Some details
Below, you will find a list of small hints that you may consider when you write your project and master theses:
- The text should be written with a serif-font (like such as Times, Garamond, or Cambria). Text paragraphs written in such a font are easier to read than for a sans serif font (like such as Arial, Calibri, or Helvetica).
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- Use active voice. For example: "Ref “Ref 1 shows that ..." …” instead of "It “It is shown in Ref 1 that ..."…”
- Avoid using too many adjectives (Remove them whenever possible).
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- When you have written your report, everything you want to say is in the report. Do not write statements such as "This “This result will be further discussed in Chapter 3"3”. When reading the report, everything has been written – it will not be written! You should instead write "This “This result is further discussed in Chapter 3"3”.
- Avoid using words like: also, therefore, somewhat, however, in addition, moreover, and so on.
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- Present tense should be used for known facts and hypotheses. This means that you should use present tense when referring to results found in the literature. For example "Ref “Ref 1 shows that..." that…” and not "Ref “Ref 1 has shown that ..."…”
- Use past tense when you refer to results from experiments that you have conducted.
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- Always use capital letters to denote random variables - and (the same) lowercase letters to denote observed values. Example: "The time to failure T was observed to be t." (Note that both T and t are mathematical symbols and shall be written in a mathematical font - see previous item). Avoid using capital letters for parameters, such as test intervals, frequencies, and so on.
- Avoid abbreviations like such as e.g., i.e., and etc. in the text. Write instead: for example, that is, and and so on. The abbreviations may, however, be used inside parentheses, for example, (e.g., see Ref 1)
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- Maintain a textfile where you record the way you write the various expressions - sort the file alphabetically.
External sources
If you search the net for guidelines to writing reports, you will find a high number of hits. Some of these guides may be very useful, but you should be careful so you are not misguided.