Format for Gateway Reports

All hand-ins/reports for the Gateway exercise must be in the format described here. There are three objectives:

1. to force the student to create a concise piece of focused writing
2. to exemplify a format which could lead to rapid publication of fourth-year project results
3. to saves trees

The report format is adapted from that of IEE Electronics Letters and the Express Letters in IEEE Journals and Transactions. I quote:

Electronics Letters is intended to provide a rapid means of communication new information and results on important topics of interest.

My rules are as follows:

• Keep letters SHORT: somewhere between 750 and 1250 word with 1-2 diagrams. Reports of greater length will be penalised.
• Each letter should have a BRIEF informative title and should be provided with an abstract, not more than about 50 words long.

Within these constraints we are happy to receive reports in any sensible format (single or double spaced, one or two columns, figures included in text or given afterwards).

Each figure should have a caption.

For the Christmas report (on the Median Filter) we are pretending that your design is of universal interest; for the Easter report, however, your design will be of universal interest because that design has not yet been published.

Clearly your report will need to reference the original paper(s) which provide information you have used (NOT MY PAGES - THE SOURCE PAPER(S)).

To prepare the report you are advised to look carefully at examples in the library (IEE Electronics Letters and IEEE Journals and Transactions which publish express letters); there are three examples in the Gateway home page.

You will definitely need the following sections:

Introduction:

setting out the context and background information

`Middle´:

detailing your design (you will need a better title)

Conclusion:

summarising the main contribution and/or result of your work

Note:- this format is quite demanding: while the product is short, it is hard to select the important information and to compress it into the size limit. Be glad that there are few words; but be aware of the difficulty in choosing them.