Writing of Reports for CS491/492

General Suggestions

• In your analysis report, don't forget to include a section describing other systems, programs, software, tools that you searched for and got an idea, while deciding on your project and its scope. This can be put under the section heading "Relate Work", if there is no corresponding section in the outline related to the analysis report posted on the course departmental webpage.
• In your anaysis report, don't forget to have a references section at the of your document listing all the documents, papers, Internet resources that you benefitted from so far and mentioned in your report in some way. At the points where you use some knowledge or idea that you borrowed from a reference listed in this list, you should cite that reference.
• Make sure that you read, edit, and improve any of your reports several times before you submit finally. This is very important. Even professional writers do this. Therefore, allocate enough time for this process also. This requires you to finish the first draft not too late.
• For a good analysis report, you should set aside a good time and have sevaral discussions and brainstorming sessions among yourself to decide what kind of functionalites/features(properties) your system will have and how you will define/specify these functionalities/features. For this, one type of brainstoring activity can be like the following (but you are of course not limited to this): some of you can act as the customer, and the others as the system builders; sit together; customers tell what they want; system designers question if they understood the requirements correctly, are they feasible, and so on. You can come and see me in my office if you need to talk to me as a requester of the system as well. But if you can not do this always, you should use your common sense in driving the features and functions that can be desired by a customer in order to achieve a good quality system/product/tool/software at the end.
• You should always bind your reports. The binding can be a "spiral cilt" or a "telli dosya", or something else that is more appropriate. I saw many reports submitted without proper binding, just as the output from the printer.

Other Suggestions

• Use the same font style for headings and normal text. The usage of fonts and styles should be consistent throughout the document.
• The sizes of the fonts that you are using for various elements of the document, such as section titles, sub-section titles, paragraphs, etc. should not deviate too much form each other. Some documents, for example, contain sections titles that are very large in size compared to other text in the document. This does not appear nice.
• You should construct and use your own sentences. You should explain something with your own words and sentences.
• The document should be structured both logically and physically. With logical structure I mean the document should be divided into sections and paragraphs where each section and paragraph is about a different topic. The sequence of sections and paragraphs should have a logical order. The flow of text should be good. There should not be abrupt jumps in the subjects of the written text. It should be easy to read and follow.
• You should always have a good dictionary at your disposal while performing a serious writing activity. It should be ready on your desk.
• Always read and improve document several times before submitting it to your supervisor. This is very important. Like debugging of programs, debugging of writing/drafts is also an essential task which should never be neglected. Otherwise, it will be an embarrasing document.
• Always spell check.
• Be consistent in your style of writing.
• Try to avoid repetitions and cliches.
• If you are including information or ideas from other sources, you should provide references (i.e. information about these sources) at the end of the report. Inside the body of the report, you sould also cite a reference whenever you include an idea or information from that reference.
• The point in a report where to list the references is usually the end of the report.
• Be careful with punctuation in your document. Eliminate the punctuation errors when you are reading and editing the draft you have written. Proper punctuation is very important for the reader. It helps easy and fluent reading.
• Cut-and-paste figures usually do not appear nice. You should have your own figures. You should draw them yourself. If you have drawn it using another tool and imported to your document, you should make sure that it is imported with good resolution and it is in coherence with the document style.
• Leaving too much empty spave between paragraphs, figures, etc. in a page does not look nice. You should have enough material in each page to fill it nicely.
• Introductions are usually poorly written. An introduction should include paragraphs about the topic of the work, and also about the work that you have done and that you are presenting in the report. Some introductions I have seen so far are not talking about what the report is about.
• If you have a figure, you should have an appropriate caption as well. You should also explain in text what the figure is about and what is going on in the figure. Figures should be numbered.