How to Write a Good Report

The comments below apply for course projects, other semester projects, technical reports,

General Guidelines

Purpose of a report:

A key thing in a report is that it is written to be read, by someone else.

Before you start keep in mind

• Intended audience.
• Will be read initially by your advisor/instructor, evaluation committee.
• In the long run peers or your juniors down the line.
• This is because someone else can continue on your work and improve it, or learn from
your report.
• Your report should be of publishable quality and useful for the technical purposes in
general.

Overall approach: top-down

Take a top-down approach to writing the report (also applies to problem solving in general). This
can proceed in roughly three stages of continual refinement of details.

1. First write the section-level outline,

2. Then the subsection-level outline, and
3. Then a paragraph-level outline. The paragraph-level outline would more-or-less be like a
presentation with bulleted points. It incorporates the flow of ideas.

Once you have the paragraph-level flow of ideas, you can easily convert that into a full report, by
writing out the flow of ideas in full sentences.

While doing the paragraph-level outline, think also about (a) figures, (b) tables, and (c) graphs
you will include as part of the report at various stages. You will find that many things can be
better explained by using simple figures at appropriate places.

Another thing to nail-down while doing the paragraph-level outline is the terminology you will
be using. For instance, names of various protocols/algorithms/steps in your solution. Or
names/symbols for mathematical notation.

The overall approach also includes multiple stages of refinement, and taking feedback from
others (peers/advisor/instructor). I will talk about these in more detail after talking about the
overall report structure.
Structure of a report

The following should roughly be the structure of a report. Note that these are just guidelines, not
rules. You have to use your intelligence in working out the details of your specific writing.

• Title and abstract: These are the most-read parts of a report. This is how you attract
attention to your writing. The title should reflect what you have done and should bring
out any eye-catching factor of your work, for good impact.

The abstract should be short, generally within about 2 paragraphs (250 words or so total).
The abstract should contain the essence of the report, based on which the reader decides
whether to go ahead with reading the report or not. It can contain the following in varying
amounts of detail as is appropriate: main motivation, main design point, essential
difference from previous work, methodology, and some eye-catching results if any.

• Introduction: Most reports start with an introduction section. This section should answer
the following questions (not necessarily in that order, but what is given below is a logical
order). After title/abstract introduction and conclusions are the two mainly read parts of a
report.
o What is the setting of the problem? This is, in other words, the background. In
some cases, this may be implicit, and in some cases, merged with the motivation
below.
o What exactly is the problem you are trying to solve? This is the problem
statement.
o Why is the problem important to solve? This is the motivation. In some cases, it
may be implicit in the background, or the problem statement itself.
o Is the problem still unsolved? The constitutes the statement of past/related work
crisply.
o Why is the problem difficult to solve? This is the statement of challenges. In
some cases, it may be implicit in the problem statement. In others, you may have
to say explicitly as to why the problem is worthy of a BTech/MTech/PhD, or a
semester project, as the case may be.
o How have you solved the problem? Here you state the essence of your approach.
This is of course expanded upon later, but it must be stated explicitly here.
o What are the conditions under which your solution is applicable? This is a
statement of assumptions.
o What are the main results? You have to present the main summary of the results
here.
o What is the summary of your contributions? This in some cases may be implicit in
the rest of the introduction. Sometimes it helps to state contributions explicitly.
o How is the rest of the report organized? Here you include a paragraph on the flow
of ideas in the rest of the report. For any report beyond 4-5 pages, this is a must.

The introduction is nothing but a shorter version of the rest of the report, and in many
cases the rest of the report can also have the same flow. Think of the rest of the report as
 an expansion of some of the points in the introduction. Which of the above bullets are
expanded into separate sections (perhaps even multiple sections) depends very much on
the problem.

• Background: This is expanded upon into a separate section if there is sufficient

background which the general reader must understand before knowing the details of your
work. It is usual to state that "the reader who knows this background can skip this
section" while writing this section.
• Past/related work: It is common to have this as a separate section, explaining why what
you have done is something novel. Here, you must try to think of dimensions of
comparison of your work with other work. For instance, you may compare in terms of
functionality, in terms of performance, and/or in terms of approach. Even within these,
you may have multiple lines of comparison -- functionality-1, functionality-2, metric-1,
metric-2, etc.

Although not mandatory, it is good presentation style to give the above comparison in
terms of a table; where the rows are the various dimensions of comparison and the
columns are various pieces of related work, with your own work being the first/last
column. See the related work section of my PhD thesis for an example of such a table :-).

While in general you try to play up your work with respect to others, it is also good to
identify points where your solution is not so good compared to others. If you state these
explicitly, the reader will feel better about them, than if you do not state and the reader
figures out the flaws in your work anyway :-).

Another point is with respect to the placement of related work. One possibility is to place
it in the beginning of the report (after intro/background). Another is to place it in the end
of the report (just before conclusions). This is a matter of judgment, and depends on the
following aspect of your work. If there are lots of past work related very closely to your
work, then it makes sense to state upfront as to what the difference in your approach is.
On the other hand, if your work is substantially different from past work, then it is better
to put the related work at the end. While this conveys a stronger message, it has the risk
of the reader wondering all through the report as to how your work is different from some
other specific related work.

• Technical sections: The main body of the report may be divided into multiple sections as
the case may be. You may have different sections which delve into different aspects of
the problem. The organization of the report here is problem specific. You may also have
a separate section for statement of design methodology, or experimental methodology, or
proving some lemmas in a theoretical paper.

The technical section is the most work-specific, and hence is the least described here.
However, it makes sense to mention the following main points:

o Outlines/flow: For sections which may be huge, with many subsections, it is

appropriate to have a rough outline of the section at the beginning of that section.
 Make sure that the flow is maintained as the reader goes from one section to
another. There should be no abrupt jumps in ideas.
o Use of figures: The cliche "a picture is worth a thousand words" is appropriate
here. Spend time thinking about pictures. Wherever necessary, explain all aspects
of a figure (ideally, this should be easy), and do not leave the reader wondering as
to what the connection between the figure and the text is.
o Terminology: Define each term/symbol before you use it, or right after its first
use. Stick to a common terminology throughout the report.
• Results: This is part of the set of technical sections, and is usually a separate section for
experimental/design papers. You have to answer the following questions in this section:
o What aspects of your system or algorithm are you trying to evaluate? That is,
what are the questions you will seek to answer through the evaluations?
o Why are you trying to evaluate the above aspects?
o What are the cases of comparison? If you have proposed an algorithm or a design,
what do you compare it with?
o What are the performance metrics? Why?
o What are the parameters under study?
o What is the experimental setup? Explain the choice of every parameter value
(range) carefully.
o What are the results?
o Finally, why do the results look the way they do?

The results are usually presented as tables and graphs. In explaining tables and graphs,
you have to explain them as completely as possible. Identify trends in the data. Does the
data prove what you want to establish? In what cases are the results explainable, and in
what cases unexplainable if any?

While describing a table, you have to describe every row/column. And similarly while
describing a graph, you have to describe the x/y axes. If necessary, you have to consider
the use of log-axes.

If you are presenting a lot of results, it may be useful to summarize the main take-away
points from all the data in a separate sub-section at the end (or sometimes even at the
beginning) of the results section.

• Future work: This section in some cases is combined along with the "conclusions"
section. Here you state aspects of the problem you have not considered and possibilities
for further extensions.
• Conclusions: Readers usually read the title, abstract, introduction, and conclusions. In
that sense, this section is quite important. You have to crisply state the main take-away
points from your work. How has the reader become smarter, or how has the world
become a better place because of your work?

Refinement
No report is perfect, and definitely not on the first version. Well written reports are those which
have gone through multiple rounds of refinement. This refinement may be through self-reading
and critical analysis, or more effectively through peer-feedback (or feedback from
advisor/instructor).

Here are some things to remember:

• Start early, don't wait for the completion of your work in its entirety before starting to
write.
• Each round of feedback takes about a week at least. And hence it is good to have a rough
version at least a month in advance. Given that you may have run/rerun
experiments/simulations (for design projects) after the first round of feedback -- for a
good quality report, it is good to have a rough version at least 2 months in advance.
• Feedback should go through the following stages ideally: (a) you read it yourself fully
once and revise it, (b) have your peers review it and give constructive feedback, and then
(c) have your advisor/instructor read it.

Desiree Frontaine
1716 Boutade Ln
Austin, Tx. 78700
(512) 000-0000

John Arbors, Jr.

Waterloo Brewing Company
401 Guadalupe St.
Austin, TX. 78701
(512) 000-0000

Dear Mr. Arbors:

As we agreed two months ago, I have prepared this report for your company, Waterloo Brewing.
Waterloo, at present, runs a Local Area Network (LAN), with a server and 4 dumb terminals.
Currently, this system is protected with a surge suppression system, in the form of special wall
receptacles that trips a breaker if a spike occurs. There is no protection on the phone line.

This report offers technical background information on an alternative power protection device
designed specifically for businesses that use LANs in their day-to-day operations, which is called
an uninterruptible power supply (UPS). The report compares three of the top name brands in
UPSs in a point-by point comparison and offers conclusions and final recommendations for the
purchase of a UPS, as well as a glossary to help define terms that are unfamiliar.

Background on power supplies

To reduce the risk of losing data to power failure, many companies protect their servers with
uninterruptible power supplies [4:110] . A UPS uses batteries to provide power to a connected
computer in the event of a brownout or blackout. "Dirty power" is the industry term for changes,
variances, and disturbances that occur during normal usage of utility provided power.

A perfect sine-wave can become system-shocking "dirty power" without notice and can cause
extreme damage to data and computers alike. Other equipments nearby can produce "noise on
the line" that can create havoc with a computing environment. IBM recently reported in a study
of power sources that a typical processor encounters around 128 power problems a month [5].
These problems can be caused externally by brownouts or load switches or grid problems at the
utility or caused internally by subtle disturbances from sources such as copiers, fluorescent
lights, faxes or even vending machines. Spikes, surges, sags, gaps, as well as electrostatic and
electromagnetic interference attack your delicate electrical environment on a daily basis. UPSs
provide reliable continuous computer-grade AC power regardless of what happens to primary
power sources [1;5] .

Features required by the UPS

The following sections lists the requirements as you described in our discussions about this
project, and specifically requirements related to the hardware now in place at Waterloo Brewing
Company. You indicated that the cash outlay must be kept to between $200.00 and $400.00 and
that the UPS must support the operating system already on the computer, which is Windows 3.1.

The hardware requires that this device be capable of running the server for 15-20 minutes, so that
the manager on duty has time to effect an orderly shutdown of the system, including saving the
various open ledgers and reports. To protect the computer and peripherals, the UPS should
include voltage regulation, protection ports for the phone line that is connected to the computer
modem, protection for the terminal connections, and a low battery indicator. The size of UPS
needed is 600 VA. This number is arrived at by adding up the VA ratings of all the devices and
peripherals and allowing another 40% for expansion of equipment and for fault tolerance. This
allows the computer load to be 60% of the KVA rating of the UPS [4;5] .

Narrowing the Field

After looking at two dozen different brands of UPS, I have been able to narrow the field to the
devices that had the features we were looking for, at the price we wanted, with the best
reputation. Those companies in the order of their reputation are American Power Conversion
Company, Fenton Industries, and Tsi Power Company. We will compare the Smart-UPS from
American Power Conversion, the Power Pal 6000 from Fenton Industries, and the UPS-600 from
Tsi Power's Flexible series.

Comparison of the Uninterruptible Power Supplies

The following compares these UPS systems according to (1) price, (2) operating system
compatibility, (3) server shutdown time, (4) voltage regulation, (5) phone ports and terminal
connections, and (6) batteries and indicator lights.

Prices: All of the models fell within the target budget with:
 • APC's Smart-UPS, with a rating of 660 VA, listed at $344.00 on their Web site price list.
• Fenton's Power pal, with a rating of 650 VA, listed at $279.00 on their web site price list.
• Tsi Power's UPS-600, with a rating of 600 VA, listed at $295.00 at Circuit City. Tsi does
not offer on-line shopping.

Since all the models fell within the target range of your budget and since they all offer the total
VA needed for this project, this point of comparison will have little effect on the final
recommendation.

Operating system compatibility. The operating systems supported by these UPSs are as
follows:

• APC's Smart-UPS are Windows, Windows 95, WinNT and Windows fro Workgroups.
They also provide plug-and-play software.
• Fenton's Power pal is Novell's Netware, WinNT, Windows 95, Windows 3.1 and OS\2.
Fenton includes automatic shutdown software with their UPS.
• Tsi Power's UPS-600 are Novell's Netware, WinNT, Windows 95 and Windows 3.1.

Since all models fall within the target range for this requirement this point of comparison will
have little effect on the final recommendation.

Server shutdown time: The times for server shutdown are as follows:

• APC's Smart-UPS is 25 minutes. The Smart-UPS also offers automatic shut down
software.
• Fenton's Powerpal is 30 minutes. Fenton also has smaller battery backups that
presumably could be used to keep the terminals up and running in the case of blackouts
of short duration.
• Tsi Power's UPS-600 is 15 minutes. Tsi allows for expansion of the unit's batteries. The
price for battery extension is $64.95 and allows for an additional 15 minutes of backup
time. Tsi also has smaller power packs for the terminals.

Fenton's Powerpal offers the longest time for shutdown. The optional automatic shutdown
software offered by APC is of little use on the Squirrel system because of the procedures
required to affect an orderly shutdown. The smaller battery packs offered by Fenton and Tsi are
not capable of keeping the terminals up for more than 15 minutes. You would have to buy one
for each of the terminals to boost the power at that location, and in the case of a complete
blackout it would be better to perform the shutdown, and save the equipment from power sags
and surges when the power comes back online. Fenton is the obvious choice for this point.

Voltage regulation: The fourth point of comparison involves voltage regulation. The
specifications for each UPS are as follows:

• APC's Smart-UPS is full automatic voltage regulation which provides complete

protection against extended brownouts or spikes without draining the batteries [2]
 • Fenton's Powerpal is built-in voltage regulation for brownout protection -- Powerpal
"boosts" low voltages and "bucks" high voltages or spikes, thus extending battery life and
reducing stress on the electrical equipment [3]
• Tsi Power's UPS-600 is protection against high and low voltages [5]

APC and Fenton both have automatic and full-time voltage regulation. Tsi has a standby switch
or inverter and only turns on when the power drops to the level of the UPS-600's low impedance
switch. In some cases, this may be too late for the data in stream or the process in progress and
could result in a lack of protection in a critical area, such as in the case of lesser sags and gaps.
The choices are APC or Fenton for this point.

Phone ports and terminal connections: The UPSs must also be compared in terms of the phone
ports and terminal connections provided for the protection of the modem and for noise
suppression on the terminal lines. The phone and terminal ports offered by:

• APC's Smart-UPS are RJ11 and 10-BaseT network cable ports with surge protection. The
model listed offers 4 terminal ports and one phone port.
• Fenton's Powerpal are RJ11/RJ45 which includes the phone (RJ11) and the terminals
(RJ45). Fenton offers surge protection for the phone lines and noise filters on the terminal
lines.
• Tsi Power's UPS-600 are RJ11/RJ45. They also offer "line conditioning" which is
essentially noise reduction and surge suppression or you may request a low impedance
system with transfer for isolation. This system works as a switch, when the threshold set
for the low impedance is hit the line is switched off to prevent damage to the equipment
being protected by the UPS.

APC's terminal ports would need an additional adapter to make the port accept an RJ45
connection. Fenton offers no surge protection on the terminal lines. It is unlikely that a surge
would hit a terminal first, but it's still in the realm of the possible. Tsi Power's system offers the
most flexible and comprehensive coverage in this area. Of special interest is the low impedance
switch on the terminal lines. This offers the protection needed if the terminal is hit with a surge
before the server, the low impedance switch would shut down the terminal affected by the surge,
without disrupting the operation of the server or the remaining terminals. Tsi Power is the choice
for the fifth point.

Batteries and indicator lights: The options for batteries and indicator lights are as follows:

• APC's Smart-UPS are an LED light to indicate low battery power and hot-swappable
batteries.
• Fenton's Powerpal offers a LED light to indicate low battery power and hot-swappable
batteries.
• Tsi Power's UPS-600 offers an LED light indicator for low battery power and hot-
swappable as well as battery extensions.

APC's hot-swappable battery means you can change the batteries without turning off or
disconnecting the UPS. Tsi Power's Battery extensions are a clincher on this point. The battery
extensions are useful for systems that are planning for expansion. Remember that expansion can
mean upgrading your server or adding peripherals, with this definition almost every system will
experience expansion sooner or later. Tsi Power gets this point.

The following table summarizes the comparisons discussed in the preceding:

Categories APC's Smart-UPS Feonton's Powerpal Tsi Power's UPS-600

Price/voltage rating $344.00/660 VA $299.00/650 VA $295.00/600 VA

Operating system Windows 3.1 Windows 3.1 Windows 3.1

Time allowed for shutdown 25 minutes 30 minutes 15 minutes

Voltage regulation Good Good Fair

Phone & terminal ports Fair Fair Good

Batteries & low-battery indicator Fair Fair Good

Conclusions

The following is a summary of the conclusions reached in the comparison section. A summary
table is included between the primary and secondary conclusions section for quick reference.

1. All the units came in under the price cap.

2. All units are under the maximum price.
3. All units support Windows 3.1.
4. All units supported Windows 3.1, which is the operating system now in use on
Waterloo's LAN.
5. In terms of actual time allowed for shut-down in case of complete power failure, Fenton
Industries' Powerpal offers the longest time for shut-down at 30 minutes.
6. APC's Smart-UPS and Fenton's Powerpal both offer full automatic voltage regulation,
which protects the computer and peripherals against spikes, sags, gaps and brownouts.
7. In terms of phone lines and terminals, Tsi Power's UPS-600 offered the most
comprehensive options.
8. In terms of operation and the status indicators for the batteries, Tsi Power offered the
widest range of options in this area as well.
9. APC's unit offers the best VA rating, but also carries the highest price.
10. APC offers good voltage regulation, but needs an adapter to allow for terminal
connections to the unit.
11. APC also offers only fair coverage of options offered for batteries.
12. Fenton's Powerpal offers 650VA rating and is comparable in price to the lowest priced
unit.
13. Fenton's unit supports Windows 3.1 and allows the longest time for shutdown. The
voltage regulation is good and the phone and terminal connections are compatible.
14. Fenton offers only fair coverage of the options offered for batteries.
 15. Tsi Power's UPS-600 only offers a 600VA rating for the lowest price, but that price is
only lower by $4.00.
16. Tsi Power's UPS-600 actually falls out of the running because of the increased cost of
bringing the shutdown time up to the level needed. It does offer some nice options on the
phone/ terminal ports and batteries. Finally, APC offers most of what Fenton offers for a
higher price and only a 10VA increase for the money.
17. Tsi supports Windows 3.1, but only offers 15 minutes for shutdown, if a battery
extension is not purchased. These battery extensions cost $64.95 each and increase the
shutdown time by 15 minutes. Tsi does offer some unique options for the terminal lines
in the form of a switch on the line that can be triggered by a low impedence barrier, thus
isolating the affected line, while allowing the system to continue running. The battery
extensions are a plus when it comes to options for the batteries, as it allows for expansion
of the system without purchasing additional units.
18. Based on the requirements and conclusions, the Fenton Industries' Powerpal is the best
choice: it offers the highest VA rating for the price, while offering the most amount time
allowed for the shutdown procedures.

Recommendation

Based on the conclusions reached in this comparison, Fenton Industries' Powerpal is the best
UPS and is the recommended selection for Waterloo Brewing:

• It offers a good price and a VA rating of 650, which is 50 over what is needed when we
use the formula described earlier.
• It supports Windows 3.1.
• It offers 30 minutes of shutdown time in the event of a complete blackout.
• Its voltage regulation is automatic and covers brownouts, surges, and blackouts.
• Its phone and terminal ports are of the type needed for the system that is in place.
• Its noise suppression on the terminal line and surge protection on the phone line should
cover most occurrences encountered by Waterloo in their day-to-day operations.
• The Fenton includes a low battery indicator, which was one of the requirements, and
enables the user to change batteries while the system is up and running.
• The Fenton company has a good reputation and can supply business references upon
request through its computer web site.

Glossary of Terms