Workshop on Writing a P roject R eport

1. Workshop on Writing a Project Report Yimao Chen CUNY Writing Fellow 2010-2011 Oct. 19, 2010 N723 11:30AM-12:45PM

2. Insert equations • Click “Insert”, then click “Object”. Example: • Exercises: 1. 2.

3. Adjust the display of the formulae • You can enlarge them. • You can adjust them very easily.

4. Insert graphs and pictures Picture

5. Steps of adding pictures • Click “Insert”. • Click “Picture”. • Locate the picture you want to insert. • Choose the desired picture. • Adjust the picture if you want.

6. Save the PowerPoint File • Click the “Save” button. • Locate a place where you want to save your file. • Choose a name that you can easily recognize for you document.

7. The General Guidelines for Writing a Project Report I • Analysis of the Statement of the Problem. Focused writing, Rephrasing, Scaffolding, informal and low stakes writing. • Audience. Every writer should have a very clear concept of the intended audience for a piece of writing. • Grammar. It should go without saying that good grammar will be important in your writing. Be sure that your statements follow generally accepted standards for English Usage. Writing in Mathematics presents some unique grammatical issues, among them, the usage of mathematical symbols within the text of a sentence. It takes some skill and practice to integrate mathematical symbols into sentences in English and have them conform to the rules of grammar.

8. The General Guidelines for Writing a Project Report II • Neatness. Written work should be prepared by hand first. You should work out your report on scratch paper. Only when you know where you are headed should you begin to write up the copy which you plan to submit. • The Use of Diagrams and Graphs. You have heard that it was said to be the man of old… “One picture is worth a thousand words.” This is nowhere so sure as in mathematical exposition. You should be able to communicate your ideas effectively using diagrams and graphs.

9. The Procedure for Writing a Project Report • Report choice of topic with a brief outline of goals, justification of the need for work on this problem. • Plan of analysis, anticipated results, schedule, resources, allocation of labor and time. • Initial data and preliminary results. • Rough discussion of preliminary results, interpretation, justification, and analysis. • First Draft • Second Draft • Wrap-up of research and preliminary outline. • Final Report. • Presentation to the instructor and your fellow classmates.

10. Use Maple to Write a Project Report • At first, everybody of you should get the Maple software. You can download it from the CUNY Mall for free. • If you have the software, open it. You will see there is a button on top of the window “Text”. Which is the environment under which you can write your formal report. We can take a look at some simple examples from which you can see how convenient it is to use Maple to come up with some very nice pdf file. • Save your report as a pdf file.

11. Additional Information • As Professor Kostadinov said, you are elected to use MatLab of Maple to write your report, if you choose to use MatLab you should contact Professor Kostadinov if you have any questions. • If you have any questions, just feel free to speak out. I will be very happy to answer your questions. • If you do have question, but you would like to talk to me personally, feel free to e-mail me first and we can set up some appointment. • My email address is: ymchen@CityTech.cuny.edu. • Thanks a lot!

12. References • Using Writing to Teach Mathematics, The Mathematical Association of American, Edited by Andrew Sterrett, MAA Notes Number 16. • Writing Projects for Mathematics Courses, The Mathematical Association of American (2004)