Rochester Institute

of Technology

EEEE281 Tech Memo

To: TA's [First and Last] Name
From: Your Name (Your Home Department)
Partner: Partner's Name
Date: Performed: MM-DD-YYYY; Due: MM-DD-YYYY
Re: Experiment Number and Title

Following the completion of each laboratory exercise in Electrical Engineering courses, a report must be written
and submitted for grading. The purpose of the report is to completely document the activities of the design and
demonstration in the laboratory. Reports should be complete in the sense that all information required to
reproduce the experiment is contained within. Writing useful reports is a very essential part of becoming an
engineer. In both academic and industrial environments, reports are the primary means of communication
between engineers. The lab reports for this class will be semi-formal. It is extremely important to follow the
requirements closely. The content and format is based on tech memos commonly used in industry.

Report Sections:
Abstract
The Abstract is a summary of what was done in the lab, what the goal was, and what the results were.
No more than a paragraph or two. Please DO NOT include a detailed procedure here. You can write that
in the Theory section. You do not need to explain your results here, just state them and say if they were
as expected or not. No schematics here
Theory /Design
The Theory is where you explain the math and physics behind what happens in the lab. Any equations
and the derivations of equations used in the lab should go in here. This is also the place to put schematics
and simulated results from prelab. A short procedure of the lab should be included here, though do not
have it in bullets or points format. I'm looking to see that you understand what is happening in the lab.
Each equation should be accompanied by at least a few sentences detailing its significance and why it was
important to the lab performed. All equations should be numbered with a unique number that has right
justification as in (1). This section, more or less, proves to the TA that you understood the experiment and
why you expected to get the results you did. Additionally, conceptual information related to or used in this
experiment should be mentioned here.
F(AB)C (1)
Results
Figures and tables, properly labeled (with units if appropriate), should convey the results obtained from the
experiment. Any equations used/determined in the experiment can also be presented in this section. In
which case please number each equation/expression with a unique number that has right justification as in
(1). A minimal amount of text/prose can be used to clarify the results and record observations made during
the experiment. If appropriate % Error calculations should be shown here to give an idea of the variance
between results.
Discussion
 Finally, the importance, relevance, and implications of the results should be discussed. Be sure to compare
your results/expectations from theory, simulation, and hardware to each other. For numeric results a good
method of comparison is percent error. This section of the report should also be used to answer any
questions presented in the lab handout. Any tables and/or figures representing results of the experiment
should be referred to and discussed/explained with detail. All questions should be answered very clearly in
paragraph form. Any unanswered questions from the lab handout will result in loss of points on the report.

Requirements:
Reports should completely document the laboratory activity so that the reader can reconstruct the
work completed without any knowledge of the laboratory handout. Therefore, do not reference the
lab handout in your report. However, you should include a summary of its content, i.e. part numbers used
and a rough procedure.
Spelling and grammar count!
In technical writing, it is customary to avoid the first and second person (I, me, my, we, our, they,
you, he, she, etc.). Additionally, do not use the third person to refer to yourself (the student, the
author, the lab participant, etc.). For example:
o Do not say, In the Results section, I will show that I got the circuit to work.
o Instead say, Section 2 presents results that demonstrate correct operation of the circuit.
Note that the above example also converts the tense to present tense. Following IEEE standard
practice, reports should be written in present tense, with referenced material referred to in past tense, i.e.
current lab results are in present tense, results from previous labs are in past tense.
Typed reports are required. All figures and tables must be computer generated. No Hand Drawn
Figures!!!
Each student must submit an individual report based on an individual effort. Academic dishonesty will
not be tolerated. External sources must be properly cited.
Label all included tables and drawings with meaningful names and refer to them from within your text. Do
not include any tables or figures unless they are referenced within the text. Each figure and table
gets a number. For example, suppose the first figure has a caption like: Figure 1: Simple logic circuit
and Table 1: Truth table of outputs obtained from circuit in Figure 1. The main text should discuss the
figure with something like Figure 1 shows that It will greatly help you to learn how to use headers and
figures in your word processor of choice
Save all of your figures electronically, if at all possible, to avoid them changing formats unnecessarily,
which degrades graphical quality. This also allows you to embed them in your document more easily. An
easy way to achieve this is to Print Screen your work and then paste it into Word and use Word to crop
and size the screen capture.
A good way to layout your report is using Microsoft Word and its built in tools. Including, Microsoft
Equation, which allows you to lay out mathematical equations in standard formats and integrate them into
your report. (You can insert an equation by going to Insert >> Object and selecting Microsoft Equation
3.0 from the list.) Additionally, you can use the Professional Memo template provided in Microsoft Word.