Editor=S Last Inch

Editor's last inch

Common problems with lab, senior design reports, in no special order.

1.  Write for the uninformed reader; do not write a personal essay

2.  Introduction — begin with topic sentence; then give background (literature is often bad role model); give conclusions; avoid long, drawn-out personal narrative; make abstract informative summary of paper

3.  Conclusion — make sure it actually draws conclusions, does not merely outline the paper. Compare with known values when appropriate

4.  Punctuation, layout, and notation

Use serial comma: A, B, and C — not A, B and C

Use × or • not * for mult (* = convolution)

Use 10 5 not 10E05 not 10^5

Use right number of significant figures

Avoid naked decimal points

Avoid run-on sentences: blah blah; however, blah blah not blah blah, however blah blah

Off of, inside of — considered nonstandard

Ital not und

5.  Figures and tables

No title above graphs (use caption); no frames; no shading; no horizontal gridlines; no legend box; no R2; no color

Make sure axes cross at lower left

Label axes with physical quantity, units

Delete trailing zeros from tick labels on axes

Limit rules in tables to about 3 horizontal, no vertical

Put meaningful title above table, caption below figure

6.  Capitalization and punctuation

Cap only proper nouns (names) and trade names: detector circuit not Detector Circuit

Usually no comma before paren: The dog (who ...) not The dog, (who ...) — in references, use 141-143 (1998) not 141-143, (1998)

We ate and drank not We ate, and drank

7.  Paragraphs — often not enough; indent paragraphs and skip line between them; watch equations:

where a is acceleration, ... (no cap, no indent; you need to override MS [ugh] Word’s defaults)

8.  Units and symbols — use symbols not complete spellings (minor exceptions): 10K, not 10kelvins and certainly not 10Kelvin. Exceptions: a few amperes, a few kelvins

Use ampere not Amp, kelvin not Kelvin (but A and K); micrometer not micron

Use SI prefixes (m, n, M, k), not high powers of 10 — 10MW not 107W

Avoid * for multiplication, ^ for exponentiation

9.  References, documentation

Reference must give complete bibliographic information, including title, last page (help reader find it!)

Private communication not useful, esp without contact information; use Acknowledgements instead

10.  Be less formal

Said techniques, aforementioned report (lawyer's words!)

Use There are not There exist or A framus exists that ... (but see circumlocutions)

11.  Use will not would, esp in proposals (more forceful)

The experiment would = The experiment will

12.  After rinsing it, I would clean = After rinsing it, I cleaned
This without antecedent — I have tested a pump that works at 10–6 Torr. This is needed to... . (What? The pump, the pressure, or the testing?)

13.  Dangling and misplaced modifiers

Make sure that any -ing or -ed word that begins a sentence refers to the subject

Partly assembled and dirty, I disassembled the pump

By adjusting the initial conditions, a galaxy will form

14.  Personal pronouns — avoid when not necessary: our voltmeter = the voltmeter. But use I or we to avoid a passive verb

15.  Vogue words (words that are overused and often ambiguous)

Determine = measure, calculate, decide — It was determined = We decided

Create = write, design, build, draw

Size = diameter, height

Reasonable approximation (to whom?) — use good, fair, poor

Issue (= problem), via (= by or by means of), as (for because), exists (= there is, but see circumlocutions), believe (≠ think ≠ feel), utilize (= use)

16.  Circumlocutions and dead words

Control of the experiment is accomplished [or done] by = The experiment is controlled by

There is a pump that evacuates = A pump evacuates ....

There is this dog that my sister has that I like to photograph (real!)

Avoid able to, process, in the process of, proceeded to, purposes of, the use of, amount of, serves to, it can be seen (pointed out, shown) that, the reason for the change was (= because)

17.  Enough already!