Following are the requirements for project reports submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for assigned work in EE 6345. The format described here is sufficiently general to apply to research projects as well as hardware and software design projects.
The title should be humanly readable, if at all possible. Don't use jargon or acronyms unless they are well-known and absolutely necessary.
The abstract should summarize, in 35 or fewer words, the most important points made in the report. In other words, the abstract should list the take-aways of the project.
The executive summary should describe, in 200 or fewer words, the goals and take-aways of the project.
The introduction should explain, in at most 1 page, why the subject of the report is important, and what existing products or technology the project described in this report analyzes, enhances or replaces. Please address the following questions, as applicable: What market, technological need, or subject area stimulated this work? Why should anyone care about the results of this project? Who should care?
Citations (in the text) of previous work should be in IEEE style, and should appear in the References section described below.
The problem formulation should be a technical description of the problem to be solved. In this context, "technical" means "in precise engineering language".
Answer the following questions: What approaches exist to solving this problem? How does one quantify the differences between these approaches in terms of cost and/or other relevant metrics? What approach did you choose, and why?
Describe the chosen solution in full technical detail, using engineering language. Scrupulously cite references to all work or results of others that you have used. Source code, if any, must be provided in an appendix.
Summarize what you have tried to teach the reader.
Give references to all work by others that you cite in the text, using IEEE format for the citations.
List works that you found helpful but did not cite in the text.
Include all source code, detailed hardware descriptions, etc.