Besides learning about total joint replacement therapy, another important pedagogical goal of this project is to develop skills in the written and oral presentation of your work. This aspect of your work is arguably as important as the scientific content!

The following outlines the main elements expected in the written final report. Failure to adhere to this outline will result in loss of points. Conversely, strict adherence will result in a high grade. In part, this is an exercise in good report writing; in part it is also an exercise in performing a task precisely to specifications — something that is often required in engineering practice. Be warned: you cannot exceed the pages limits or miss the deadline.

The total length of the narrative section of the report (everything except the title page, references, and appendices) cannot exceed twenty double-spaced pages with size 12 fonts. Figures and Tables should be included in a separate appendix. The minimum page limit for the final report is 15 pages.

Give an overall motivation for why this project was undertaken, explaining the clinical motivation and rationale. End this section with a statement of the overall goal followed by an enumerated list of specific objectives. A clear statement of objectives is crucial since it provides the focus for the entire report. The preface to these objectives is also important since it provides the rationale for the study. Regardless of the quality of science in a study, few will be interested if the motivation is poor.

The Materials and Methods section should tell the reader what you did and what materials, agents, and devices you used to answer the research questions posed in the Introduction. Enough detail should be provided so that another scientist can evaluate the credibility of your work and repeat the experiments as you performed them. Explain why the method was used. What was its purpose? It is sometimes difficult for the reader to understand why a particular procedure was used, so provide a brief justification for procedures. End the section by explaining how the data were analyzed. Include the statistical methods used to draw inferences from the data and the level of probability assumed to represent a statistical significant difference.

In direct correspondence with each of your objectives, describe the appropriate results. Ideally, you will have one paragraph for each objective, but sometimes you may want to use two paragraphs. You should state your results so clearly here that there is no need to restate them in the Discussion section. Present the results in the order of the objectives. Start each paragraph with a summary statement that explicitly addresses (or answers) the objective. Then fill out the rest of the paragraph with data supporting this opening statement.

Refer to all Figures and Tables only parenthetically such that attention is focused on the actual results and not their whereabouts. For example, rather than writing "Figure 1 shows a plot of the maximum rod stress vs. bone diameter" — which does not tell us about any results other than where they are in the report — try something more informative such as "A direct comparison of the maximum principal stress in the rod for the three load cases indicated that rod stresses were higher when raising from a chair for all bone sizes or whatever result you find (Figure 1)".

The captions can also be used to emphasize important results. In the Figures (and Tables), always provide a caption that states what is in the Figure, and also provide one sentence that states the result of interest that is contained within the Figure. The onus is on you to draw the reader’s attention to what it is that you want them to notice in each Figure and Table. In this way, you focus the reader’s attention to the point that you want to make, although you present the actual Figure so that they can see anything else that may be of interest to them.

There are many ways to write the Discussion section, but we will use the following format in which there are five sections: 1) summarize results and address the overall goal (one paragraph); 2) describe study strengths and provide evidence for why the reader should believe the previous paragraph (one or two paragraphs); 3) describe and discuss any limitations or caveats. This is where you discuss, among other things, sources of error in your analysis (two to four paragraphs); and 4) discuss your results in a broader context (one paragraph).

In each case, when you "discuss" something, this must go beyond a mere description or unsupported statement. For example, it is not acceptable to simply list possible sources of error in your analysis. You need to discuss them, using arguments and quantitative analyses based on your engineering expertise. Ideally, you will rank errors in order of importance based on this discussion. Simple listing of sources of error does not tell the reader which is more important, and a simple statement that one error is more important than another lacks credibility. Thus, you need to provide convincing arguments at every possible stage, and in that way make your discussion as substantive and powerful as possible.

Enumerate the conclusions from your analysis. Also add your recommendations. None of the material in this section should be new, i.e. it should simply be a point by point summary of your findings and recommendations based on the information contained in the Results and Discussion sections.

Add a list of any citations from the text.

Mow, V.C. and Hayes,W.C. Basic Orthopaedic Biomechanics. Lippincott-Raven Publishers, United States of America, 1997.

Rho, J.Y., Hobatho, M.C., Ashman, R.B.: Relations of mechanical properties to density and CT numbers in human bone. Med. Eng. Phys., 1995; 17: 347-55.

This is where you supply all the details that should be documented and yet are too lengthy for inclusion in the narrative section. Start the overall Appendix with a list of the appendices, and start each individual Appendix with a title page, e.g. "Appendix C: Details of the free-body diagram analysis". All Figures and Tables should be in Appendix A; all citations and references should be in Appendix B. There is no need to type out derivations, etc. that contain a lot of mathematical notation. However, make sure that all hand writing is clearly legible. Add on any other appendices you deem appropriate. Make sure that you refer to each appendix somewhere in the main narrative.

As mentioned above, you must adhere to these guidelines, including the page limits, for this project. Here are some additional guidelines that should be followed:

• Write clearly. If you have a choice between a long and short word, and they are both suitable, use the shorter one. If the grammar within a sentence is getting tricky, split the sentence up and use simple constructions. Never accept writing that is not clear or that is ambiguous. If you, the writer, have even an inkling that what you have written just might be unclear, then it certainly will be for the reader and therefore should be clarified.

• Always keep the text as short as possible. Do not include any information that does not pertain to your objectives. Omit needless words. If you can shorten a sentence, paragraph, or anything, without changing its meaning, do so!

• Pay attention to correct tense usage. Use the past tense for all work that has been done. In the final report, this will be Methods, Results, some of the Introduction ("the objectives were to ...."), some of the Discussion ("limitations were ..."), and the Conclusions. Use the present tense throughout when generalizing.

• Start each paragraph with a strong "topic" sentence. This is a summary statement of what the paragraph is about. Ideally, one could read the first sentence of each paragraph in your report and get a complete summary of its content.

• Proof read carefully to ensure the grammar is correct. Run a spell checker after you have completed all the writing to ensure that there are no typos. There is absolutely no excuse for presenting a report with typos or grammatical errors. Reports with such errors give the strong impression that you are sloppy and careless about your work.

• Make sure all Figures are clear and that all labels are large enough to be easily read. Figure captions by convention go below the Figure, Table titles go above the Table (with footnotes directly below). Do not put too much information in either a Figure or Table. Typically, Figures become difficult to read once there are more than about four curves. When you are making comparisons, do so within a single Figure if possible. If this is not possible, make sure that the axes on the comparison graphs have the same scale and size. For Tables, make sure you explain all nomenclature (e.g. "± sign indicates ...") in the Table footnote.