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Soliciting Faculty & Outside Help

TECH 4943

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Faculty Advisors

You must have a faculty advisor

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Faculty Advisors

You MUST make an APPOINTMENT via email.

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Be sure to read: How to Use Proper Email Etiquette When Writing to Professors

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Your emails will be graded with the rest of your proposal

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Faculty Advisors

DO NOT wait until the last minute.

You must be prepared at the meeting.

You must show that you have thought through your project.

DO NOT show up and say:

  • "How do I do this?" You should know how. That is the point of the project.

Faculty can help with SPECIFIC, well defined problems you are having.

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BE PREPARED

Show what other people are doing related to your project (literature review).

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Search Google, AND the databases (which are invisible to Google).

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Faculty Advisors

REMEMBER: Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on their part.

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Feedback from Your Summaries

Avoid First Person

Avoid Second person

Avoid Passive Voice

  • Be clear about who did what.
  • Don't say a "schematic was developed" if a manufacturer did the schematic.
  • Make sure you paper does not give the impression that you did something that somebody else did.

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MLA Format

Sixth Edition

ISBN: 0873529863

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Many resources online.

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Notes on Formatting and Style

Do not block justify your text. Only left justify.

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Use MLA Margins, including first page, but

  • Do not repeat title information on p1.

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Use styles to control the look of headings.

  • Will make your table of contents easier.

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Be Finding Reference Sources

Think of the general context of your project.

Try to narrow down your sources to the level of your project (zoom in).

Look for patents.

Look for scholarly publications (see "good sources" links on the course home page).

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If you can't find sources, it may be because you don't really understand the broader context of your project. Think of the "broader impact"

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Citing Images

http://images.google.com is not the source of your image. The only image that you could cite this way is this one...

Image from: http://images.google.com

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Keep it Neat

Good layout

Pages not wrinkled

Not on "used" paper

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When it comes time to put your project in a notebook, be sure the notebook is in excellent condition.

Make sure the spine label is in the right orientation. It should be right side up when the notebook is flat on a table.

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