Guidelines for the Use of the School of Computing Report Template

Jon Kerridge

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Napier University

for the Degree ofAny Degree Requiring a Report or Dissertation

School of Computing

May 2007

Authorship Declaration

I, <insert your full name>, confirm that this dissertation and the work presented in

it are my own achievement.

Where I have consulted the published work of others this is always clearly

attributed;

Where I have quoted from the work of others the source is always given. With the

exception of such quotations this dissertation is entirely my own work;

I have acknowledged all main sources of help;

If my research follows on from previous work or is part of a larger collaborative

research project I have made clear exactly what was done by others and what I

have contributed myself;

I have read and understand the penalties associated with Academic Misconduct.

I also confirm that I have obtained informed consent from all people I have

involved in the work in this dissertation following the School's ethical guidelines

Signed:

Date:

Matriculation no:

PLEASE NOTE that in signing this page you are aware of the consequences of

doing this fraudulently as explained at http://www.napier.ac.uk/ed/plagiarism/homepage.htm

Data Protection Declaration

Under the 1998 Data Protection Act, The University cannot disclose your grade to

an unauthorised person. However, other students benefit from studying

dissertations that have their grades attached.

Please sign your name below one of the options below to state your preference.

The University may make this dissertation, with indicative grade, available to

others.

The University may make this dissertation available to others, but the grade may

not be disclosed.

The University may not make this dissertation available to others.

Contents

1 BASICS OF MICROSOFT WORD DOCUMENT TEMPLATES 2

1.1 Creating A Document Based Upon a Template 2

1.2 Accessing the Styles 2

1.3 Paragraph Marks and Paragraphs 2

2 HEADINGS AND CAPTIONS 2

2.1 Heading 1 2

2.2 Heading 2 2

2.3 Heading 3 2

2.4 Heading 4 2

2.5 Creating Contents List 2

2.6 Other Headings 2

3 THE USE OF THE OTHER AVAILABLE STYLES 2

3.1 Codeword 2

3.2 Listing 2

3.3 The Numbered Style 2

3.4 Bulleted Points 2

3.5 Indented Paragraphs 2

3.6 Figure Fonts 2

3.7 Normal 2

3.8 Changing a Style 2

4 TYPICAL STRUCTURE OF A REPORT 2

4.1 Chapter 1 2

4.2 Chapter 2 2

4.3 Middle Chapters 2

4.4 Penultimate Chapter 2

4.5 Last Chapter 2

List of Screen Shots

Screen Shot 1 Showing the Format Tab and the Styles and Formatting Window. 2Screen Shot 2 Selecting the Menu to Create Contents Lists.................................2Screen Shot 3 The Index and Tables Dialogue Window........................................2Screen Shot 4 The Caption Dialogue Window.......................................................2

List of Listings

Listing 1 A First Listing...........................................................................................2Listing 2 Another Listing.........................................................................................2

Acknowledgements

Many people have contributed to the development of this template including;

Hazel Hall, Uta Priss, Alison Crerar, Alistair Lawson and Frank Greig.

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1 Basics of Microsoft Word Document Templates

This chapter introduces the basic concepts of Microsoft Word document

templates. Such templates are contained in files with the extension .dot.

The advantage of using document templates is that the structure of a document

can be specified from the outset without having to remember the formatting that

has been undertaken previously when style changes are made by using the

menu bar. This ensures that the document is consistently styled. If you do want

to make changes then the style is changed once, which then modifies all

instances of the same style throughout the document.

Template files are normally located in special folder of such templates in the C:\

Document and Settings\ folder structure. However in some installations, such as

the University’s network they can be stored elsewhere. In this case it would be

best to store the template folder in the same folder as you are going to create the

document so that any changes made to the template are correctly saved.

This document uses the ReportTemplate.dot template and as such NO format

changes have been used from the menu bar by selecting a word or phrase and

applying an individual style or font change. Thus the font change used above to

differentiate the name of the template file uses the style codeword, more of

which later.

1.1 Creating A Document Based Upon a TemplateSimply double-click on the name of the template file and a new document will

be opened with the name Documentn to which the styles available in the

template file are automatically available. The file can then be saved in the normal

manner with a more suitable name. You will find that the created document

already contains some text, some of which you will need to alter and other which

can be removed.

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Alternatively, you can use the document Basic Document Using Template.doc that contains all the required sections including correct pagination

of the main body of the report with the later sections of the report unnumbered.

You will have to remove some of explanatory text in order to use this document,

but it is probably the quickest way of creating your report.

1.2 Accessing the StylesThe styles are accessed by clicking on the Format menu tab and then clicking

Styles and Formatting. A window to the side of the document will be opened

showing all the available styles and formatting, as shown in Screen Shot 1.

The Label for the caption is generated automatically and can then be used to

automatically create a List of such captions in the Preface to the report. The

numbers associated with the Label are automatically organised by Word.

The Label for the caption is generated automatically and can then be used to

automatically create a List of such captions in the Preface to the dissertation.

The numbers associated with the Label are automatically organised by Word.

Screen Shot 1 Showing the Format Tab and the Styles and Formatting Window

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1.3 Paragraph Marks and ParagraphsAt no point in this document, apart from within the initial preamble to the

dissertation, has an additional paragraph mark (¶) been inserted by pressing the

enter key. The spacing between paragraphs is defined within the paragraph

styles. In particular, the styles ensure that section headings will not be separated

from the first paragraph of the section to ensure that the section heading does not

appear at the foot of a page with the start of the paragraph at the top of the next

page.

The style for a chapter heading always starts the chapter on a new page and

automatically inserts the space at the top of the page.

In the same way the first paragraph of a section or chapter is automatically

allocated the style Ordinary Paragraph. Subsequent paragraphs in the section

are also allocated the style Ordinary Paragraph, which ensures the spacing

between paragraphs and the indentation of the first line of the paragraph. This

occurs as soon as the enter key is pressed.

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2 Headings and Captions

The heading styles are used to automatically number the chapters and sections

within the dissertation. Word keeps a record of the structure and will

automatically number the section according to the heading style used.

If a new heading is inserted, including a new chapter (Heading 1), then all the

chapters and sections are renumbered automatically. The template only contains

numbered headings giving up to four levels of nesting. It is suggested that no

reprt should use more levels of numbering because it suggests that the structure

of the dissertation has become too complicated.

The use of each of the heading styles is described in the following sections.

2.1 Heading 1This is used to indicate the start of a chapter. This style was used to create the

heading for this chapter above. Heading 1 is not followed by a (sub)section

number.

Heading 1 automatically starts the chapter on a new page a little way down from

the top of the page.

2.2 Heading 2Provides the first level section within a chapter and was used to create the

heading for this section. The paragraph style following a Heading n is always

Ordinary Paragraph.

2.3 Heading 3Heading 3 provides a sub-section level of numbering and was used to create the

following subsection that contains no useful text.

2.3.1 A Sub-section Within Section 2.3Its first paragraph.

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And another paragraph.

2.4 Heading 4Heading 4 provides a sub-sub-section numbering capability as shown below.

Heading 4 should be used sparingly.

2.4.1 A Sub-sectionA first paragraph

Section will appear automatically at the top of the following page if there is

insufficient space for the heading and its first paragraph at the bottom of the

current page.

2.4.1.1 A Sub-sub-sectionIts first paragraph

2.5 Creating Contents ListA Contents List can automatically be created from the Headings used in the

document and it automatically determines the page upon which each heading

occurs.

Screen Shot 2 Selecting the Menu to Create Contents Lists

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Screen Shot 2 shows the Insert tab menu used to access this capability. On

clicking Index and Tables in References the dialogue window shown in Screen

Shot 3 is displayed. Select Table of Contents and adjust the Show Levels to

2, otherwise the level of detail within the generated list will be too great. The

cursor must be at the place where the contents list is to be placed, usually under

a heading.

It will be noticed in Screen Shot 3 that another tab is available for Tables of Figures. This dialogue can be used to create the lists of dissertation elements

such as Figures, Tables, Screen Shots and any other captioned component

within the document. Such lists appear in the first part of the dissertation prior to

Chapter 1. Captions are described in section 2.7.

2.6 Other HeadingsWithin the report preamble that comprises everything before Chapter 1 a different

heading format called Preface Heading is used. This style creates a heading

but because it is not based on any of the Heading n styles will not appear in any

contents list.

Screen Shot 3 The Index and Tables Dialogue Window

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Captions can be created automatically for different types of document elements,

such as Figures, Tables, Equations, Screen Shots, Images and code Listings.

The template already has some of these created but in specific cases you may

have to create your own caption label.

Screen Shot 2 also shows how the Caption capability can be accessed and on

selecting that option the dialogue window shown in Screen Shot 4 is opened.

Screen Shot 4 The Caption Dialogue Window

Screen Shot 4 shows the dialogue prior to inserting the rest of the caption shown

above. Other labels are selected by opening up the Label choice box. Similarly,

new labels for captions can be created by clicking the New Label button.

The caption for Screen Shots has been centred using the style Style Caption + Centered. This style can be used for other caption labels that require centering.

A caption is normally located to the left hand margin.

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3 The Use of the Other Available Styles

This chapter describes the other styles available in the template. You may need

to create other styles specific to your dissertation. This can be achieved by

clicking the New Style button in the Styles and Formatting window. This will

not be discussed further in this document.

The template contains a number of standard styles, such as Footer and Header that have special use within a document and are automatically inserted by Word

when particular document elements are utilised. Note that page numbers are

automatically appearing in the document and start with page 1 as the first page of

Chapter 1. These numbers will appear in any Contents List.

The pages within the Appendix are not numbered because you may include

pages produced from other sources and to have a continuous numbering scheme

makes this problematic. An appendix may contain another document that is

separately numbered such as a user manual or design document. To achieve

this, the document is split into a number of sections that have their own headers

formatted accordingly. If you delete any of the section breaks within the

document this functionality will be lost.

The template system automatically adds a new style if you alter an existing style

by means of toolbar modifications. This has the advantage that the styles can be

reused subsequently. Thus Ordinary Paragraph + Centered was used to

center each of the screen shots in the document.

3.1 CodewordThe style Codeword is used to change the font of a word so that it can be

appreciated to have a special meeting that should be obvious from its context.

3.2 ListingThe Listing style is used to create a numbered list of lines in a font that equates

to a console window of a program listing. Thus it is useful for including code

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snippets and so that you can refer to line numbers in the associated description.

Copy the code or other similar text into the document, select all the lines and

apply the 01 Listing style. Each line will be individually numbered. Subsequent

use of the style will continue the numbering from its last use.

3.2.1 First use of ListingThe following code has had the 01 Listing style applied and its is designed so

that such listings do not get split over pages

01 Class myClass implements CSProcess {02 }

Listing 1 A First Listing

3.2.2 Second Use of ListingThe following code lines have had 01 Listing applied; notice that the line

numbers are generated automatically and in sequence.

03 def l = [ 1, 2 ]04 outChannel.write(l)05 def inList =inChannel.read()

Listing 2 Another Listing

We can see that in the preamble these listings have been presented in a List of

such listings.

3.3 The Numbered StyleThe style 1. Outline numbered is used to create numbered lists as follows:

1. first point

2. second point

3. and so on.

The numbering will continue from a previous list so you can always select the first

element in a new numbered list, right click and choose Restart Numbering

3.4 Bulleted PointsThe style Bulleted can be used to create a set of bullet points as follows:

Point 1

17

Point 2

Use these sparingly!

3.5 Indented ParagraphsIf you want to indent a paragraph, say for a direct quotation of some text then the

indented ordinary style provides a simple means of achieving this capability

and is designed to align and justify the left hand margin with ordinary paragraphs.

“Thus this could be seen as a quotation that is more than can be fitted

within the sentence structure and the indented ordinary style

provides this capability” (Source)

Subsequent paragraphs are then likely to follow on and these will be ordinary

paragraphs that make the quotation stand out. There is no need to italicise the

quote because it stands out naturally.

The aim of formatting is to use the minimum number of styles so that the reader

is not confused by a multiplicity of styles that detract from the message that you

are trying to give the reader of your dissertation.

3.6 Figure FontsThe two Figure Fonts can be used to format text in drawings made using the

draw package in Word.

3.7 NormalThe style Normal is used as the basis for defining all other styles. Change

Normal and all the other styles will change. In other words be conscious of the

effect you might have.

As a general rule do not use Normal for any text that you type in!

3.8 Changing a StyleIf you select one of the styles you can click the choice button and this will bring up

a set of options, including the places where the style has been used. In particular

you can Modify a style. Changing a style in this way will change all occurrences

in your document. If you click the Add to Template box then the change will be

made in the template as well.

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4 Typical Structure of A Report

A report will comprise a number of chapters, some of which have a well defined

content and others of which are specific to the type of project being undertaken.

Section 1.4 of the Project Handbook gives broad guidance as to the required

content. This chapter tries to convey the likely content of specific chapters,

though in some cases, due to the nature of the project there will be deviation from

this outline.

4.1 Chapter 1Chapter 1 provides the introduction to the project and the problem that is being

solved. It gives a motivation as to why the problem is an interesting one to solve.

It gives the general aim of the project and the specific measurable objectives that

will be addressed during the project process. The last section of this chapter will

briefly describe the content of each of the subsequent chapters.

4.2 Chapter 2Chapter 2 provides the background context to the project. Depending upon the

project this will comprise critical reading and evaluation of appropriate material

and how it has influenced the work that will be described in the next few chapters

4.3 Middle ChaptersThese chapters describe the bulk of the work undertaken and the process that

has been adopted to achieve the objectives specified in chapter 1.

4.4 Penultimate ChapterThis chapter discusses the achievement in terms of the original aims and

objectives. This chapter may well reflect on the achievement in terms of what

others have achieved in a similar area.

4.5 Last ChapterCritically reflects on the project process in terms of what was done, when and

why and how, with hindsight, the process might have been improved. It might

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also identify any areas for further work.

References

Insert references here using a standardised Reference Style (e.g. APA. See the yellow handout or http://www.dcs.napier.ac.uk/~hazelh/gen_ho/apa.pdf).

Appendix

Insert content here and for each of the other appendices, the title may be just on a

page by itself, the pages of the appendices are not numbered, unless it is a

document that is internally numbered. Ensure that you use the Appendix Heading style for each of the Appendices otherwise they will appear in the Contents List and

will be inconsistent as they are not numbered.