Submission guidelines: Engineering report, engineering project, or research report

Your engineering report, engineering project or research project should follow standard typesetting conventions. You’re responsible for graphic design and typesetting.

1. Characters

Characters should be black, evenly spaced, neat and dense.

2. Font size and spacing

• Font size must be between 10 and 12 points and 10 and 15 characters per inch.  
• Printed lines must be at least one-and-a-half spaces apart, on one side of the paper only. Single spacing can be used for long quoted passages and footnotes.  
• Decisions as to the form and location of footnotes and the presentation of references and bibliography should be made by you and your supervisor early on.  
• The preferred location for footnotes is either at the bottom of the page or at the end of the chapters to which they refer. Consult style manuals along with these guidelines.  
• For questions not answered in either the guidelines or any style manual, use your discretion and maintain a consistent style.

3. Margins

Page size should be 8 1/2" x 11" (21.5 cm x 28 cm), in portrait orientation. The left-hand margin should be at least 1" (25.4 mm), and the remaining three margins should be at least 1" (25.4 mm).

4. Page numbering  

All pages must be numbered consecutively, with numbers centred at the bottom of the page. Blank pages are included in the page numbering, but the number should appear on them. Avoid blank right-hand pages.

Title page: Omit the page number, though it’s considered page i.

Front matter (preliminary pages): Preliminary pages are numbered with lower case roman numerals, beginning with ii following the title page, and numbers are centred at the bottom of the page.

Text (main body) and back matter: Use arabic numerals for all pages of these sections. The main body begins with 1. Numbers are centred at the bottom, including the first page of each back matter chapter or section, (e.g., appendices, endnotes, glossaries, indexes). Each chapter or section should begin on a separate page.

Facing pages: For a single-sided report, facing pages can be used to place illustrative or other material as follows:  

• Facing pages must be numbered as any other page, so that all pages are numbered consecutively.  
• Page numbers should be placed  as in the main text.  
• If photographic paper is used for illustrative material, numbers can be placed on the reverse side, if necessary, in black ink.

Ensure that pages are numbered correctly and that there are no pages missing.

5. Order of items

While some items in the front and back matter are optional (depending on your discipline), the included material should appear in the following order, with each item starting on a separate page.  

Don’t include blank right-hand pages in your report.  

Preliminary page numbering can change for double-sided reports or projects.

Included material order:

1. Title page (titles should be capitalized and not underlined)
2. Author
3. Abstract
4. Acknowledgments
5. Dedication (if included)
6. Table of contents
7. List of tables
8. List of plates
9. List of figures
10. List of illustrations
11. List of appendices

Text (main body)

1. Introduction (this must be page 1)
2. Main body with chapters

Back matter

1. Appendices
2. References

Note: If you include a graphic or quote as an extra page between the front matter and the text (main body), number it as the last page of the front matter using a roman numeral page number.

6. Abstract

All reports or projects must have an abstract. Follow these technical guidelines:  

• Font size must be between 10 and 12 points and 10 and 15 characters per inch and lines of text must be double- spaced.  
• Page size should be 8 1/2" x 11" (21.5 cm x 28 cm), in portrait orientation.  
• The left-hand margin should be at least 1" (25.4 mm), and the remaining three margins at least 1" (25.4 mm) to the main text.
• The abstract must not exceed 150 words.
• Your report or project title, degree and year of graduation, full name of graduate program and name of university must appear on the top of the first page of the abstract (this information is not included in the 150-word count).
• Symbols, as well as foreign words and phrases, must be clearly and accurately displayed. Don’t include graphs, charts, tables, references or illustrations in the abstract.

7. Title page

• The title must be in ALL CAPS, centered, with a maximum font size of 12.
• Under your name, list all past degrees, including year of graduation and institution.  
• The year listed at the bottom of the title page is your year of graduation (not year of submission).
• Ensure the correct degree and program name is listed. Example: Master of Engineering (not Master’s of Engineering).
• See example in appendix.

8. Illustrations

Keep illustrative material within the margins as described above.

9. Tables, figures and such

All tables, figures, and similar visual elements must follow a single, consistent formatting style throughout the document. Consult your adviser or graduate program for guidance on the style preferred in your department.

If the description or caption of a figure is too long to fit on the same page as the figure itself, you can place it on the facing page (i.e., the page opposite the figure). When this occurs:

• The figure number must appear on both the figure page and the description page.
• The description page must immediately precede the figure page number.

This ensures that page numbering remains consistent and that references to figures within the text remain accurate.

10. Use of colour

Ideally, the document should be in varying shades of grey rather than colour. For example, lines on a graph should be identified by line symbols rather than by variation of colour. For better contrast, use cross-hatching rather than colour for shaded areas.

11. Photographs

Black and white photographs are preferable to colour.