3.1 Parts of the Technical Report and Their Layout
3.1.1 Front Cover Sheet and Title Leaf
After the“best”title has been developed in Sect.2.3, the absolute and relative position of all parts that must appear on a front cover sheet and/or title leaf must be defined. A front cover sheet and/or title leaf is a must for a Technical Report.
You should distinguish the (inner) title leaf from the (outer) front cover sheet. The front cover sheet is the title visible when the Technical Report lies on a table as a closed book.
The title leaf is only visible after you opened the Technical Report and in most cases after you turned a blank white sheet of paper.
However, if the Technical Report is bound so that the (outer) front cover sheet is a transparent sheet of plastics, then inner and outer title are identical, i.e. the information provided on the (inner) title leaf and the (outer) front cover sheet are identical. Then the blank white sheet of paper which usually follows the front cover sheet will follow the title leaf instead.
Beside this special case, the following rule holds true: the title leaf always contains more information than the front cover sheet. For instance, in Technical Reports written during study courses it is unusual to list the supervisors on the front cover sheet, whereas they definitely have to be listed on the title leaf.
There are some faults which occur quite frequently on front cover sheets. Some of them are displayed in Fig.3.2.
The faults occurring most frequently on front cover sheets are:
– The name of the institution is missing on the top of the page.
– The name of the university is correctly specified, but the name of the department and/or institute are missing.
– The title (essential!) is layouted with a too small font size, while the type of report (not so important!) is much larger than the title.
The layout of the front cover and title leaf are also influenced by rules that are more general. For example, the corporate design of a company or university may define that for a special type of Technical Report a specific form, e.g. “Cover for laboratory reports”
Design and CalculaƟon 1
Report about the task:
AutomaƟc gear-switching for a Bicycle gear-box
WS 13/14
University for Applied Sciences Hannover Faculty II - Mechanical Engineering and
Bio Process Engineering
AutomaƟc gear-switching for a bicycle gear-box
Design Report
J. Miller W. Michalsky
M. Smith U. Swanson
Fig. 3.2 Comparison of a faulty (left side) and a correct (right side) front cover sheet for a design report
must be used. In most cases there are also rules for the layout, e.g. that the company logo must always be located at the top and on the right or left side or in the middle. Other layout rules define which font type and font sizes must be used. In universities, these rules may exist for an institute, a department, or for the whole university. Naturally speaking, you should follow these rules.
The right version in Fig.3.2isfine as long as it does not disobey existing rules of the university or customer. Now we want to look at the steps how to develop the front cover and the title leaf of your Technical Report. The example to explain the work steps is again the dissertation“Computer-aided material selection– CAMS in design education”.
Our doctorate candidate has got the information from his university which rules should be followed when designing a front cover and title leaf, and he has looked at other dissertations in the university library to see good examples for the application of these rules. The following information must occur on the title leaf of a dissertation:
– the title of the work,
– the additional specification “Dissertation to qualify for a doctorate degree at the University of Klagenfurt”,
– the names of both supervisors and the author with full academic titles as well as – the city, where the university is located, together with month and year when the
dissertation is submitted.
There are no exact rules for the positioning of the information on the title leaf.
Therefore, the doctorate candidate has manually written down four variants how his title leaf could look like, to judge the line breaking of the single information blocks and to get an impression of
– the proportions of text and intermediate white space,
– the justification of the text blocks (centered, left justified, right justified, or along a line) and
– the line breaks, see Figs.3.3and 3.4.
The doctorate candidate then types his favorite version into his word processor. There the following typographic design options are optimized:
– font type and font size and
– methods to emphasize text like bold, italic, expanded spacing etc.
The title leaves for reports and theses written during a study course like diploma thesis, project reports, laboratory, and design reports contain slightly different information from the information in this example.
In case of a diploma thesis the student ID number and start and end date of the diploma project must be specified. In case of project reports or other university-internal reports the student ID number and the term or semester are specified. Please refer to the front cover and the title leaf of a diploma thesis, Fig.3.5, and a design report, Fig.3.6.
Computer-aided material selection
– CAMS in design education –
Dissertation To qualify for a doctorate degree
At the University of Klagenfurt
1st Supervisor: Univ.Prof.Dipl.-Ing.Dr.phil. Adolf Meier 2nd Supervisor: Univ.Prof.Dr.phil. Walter Müller Submitted by Dipl.-Ing. Carl Whitfield
Klagenfurt, May 2009
Computer-aided material selection – CAMS in Design Education –
Dissertation to qualify for a doctorate degree
at the University of Klagenfurt 1st Supervisor: O.Univ.Prof.Dipl.-Ing.Dr.phil. Adolf Meier
2nd Supervisor: O.Univ.Prof.Dr.phil. Walter Müller
Submitted by Dipl.-Ing. Carl Whitfield Klagenfurt, May 2003
Fig. 3.3 Two handwritten drafts of the title leaf of a dissertation (the placement of information varies between centered, left justified, along a line, and right justified)
Computer-aided material selection
– CAMS in design education –
Dissertation to qualify for a doctorate degree
at the University of Klagenfurt
1st Supervisor: Univ.Prof.Dipl.-Ing.Dr.phil. Adolf Meier 2nd Supervisor: Univ.Prof.Dr.phil. Walter Müller
submitted by Dipl.-Ing. Carl Whitfield Klagenfurt, May 2009
Computer-aided material selection
– CAMS in design education – Dissertation to qualify for a doctorate degree
at the University of Klagenfurt
1st Supervisor: O.Univ.Prof.Dipl.-Ing.Dr.phil. Adolf Meier 2nd Supervisor: O.Univ.Prof.Dr.phil. Walter Müller
submitted by Dipl.-Ing. Carl Whitfield
Klagenfurt, May 2009
Fig. 3.4 Two handwritten drafts of the title leaf of a dissertation (with variation of font size and line breaks)
Fachbereich Hochschule
Maschinenbau Hannover
Design of a test plant to examine the staƟc strength
of valves Bachelor thesis
Bart Wayne Thomas Miller
Fachbereich Hochschule
Maschinenbau Hannover
KonstrukƟon einer Vorrichtung zur DauerfesƟgkeitsprüfung
von VenƟlen Bachelor thesis
submi ed by: Bart Wayne, 945672 Thomas Miller, 942388 1st Supervisor: Prof. Dr. L. Heinrich 2nd Supervisor: Prof. Dr. F. Grambach Start: 20.3.2014
End: 20.6.2014
Fig. 3.5 Front cover sheet and title leaf of a diploma thesis
Department of Hochschule
Mechanical Engineering Hannover
Design of a liŌing plaƞorm for maintenance and repair
of small aircraŌs
Development Report
Michael Bloom Carl Ramblovsky
Thomas Smith Lewis Vandenburgh
Department of Hochschule
Mechanical Engineering Hannover
Design of a liŌing plaƞorm for maintenance and repair
of small aircraŌs
Development Report SS 06
supervised by: wri en by:
Prof. Dr. L. Holz Michael Bloom, 935648 Carl Remblovsky, 945561 Thomas Smith, 948823 Lewis Vandenburgh, 936712
Fig. 3.6 Front cover sheet and title leaf of a design report
The following overview summarizes again the minimum information that must be provided (“What”) and their location on the front cover sheet and title leaf together with a qualitative specification of the font size (“How”).
Minimum information on front cover sheet and title leaf Front cover sheet for all types of Technical Reports:
(Logo and) institution Title of the work (large!) Subtitle (if applicable) Type of report (smaller!) Author/s (medium)
Characteristic image or illustration (if applicable)
Title leaf for all Technical Reports in a study course besidefinal theses (Logo and) institution: university/department/institute
Title of the work (large!) Subtitle (if applicable) Type of report (smaller!)
in the subject <name of the subject>
Specification of semester or term (e.g. SS 09) supervised by:
(name with title/s)
written by: name/s or group and group number (first name/s, name/s, student ID number/s) Title leaves forfinal theses
(Logo and) institution: university/department/institute Title of the work (large!)
Subtitle (if applicable) Type of report (smaller!)
1st Supervisor: (name with title/s) 2nd Supervisor: (name with title/s)
written by:
(first name/s, name/s, student ID number/s) Start: (exact date)
End: (exact date)
Title leaves for Technical Reports in industry
(Logo and) company, main department, department Title of the work (large!)
Type of report (smaller!) written by
Author/s (title/s, first name/s, name/s, department/s, eventually e-mail, telephone, fax, eventually addresses of contact persons, promoters, sponsors etc.)
Date and eventually version (e.g. June 2014 or Version 1, June 2014)
This completes the description of which information is placed where in which layout on the front cover sheet and the title leaf. The following overview summarizes again the work steps to design the front cover sheet and title leaf.
Placement of information on front cover sheet and title leaf
Work steps to place the information on a front cover sheet and title leaf:
– create several variants, use handwriting on paper to avoid restricting your creativity by a limited screen
– try out different line breaks
– form different blocks of information (title, supervisors, company/university, date)
– arrange these blocks centered, left justified, right justified or along an angular line
– select the “best”arrangement
– transfer it to your word processor and optimize it there – care for layout rules of your university, institute, or company
More details about what information has to be placed on front cover sheet and title leaf can be found in ISO 1086“Information and Documentation - Title leaves of books”and in ISO 7144“Documentation - Presentation of theses and similar documents”.
After the front cover sheet and title leaf the task, declaration in lieu of an oath (for bachelor, master and diploma theses etc.), acknowledgements, and preface may occur.
The next part of the Technical Report is always the table of contents.