Style Guides |
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Electrical and Computer Engineering Style Guide This style guide was created to provide ECE students and faculty with guidelines for documenting the results of experiments through lab reports, executive summaries, short research reports, and full research reports. It includes formats for these reports as well as some helpful writing hints and some common grammar/punctuation challenges. College of Engineering Style Guide The COE Style Guide was developed to help ensure consistent, accurate communication throughout the Engineering college. Preparing a Thesis or Dissertation UNL guidelines for preparing a thesis or dissertation, including procedures, style, format, and printing and binding. IEEE Style Manual Provides guidelines for the preparation of papers in the two column format used for conference proceedings sponsored by IEEE and other IEEE publications. ACS Style Guide The American Chemical Society Style Guide is an excellent resource for preparing scientific, technical, and medical information. It is available online through UNL Libraries. The Chicago Manual of Style A comprehensive guide for authors, editors, and publishers in any field. It is available online through UNL Libraries. Purdue OWL The Purdue University Online Writing Lab is another excellent resource. |
Use of Logos |
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University of Nebraska Logo Downloadable files and rules for use. College of Engineering Logo Downloadable files and rules for use. |
Proposal Preparation Useful Links |
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This UNL Office of Sponsored Programs website provides links to:
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Introduction
The UNL Electrical and Computer Engineering department is pleased to provide its faculty with assistance in developing, writing, and editing documents, including:
- Proposals for research funding
- Journal articles
- Conference papers
- Textbooks and chapters
- Contract deliverables, i.e., monthly/quarterly/annual reports, presentations, manuals, etc.
Services Provided
Proposal DevelopmentThe following services can be provided in total or in part based on the researcher’s needs.
- Conducting searches for potential funding opportunities based on the researcher’s areas of interest.
- Reviewing the solicitation to define the requirements for the proposal.
- Coordinating activities/input of the project team.
- Writing sections of the proposal, e.g., project summaries and abstracts.
- Editing proposals.
- Preparing bio sketches and current and pending documents.
- Opening a new form in NUgrant and routing the proposal for approval.
- Preparing grants.gov application packages.
- Coordinating submittal with the Office of Sponsored Programs.
- Using Fastlane to upload NSF proposals.
- Making suggestions about content, organization, and presentation based on solicitation, agency guidelines, comments from expert reviewers, and personal experience.
- Conducting research and providing information, e.g., statistics from the National Science Board’s Science and Engineering Indicators.
There are three basic levels of editing that can be provided. Unless otherwise directed by the author, and if time permits, all three levels will be performed.
Substantive or Line Editing
A substantive or line edit is not copy editing or proofreading; it looks at the sentence and paragraph level to determine how well the author is communicating his/her message to the reader. Suggestions are provided along with explanations. A substantive edit includes:
- Identifying and solving problems of consistency in style, mechanics, and sentence structure.
- Clarifying/reorganizing sections and paragraphs to improve the flow of the document.
- Writing/rewriting sentences and paragraphs to improve presentation, readability, and flow, e.g., making suggestions regarding confusing and awkward phrasing.
- Adhering to any specific style guide as required, e.g., NSF, NIH, IEEE.
- Performing copy editing and proofreading services.
Copying editing ensures that the writing is clear, correct, concise, complete, and consistent. It includes:
- Eliminating redundant, repetitive, and weak words, phrases, and sentences.
- Discussing possible factual errors/inconsistencies with the author.
- Inserting headings and paragraph breaks.
- Ensuring that appropriate copyright and trademark symbols are used and that company/product names are spelled and capitalized correctly.
- Cross-checking references to figures, tables, and equations and citations to the bibliography. Ensuring hyperlinks are working correctly.
- Ensuring that the document consistently adheres to all solicitation and/or style guide formatting requirements.
- Includes all proofreading services.
Proofreading looks for typographical and mechanical errors.
- Correcting spelling, grammar, sentence structure, capitalization, punctuation, and word usage while preserving the meaning of the original text.
- Checking for and imposing a consistent style and format (headings, spacing, line endings, bulleted/numbered lists).
- Ensuring all acronyms/initialisms are defined the first time they are used and that they are used consistently throughout the text.
Requesting Assistance
Requests for assistance with proposal development or editing services can be submitted by emailing Patricia Worster at pworster2@unl.edu.
Microsoft Word Users: Word files will be edited using the Track Changes feature. Questions and explanations will be inserted using the New Comment function. An advantage to creating documents in Word is that your document can be edited at least twice. Proofreading during the first pass makes it much easier to line and/or copy edit during the second pass. A second “test copy” is created, the edits are accepted, and the test copy is edited a second time. Any additional edits are then made in the original document.
LaTeX Users: There are two ways that documents created using LaTeX can be edited: 1) the author can submit a PDF file to be edited using the editing features in Adobe Acrobat Pro or 2) a printout of the document can be edited by hand. Keep in mind, that both of these processes increase the amount of time it takes to edit the document. Editing using Acrobat Pro can get very awkward and time consuming. In addition, there is no way to accept all of the edits, thus the document can be edited only once, combining proofreading with a line/copy edit. The same is true of hand editing.