# General Writing

**Audience**: Know your audience. The target audience for your report is
a future project group of students. Thus, they are WPI students, well
trained in many of the same skills your peer have, Internet and tech
savvy, but not familiar with your project specifics and probably not
familiar with your project tools. Think of this another way - what would
you needed someone to tell *you* before you started your project in
order to understand what you ended up doing.

**Abstract**: Abstracts the whole paper in one paragraph. (See one
pager)

*Tip*: Typically, this will be written last.

**Introduction**: Introduces the problem, but also excerpts the approach
and results. (See one-pager)

*Tip*: Typically, this chapter will be written last.

**Background**: Technologies relevant to your MQP that you want to
provide details on so a reader will understand your
approach/methodology. (See one-pager)

**Related Work**: What have other people learned/done to tackle this
problem. (See one pager)

*Tip*: Background and Related Work may sometimes be combined into one
chapter, depending upon the project and focus.

*Tip*: These chapters are often written first.

**Methodology (and Architecture)**: An outline of your solution and
system diagram if you are building a system. Describe the process used
to address the problem. State assumptions if any of your solution, talk
about how you will evaluate your solution (e.g simulation, etc). If your
work is experimental, present your hypothesis which your experiments
will prove or disprove.

*Tip*: Figures of architecture and process are often illustrative and
make it easier to write the document.

**Implementation**: This section is necessary only if you designed a
system architecture above. You should talk about what languages,
technology, you used and how you brought it together to solve the
problem. This section should contain details that would allow a reader
to implement a similar system if they wanted to.

**Experiments/Evaluation**: Describe means used to evaluate the
solution, often through experiments for a scientific contribution.
Experimental design, including setup (hardware and software),
independent variables (those that you will vary), dependent variables
(those you will measure). Include experimental conditions and tools
used. Should also include design rationale (why specific aspects were
chosen), for any system assumptions in setup.

**Results**: Present sample screen shots, performance tables of results
and graphs produced while evaluating your system. e.g. performance
numbers. If you have specific design or simulation assumptions state
them before presenting your results. For all graphs presented, provide a
descriptive caption, a figure number and refer to the figure number in
the text. Graphs need to be described, telling the ready what the axes
and trendlines/data points are. Especially important is the message the
reader should take away from the graph.

**Discussion**: What did you learn from your results, implications and
take-aways of your main results. Also discuss limitations, bugs, etc.

*Note*: This section is not always included in a report.

**Conclusion and Future Work**: Revisit the main motivation and problem
statement and conclude if the problem was "solved". (See one-pagers.)

**References**: Include full bibliographic information. (See one pager)