2016/4/8

Name and surname

Title of the group meeting

Previous developments
Add a very short description of the contents and problems faced in the previous meeting. This
short summary will help you to be clearer and to smoothly introduce and motivate the contents
you will show in the new report.

Contents
1. How to write a report
1.1. Style of writing
1.2. Figures
1.3. Plots
1.4. Tables
2. Topic 2
3. Topic 3
4. Future tasks

List the number of topics you will present in the meeting. There is not a fixed number of topics,
it depends on how many issues you worked on. Give a clear title to each section and add sub-
sections if needed (as the example above). Add one section “Future tasks” where to explain the
next steps of your research

1. How to write a report

Each section of the report has to be developed in paragraphs. A new paragraph is indented at
the beginning of the first sentence. The report has to include all the contents required to be clear,
however it should not be too long. The time during the group meetings is not very long, so try to
adjust your contents properly. It is recommended to number the pages.
1.1. Style of writing
With regards to the style of writing, it is recommended to write with font TimesNewRoman,
size 12. The starting title of the report can have size 14. Use bold style to emphasize the titles of
the different sections.
It is always better to “justify” the paragraphs, that is to set that the lines have always the
same length on the right and left side.
The italic style is used in specific cases:
- If any words different from English are used, for example Latin words, they have to be
written in italic. Popular useful short Latin expressions are:
i.e. = id est = that is

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 Example: The loading protocol included two natural accelerograms, i.e. Kobe NS and El
Centro
e.g. = exempli gratia = for example
Example: Different references in literature, e.g. Panagiotakos and Fardis, suggest the
parameter a to range between 1 and 2.
- Single variables ( a, b,…)
- Greek letters (α, β, …)

1.2 Figures
The report must include all the pictures necessary to explain the contents. It is recommended
to use text box or tables to paste your figures. The text box allows to anchor the figures to the
text and to use the predefined locations (drawing tools Position). The table allows to equally
redistribute the space in the text box in case of more than one figure. Both text box and table do
not have black borders

(a) (b)
Figure 1. Pictures of the specimen: (a) TBB specimen, (b) TTB specimen

If more than one figure is inside the same figure a letter among parenthesis, e.g. (a), has to
identify one single picture. The caption of the figure has to be put below the picture. The caption
is also numbered in order and has to describe every figure inside the same figure. The size of the
writing is same as the main script: TimesNewRoman 12. It is recommended that the size of a
figure or a plot follows the A4 proportions (it means that the short size must be equal to 0.7 times
the short side).

1.3 Plots
Numerical results are reported in plots. The same rules explained for figure are
recommended as well. However in case of plots be careful to:

- Title of the x and y axis: it has to include the variable and the unit of measurement
- If more than one line is included in the same plot use different symbols/thickness/colours
- If more than one line is included do not forget the legend
- When two cases are compared, it is important to have the same maximum values of the x
and y axes. Otherwise our eyes are misled.

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(a) (b)
Figure 2. Experimental relationship between PGA and maximum base shear coefficient: (a)
sinusoidal inputs, (b) earthquake inputs
 1.4 Tables
Tables are not very common. They are useful in case a set of elements has to be described
synthetically. The caption of the table must be put on top of the table, and it is written in
TimesNewRoman 12. The caption has to describe the contents reported in the table.

2. Topic 2

3. Topic 3

4.
Table 1. Loading protocol matrix F
Test 1: Short specimen Test 2: Tall specimen
Peak Ground Acceleration Peak Ground
Input Input
(m/s2) Acceleration (m/s2)
Sin 0.5 Hz 1.0-2.5 Sin 0.5 Hz 0.5-2.5
Sin 1.0 Hz 2.0-5.0 Sin 1.0 Hz 1.0-7.0
Sin 1.5 Hz 2.0-7.5 Sin 1.5 Hz 1.0-9.0
Sin 2.0 Hz 2.0-10 Sin 2.0 Hz 0.5-8
uture tasks
It is good to report also which future steps you plan to develop your research.