Written Documents

The way humans communicate using the written word is highly standardized. In the western hemisphere, this standard is uniform apart from a few language dependent idiosyncrasies such as hyphenation and punctuation. One expects that a book will have its table of contents at the beginning and its index at the end. This is one of the intuitive aspects that we actually learn early in life. Where different parts of a document should appear has been formalized by publishers. The most commonly used style in North America was laid out by the University of Chicago Press in A Manual of Style [1], now in its fourteenth edition. We use this standard not only because it is required by the publisher or the professor but also, and most importantly, because it is what the reader expects. Though the writing of books is beyond the scope of this document, all reports follow a similar standard. So let us briefly study it here.

Any manuscript, book or report can be divided into three parts. The Chicago manual of style gives an outline of the major divisions of a book. Though your report need not contain all of these divisions, it is useful to understand this structure. To quote the manual [1]:

A book usually consists of three major divisions: (1) the front matter or preliminaries (prelims), (2) the text, and (3) the back matter or end matter or reference matter. An appropriate sequence for all the parts is shown in the following outline. Few books have all these parts, of course, and some books have other parts not shown in the outline, for example, a list of abbreviations.

Table 2.1: The Division of a Book from A Manual of Style [1]

PRELIMINARIES
Book half title (sometimes called bastard title)	i
Series title or list of contributors or frontispiece or blank	ii
Title page	iii
Copyright notice, publisher's agencies, printing history,
country where printed, Library of Congress Catalog
Card Number, Standard Book Number (if used)	iv
Dedication (or epigraph)	v
Blank	vi
(Table of) Contents	v or vii
(List of) Illustrations	recto1
(List of) Tables	recto
Foreword	recto
Preface	recto
Acknowledgments (if not part of preface)	recto
Introduction (if not part of text)	recto
TEXT
First text page (Introduction or chapter 1)	1
or:
Second book half title, or first part title	1
Blank	2
First text page	3
BACK MATTER
Appendix(ces)	recto
Notes (if all in back of book instead of footnotes)	recto
Glossary	recto
Bibliography	recto
Index(es)	recto

¹ The items in this column refer to which side of a page the section starts.
See footnote 1 on page

Table 2.1 is quoted directly from A Manual of Style [1] and is the University of Chicago Press's guideline to a proper book. This is the format that inspired what you are to use in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Each of the precisely laid out styles described in the following chapters was prescribed by this scheme. Each style will include some of the divisions presented here. This document will specify more clearly what the text or main matter should contain.

Because this manual is in the form of a book, the style of the present text differs from that of a report. Do not use it as a guide. Examples appear in the appendices of both report styles. They can be used as a bench mark.

The aim of these styles is not to impose a draconian set of rules upon you but rather to help you to sort out where and how certain ideas should be presented. These styles are flexible to a point. If not followed closely, your document may still be readable but most will find it awkward.