A report prepared as the outcome of a project in course LIS 387.5, Systems Analysis and Evaluation, should adhere reasonably closely to the following guidelines.
The report should be as long as necessary to record fully (1) what was done by the project team, (2) what the team's findings are, and (3) what recommendations, including further courses of actions, are being made by the project team. I recommend that the various sections of the main body of the report be reasonably concise, and that any and all additional details that are worth recording--whether for the sake of the historical record, or as bases for further work related to the project, or both--be placed in appendices, which are an admirable organizational device for this purpose.
The report should use what is called "legal numbering". That is, the main sections of the report should have numbers like 1, 2, etc.; subsections, numbers like 1.1, 1.2, etc.; sub-subsections, numbers like 1.1.1, 1.2.3, etc.; sub-sub-subsections, numbers like 1.1.1.1, 1.2.3.4, etc.; and so on. It should rarely be necessary to go deeper than the sub-sub-subsection level.
The report should use single spacing within paragraphs and a single-line space between paragraphs. Paragraphs should begin flush left; i.e., they should not begin with a tab indentation. (A minor exception to this rule occurs with the first paragraph of a sub-sub-subsection [or even lower-level section]; such a paragraph begins two spaces after the end of the heading of the sub-sub-subsection [or lower-level section].) All paragraphs and all headings, whether of sections, subsections, sub-subsections, or sub-sub-subsections (and lower-level sections), should be set flush left. Do not use flush-right (also called "full") justification; ragged right margins actually make for easier and faster reading.
Figures and Tables are to take their numbers sequentially within the top-level section containing them. For example, the second figure in section 1 should be numbered Figure 1.2, the first figure in section 2 should be numbered Figure 2.1; the fourth table in section 3 should be numbered Table 3.4; and so on. Make every effort to design Figures and Tables so that they fit onto the page in portrait, rather than landscape, orientation.
References are to be shown in what the The Chicago Manual of Style calls the "Author-Date Text Citations" style. For details, see that widely available manual.
Endnotes should be used rather than footnotes. Endnotes appearing in the main body of the report take their numbers sequentially through the whole main body of the report. Endnotes appearing in an appendix take their numbers sequentially within that appendix; the sequence starts over again with the next appendix. All endnotes and references that are cited in the main body of the report should appear in a Notes and References section between the last numbered section and Appendix A. Endnotes and references cited within an appendix should appear at the end of that appendix.
The report is to be prepared using the Times New Roman font in size 10. Use 1-inch margins on top, bottom, left, and right of the text. Portions of the report that are prepared in a spreadsheet should be presented in portrait orientation (because of the need for them to be easily readable on the Web) and should use the Arial font in size 9. Page numbers should be placed at the bottom center of pages. Endnotes should be numbered with Hindu numerals (not Roman numerals). In preparing the PDF version of the document, for Web presentation, use "size -1" as the default size of text for ordinary paragraphs. Use single spacing for lines within paragraphs; use a single blank line to separate paragraphs.
Be sure to use a spelling-check program or module on the report.
The report must begin with an Executive Summary, which must not exceed two pages in length. (This is the only absolute rule respecting the name and length of a section.) The sections shown below (viz., Introduction, Findings, Recommendations) may be modified and/or renamed as appropriate for the particular report, and there may be more main sections than the three shown in the example if more are appropriate for the report.
For the main body of the report, page numbering begins with 1 on the first page of the Executive Summary and runs sequentially till the end of the main body (i.e., including the Notes and References, up to the first page of Appendix A). Page numbers within appendices begin with 1 at the beginning of each appendix and have the style A-1, A-2, B-1, etc. The pages containing the Table of Contents are numbered in lower-case Roman numerals: i, ii, iii, etc. The Title Page and Copyright Page have no numbers.
The styling of headings of sections, subsections, etc., is
shown in the following example. Note that the text of the sub-sub-subsection
level begins on the same line as the heading, instead in a new paragraph as
with the higher levels. No heading ends with a period unless it is a sub-sub-subsection
heading.
[Title Page]
[Copyright Page]
TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This project dealt with ....
1 INTRODUCTION
The project had its inception in ....
1.1 Background of the Project
The background of the project can best be understood from ....
1.1.1 An Antecedent Problem
Of particular interest in the background of the project is ....
1.1.1.1 Why the Antecedent Problem Occurred. The root difficulty began with ....
2 FINDINGS
3 RECOMMENDATIONS
NOTES AND REFERENCES
APPENDIX A
1 STANDARDS FOR ....
2 MISCELLANEOUS STANDARDS
NOTES AND REFERENCES FOR APPENDIX A
APPENDIX B
1 SPECIFICATIONS RELATING TO ....
Go to Guide to Course Materials for LIS
387.5
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Last revised 1999 November 10