How do I begin a written assignment?
How do I format ChE papers?
How do I create Figures, Graphs, and Tables?
How do I keep a Laboratory Notebook?
How do I write equations and formulas?
How do I hyphenate compound words?
How do I reference sources?
What are the rules for writing numbers?
How do I use verb tenses?
How do I prepare for a presentation?
How do I get over being nervous?
How do I begin a written assignment?
A logical response to this question may be, "That's easy! Start with the introduction and keep writing until the conclusion." This strategy, however, will cost you valuable time. We suggest a different system that starts with the core of your assignment: your objectives, methods, and results. For more, click here.
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How do I format ChE papers?
ChE undergraduate papers use a variation of the American Psychological Association (APA) documentation and referencing style. You have templates for all of the major writing assignments on this website. If you need to generate the document yourself, refer to the following website, which includes a sample paper:
http://www.vanguard.edu/faculty/ddegelman/index.aspx?doc_id=796
If you create your own documents, note that ChE papers vary from standard APA style in the following ways:
1. There is no page number on the title page.
2. Page numbers are set in the upper right-hand corner, but there are no running heads.
3. Final drafts of Technical Memos, Laboratory Reports, and Research Reports are single-spaced. (Your instructor may wish to see earlier drafts double-spaced.)
4. Follow the sequencing of assignment sections in the guidelines for your document found on this website.
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How do I create Figures, Graphs, and Tables?
Is one picture really worth 1,000 words? Yes and no. Illustrations (figures and tables) play a major role in highlighting and clarifying results and data. Appropriate, well-drawn illustrations can substantially increase your readers' comprehension and can convey trends, comparisons, and relationships more clearly and concisely than text alone. For more, click here.
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How do I keep a Laboratory Notebook
Your laboratory notebook is the primary repository for the data you collect in your laboratory courses. It is therefore important that you adhere to proper note-keeping standards. All entries in your laboratory notebook must be clear and complete; it should contain sufficient information that your teams and your TA can read and understand without any difficulty. A well-maintained notebook will help you prepare your reports, so use it to your advantage. For more, click here.
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How do I write equations and formulas?
1. Center each equation or formula on a separate line.
2. If more than one line in length, the equation should be broken at the end of a unit, as before a plus or minus sign.
3. Place all of the equation on a single page.
4. Allow four lines above and below the equation.
5. Use no punctuation after the equation if it appears at the end of a sentence; however, it is permissible (and may even be necessary) to place some form of punctuation after it (a comma or semi-colon, for example) if it appears in the middle of the sentence and is followed by text. In any case, maintain the coherence of all sentences with equations in them.
6. Number the equations consecutively in parentheses at the right margin:
(1)
7. If necessary, define the symbols used.
8. In APA style, when discussing numbered equations in the text, write out the word "Equation" and give the number. For example, you would write "see Equation 1."
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How do I hyphenate compound words?
APA style follows the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary for spelling and hyphenation of compound words. You may use the Merriam-Webster online at the UT library: The APA Publication Manual, however, recognizes that because science and technology terms develop quickly, their hyphenation standards may outpace those of the dictionary.
The main purpose of hyphenating compound words is to avoid ambiguity. For instance, if you are managing the construction of a hike-and-bike trail and order "five mile markers," you could receive "five-mile markers" or "five mile-markers." When in doubt, think about the hyphen as a tool that helps clarify what you mean.
Here are some basic guidelines for hyphenating compound words:
1. Hyphenate compound adjectives that precede the term they modify.
Examples: ball-and-socket joint, counter-clockwise movement, 4-cycle engine
2. Hyphenate phrases used as adjectives that precede the term they modify.
Example: trial-and-error analysis
3. Hyphenate adjective-and-noun compounds that precede the term they modify.
Example: high-temperature gradient
4. Hyphenate compound verbs.
Examples: heal-treat, direct-connect
5. Do not hyphenate a compound with an adverb ending with -ly.
Examples: newly installed, instantly recognized
6. In general, do not hyphenate compound nouns (such as boiling point, building site, bevel gear, circuit breaker, etc.) except those composed of distinct engineering units of measurement, such as fool-candle, gram-caloric, volt-ampere, and the like. Of course, many compound nouns-such as flywheel and overflow-are written as one word.
7. Do not use hyphens to express a range of numbers. Write "10 to 15 cc" rather than "10-15 cc."
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How do I reference sources?
ChE undergraduate papers use a variation of the American Psychological Association (APA) documentation and referencing style. This is an author/date style. All of the references that you cite in the text should be listed in alphabetical order in a "References" page at the end of the paper.
For example, you may cite a source like this in the text (Henry, 1998). The reference would look like this:
Henry, J. (1998, Summer). Liquid-Liquid Extraction. Lab Handout ChE 264, The University of Texas at Austin.
The UT library has software, NoodleBiB, that will generate your References for you. If you need to create them yourself, you may find some basic reference guidelines for APA style at the OWL website at Purdue University: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_apa.html
If you need more help, UT librarians and the consultants at the Undergraduate Writing Center have complete reference books on APA style.
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What are the rules for writing numbers?
1. Write out numbers one through nine.
Examples: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine
2. Use figures for numbers 10 and above.
Examples: 10 proposals, 25 persons, 32 points
3. In a series of numbers, some of which are above nine and others below, write all the numbers as figures.
Example: We received 25 computers, 4 printers, and 65 instruction manuals.
4. Do not write numbers of a million or more as figures. For large round numbers, use words. three million, twelve billion. For large mixed numbers, use a figure-plus-word combination: 12.8 billion, 23.2 million. 5. Numbers that start a sentence are always written as words.
Example: Three hundred twenty-one calls came in today.
6. Use a hyphen in fractions used either as nouns or modifiers.
Example: three-fourths of the space / a three-fourths majority
7. For decimals with a value less than one, use a zero before the decimal point to avoid confusion with preceding material.
Example: 0.18.
8. For decimals with a value greater than one, a zero must follow a decimal point:
Example: 3.0 (NOT 3.)
9. Use figures and words to distinguish adjacent numbers from each other.
Examples: twelve 10-inch shelves, 8 two-liter bottles, three-400 meter sprints.
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How do I use verb tenses?
Engineering papers tend to be written primarily in the past and present tenses. Professional engineers, however, differ in they way they use these tenses in their reports, and the mixed precedents often confuse beginning ChE writers. Therefore, in an effort to keep consistent standards for your undergraduate ChE laboratory reports, we are setting these rules:*
1. Use the past tense to write up what was done or what happened in the experiment.
Example: We mixed the red chemical with the green chemical.
2. Use the present tense to write up
(a) statements of general, accepted knowledge in your field,
(b) facts that are always true, and
(c) accepted findings in published work.
Examples:a. Carbon dioxide levels influence global climate change.
b. Water is wet.
c. Carbamate ions react with H2O to form MEA and bicarbonate ions (Hoff, et al., 2000).
3. Use the present tense to refer to figures, tables, appendices, equations or other parts of the report.
Example: Fig. 1 demonstrates the trend.
These guidelines may seem simple, but many writers run into difficulty applying them. Shifting tenses in a paragraph may seem awkward. Here are two examples of how to shift tenses:
Example: The red chemical was mixed with the blue chemical. These reacted to produce a white crystalline product that has a melting point of 120 degrees C and has an adsorbance maximum at 230 nm.
Note: The procedure is described in the past tense because it took place in the past (Rule 1). It is a fact, however, that the white crystalline product has certain properties, so those properties are described in the present tense (Rule 2b).
Example from a Senior Research Report:
The ability for MEA solutions to capture carbon dioxide is a reversible reaction. Based on this knowledge, it was expected that CO2 would evolve over time. In addition to losses of CO2 over time, CO2 loss occurred during agitation of solutions and with temperature changes. Overall, CO2 losses were observed most with dilutions and time. Tables 2 and 3 tabulate the observed changes in CO2 loading when the solution was diluted from 45 wt% to 35 wt%. (Beveridge et al. 2004)
Note: The chemical reaction described in the first sentence is a fact, so it is described in the present tense (Rule 2b). In the next three sentences, the procedure and expectations took place in the past, so they are described in the past tense (Rule 1). The final sentence refers to tables, so it uses the present tense (Rule 3).
These guidelines should suffice for most Technical Memos and Laboratory Reports. Your Research Reports may demand a more sophisticated use tenses, particularly in the Introduction. See the annotated example of the Research Report.
* These guidelines simplify Robert A. Day's Scientific English: a Guide for Scientists and Other Professionals (Westport, CT: Oryx, 1995), pp. 74-75.
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How do I prepare for a presentation?
Forthcoming
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How do I get over being nervous?
Forthcoming
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