what the figure shows. showing the use of the edge effect in constraining the three-phase interface line for a droplet formation

Equations

You will often have to include equations in your reports. The conventional style for presenting equations is as follows:

• Centre the equation on the page.
• Place the equation number in round brackets at the right-hand margin.
• In the text of your report, refer to the equations as either Eq. (1) or equation (1). Use whichever format you choose consistently throughout your report.

Justifying your approach

In many projects you are given a task, some background information and some guidelines, but expected to make many decisions yourself, based on your own research. In such cases, your lecturer will want to know why you made the choices you did, so you will need to show the reasoning behind your decisions.

Example 1

The example below is from a first year report presenting the design for a composting toilet to be used in remote regions of developing countries.

Example 2

The example below is from the Method section of a fourth year report on an investigation into pitting corrosion in marine environments.

Active or passive voice

In both of the example texts above, the students are reporting on what they did. However, they use different writing conventions:

Example 1: “We therefore decided that...”.

This sentence is written in the active voice. It has a subject who performed the verb: “We decided…”.

Example 2: “The pipe was cut…”

This is written in the passive voice. It does not specify who performed the verb: we don’t know who cut the pipe.

The convention of using the passive voice when writing about method arose in order to avoid:

a. beginning every sentence with “I” or “We”, which would sound repetitive

b. focusing on who did the work rather than what they did, which is more important.

Uses of ‘we’

You may have been told not to use “I” or “we” in your reports; however. there are two cases in academic writing when ‘we’ is quite acceptable.

Consider the examples below:

In this case, “we” means ‘we Australians’ and refers to our society. It could also refer to human beings in general.

The other acceptable use of “we” is when we mean “you the reader and me the writer”, as in: “We saw in section 2 that…”

Presenting your outcomes

The outcomes you present in your report will take different forms according to the type of project. However, in all cases, your marker wants to know that you have thought about what you have learned. This can be in relation to both the unit content and your developing knowledge of engineering in general.

Design project

• Clarify how your design fits the design criteria or relevant theory.
• Use visual representations such as sketches, diagrams and photographs to supplement your description.
• Acknowledge and explain any limitations and compromises that have affected your design.

Investigative (literature review) project

• After researching your topic thoroughly, decide how you want to present it and structure your report accordingly.
• Select the relevant information, illustrations and examples, and supporting evidence from your notes.
• Do not merely report what you have learned; add value by commenting, making connections and drawing a conclusion.

Site visit or work experience report

• Explain the organisation, its purpose, values, systems, and processes clearly.
• Use maps, diagrams and photographs to supplement your description.
• Comment on what you have observed and make connections with your course content.

Next: Conclusions and recommendations