This document gives term paper style information and the instructor's preferences for organization and treatment of the subjects.

Warning: Each semester a few students make the very same mistakes described in this style sheet. This indicates that they are not thinking, or not reading this material. Please read and observe these points. Please read the new "Checklist of Do-s and Don'ts at the end.

Form: All papers must be submitted printed on paper in readable form. Please use either standard 8+1/2 by 11 inch paper or international standard A4 paper (297 by 210 mm). Students may also optionally submit fold-out or supplementary large size diagrams, or a diskette with the paper text but: do not submit oversize paper or diskettes without the prior agreement of the instructor.

Handling by the instructor: Each paper will be graded and returned with written comments. The instructor will make and retain a copy. Therefore, do not use a form of binding which makes it difficult to copy the paper. This grading and copying process sometimes requires several weeks. Please be patient.

Title Page: Your title page must include your

• name
• student identification number (same as your U.S. Social Security number)
• your section number (see page 4 of syllabus, or call SMU EE department)
• title of your paper
• course number and season and year (EE6302, or TM-716-N, and Fall 1997 for this course and semester).

Optionally, you may also add other information, such as your return address and telephone number, etc.. You may optionally place the abstract (see more below) either on the title page or on a later page.

Line spacing: Double spaced or 1+1/2 line typewriter spacing is preferable to single spaced typing. It is easier to read and to mark with comments. If your word processor produces proportional spaced type like this handout, the spacing which is standard in the word processor is acceptable.

Number every page: When each page has a number, I can make comments when I return your paper and refer to the proper page. Every page (with the exception of the title page) must have a page number. Many options are acceptable. You may prepare the document in sections more easily by page numbering each section separately. You may chose to separately number the preliminary pages (abstract and table of contents) with lower case roman numerals (i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, etc.) or ordinary Arabic numerals (1,2,3, etc.). It may or may not be convenient for you to separately number pages in the appendix or appendices (if any) with separate page numbers (A1-1, A1-2, etc for appendix 1 and A2-1, A2-2, etc. for appendix 2). You may also number all pages of all sections in one contiguous sequence from the beginning to the end of the document using Arabic numbers.

Style: There are a number of good guidebooks on the style of academic or scholarly papers. You may use any one of them as a guide. They sometimes give different suggestions about minor matters of form, such as identifying sections with letters or numbers, or placing footnotes on the same page where they are cited versus gathering all of them at the end of the paper. In these matters where equally valid alternatives exist, you may use either method. However, I prefer certain style options listed below:

Citations and Quotations: If you quote a sentence or paragraph from another source, give a citation indicating that source. If you copy an illustration or figure from another source, give the citation in the title or on the edge of the figure. In one case, a student quoted incorrect information but did not clearly identify it as a quote, and was downgraded for misunderstanding the subject. In another case, a student quoted outdated incorrect information from a source, but clearly identified the material as a quote and identified the source. There was no negative effect on the student's grade, since the use of the quoted material was an error by the source and not by the student. However, you should not quote material which you do not understand or cannot confirm independently.

If you quote only a few sentences from a source, you may place quotation marks around these sentences. If you quote more than a few isolated sentences, you should use wider margins to inset the quoted material.

Example of the first type: The president of AT&T said, "SONET will be the major digital switching format in the future." [footnote or citation number ]

Example of the second type: Dr. Pollack explained the operation of the cleaved cavity laser diode in this way:

Two flat and parallel semi-reflecting surfaces are required at the opposite sides of the region containing the optical standing wave to produce the laser diode action, and .....[several lines of text are omitted from this example to save space] .... therefore produces almost monochromatic light emission. [footnote or citation number]

Remember, quoting your sources without acknowledging the quotation is plagiarism. In general, you should restate the information contained in the source in your own words. You should be able to state the facts clearly and, usually, using less words than the original source. Rewriting the material in your own words shows that you understand it!

Internet web pages are now a good source of information for term papers. To cite a web page, give all the information that a reader needs to examine the page. It is also good to include the date since many web pages change from time to time. For example:

[23] J. Jones, New Telephone Systems, October 1997, http://www.telecom.com/newproducts.html

The above is a fictitious citation given only as an example.

Location and style of citation numbers: Citation references may be stated in either of two accepted methods. The first method is the use of the author name or a citation number in square brackets. It is not a superscript. Three examples: [Doe], [Smith, 1993], [42]. The second example cites a paper by Smith published in 1993 as opposed to other papers listed by Smith in other years. For example, you can cite the paper by Schmitz [Schmitz, 92] in the text in this way. In you bibliography at the end there must be a corresponding entry in this form:

[Schmitz, 92] H.J. Schmitz, "Further Measurements of Optical Fiber Attenuation," Journal of the Optical Society of America, Vol. 63, pp. 192-207, April 1992.

The Schmitz citation above is fictitious and is given only as an example of style.

The second method is a superscript number. Do not place numerical superscripts for citations in an ambiguous location so that they could be confused with exponents. Avoid placing them after units of measurement or numerical quantities. This example contains three mistakes of this type:

FM radio was invented by Col. E.H.Armstrong^1 He first demonstrated FM on his amateur radio station, W2XR, using a wavelength of 5 meters^2 at a time when there were only 10^3 receivers available. The percentage distortion in his system was as low as 1.5x10-^2^4.

Read the footnotes at the bottom of this section (page) relating to the previous example.

^1 This is a good place for a citation number. The footnote would cite Col. Armstrong's original paper on the subject.
^2 This is a bad place for a citation number. If you know that radio wavelengths are given in meters and not in square meters, you may be able to resolve the ambiguous statement, but some cases are totally ambiguous.
^3 This is a very bad place for a footnote. Are there 100 or 1000 receivers?
^4 This is an inexcusable place for a footnote. How can the reader know that the exponent is 2 (not 24) and the footnote is 4?

There should be either a footnote or a bibliographic citation on a list at the back of your document for each superscripted numbered citation.

Do not mix the two methods of citation (superscripted note numbers and bracketed citation names or numbers) in the same paper.

Structure: Your paper should begin with a brief abstract or executive summary of length less than one page. It should summarize your paper clearly so that a reader can determine the main results without needing to refer to the paper itself. An abstract summarizes the major points of the paper, including the conclusion. An abstract is different from an introduction. If you use a table of contents (optional), place it before the beginning of the text, and either before or after the abstract (your choice). The body of the text follows this. See more comments below on the structure of the body. Your paper should end with some conclusions, or in some cases, conclusions and recommendations. Your paper may or may not have a glossary (see below) or a list of references sources or a bibliography at the end (your choice).

Full citations of sources should be listed, either at the bottom of the relevant page or in a list at the end. If you place each citation at the bottom of the relevant page and there are no other general books or articles, then no list of references is needed at the end. There may or may not be an appendix containing exhibits, documents, or other items which are not suitable to insert in the text.

Figures, Tables and other illustrative material may either be grouped at the end, after the conclusions (and before the appendix, if any), or each figure or table may be placed at an appropriate location in the body of the text. Because the term paper for this course is relatively short, the use of a list of tables following the table of contents is optional.

Glossary or first-use definitions? If you define each abbreviation and jargon term the first time you use it, and it then does not occur again, or it occurs frequently enough in the text so that the reader is not likely to forget the definition, then you do not need a glossary. If the later occurrences of a jargon term come much later in the paper, or if you have a large number of jargon terms and abbreviations, a glossary may be superior to an in-text definition. There is never any harm in using a glossary, but use your own judgment. If you do use a glossary, do not repeat the definitions of each term in the text as well!

Structure of the body of text: Your paper should start with a brief statement of the objective of the paper. This may be a part of your introduction.. For example, your objective may be to determine which type of picture coding is most efficient for a certain class of images, or which types of multiplexing are available for inter-city transmission of high bit rate data, or which steps are necessary to convert from analog multiplex to digital multiplex transmission of speech in a telephone central office. Your real (but hidden) objective is merely to learn more about these subjects, but it is desirable to approach the organization of this term paper like a professional paper which would be submitted in your business to convince readers to agree with your conclusions, or submitted to a journal or industry meeting to report the results of your investigations. Your introduction, if you have one, may also contain some brief historical information, or other background information.

Take the time to organize the material in a logical manner, rather than merely stating facts at random. Which topics are related? Which are sub-topics of other major topics? Determine whether the subject should be best presented in historical, hierarchical, or departmental organization. Proceed from the statement of the objective to a logical conclusion. Give the necessary facts to support your eventual conclusion. If you claim that fiber optics will replace all cable by the year 2000, give technical information or installation figures to support that conclusion. Don't just say so without support. Do not merely describe five types of multiplexing and stop, with no further comment or conclusion!

Discriminate - don't merely collect information: In a few cases, students have used electronic search systems to gather a vast amount of material loosely related to a given subject, and have then tried to put all of it together in a term paper, even when not all of it logically belongs together. This is not a criticism of electronic searching systems. They are very useful, and many technical libraries have access to them. However, you should also think and use your intelligence to eliminate the irrelevant material and organize your paper correctly. If you search for all published material on a broad topic such as ISDN, cellular, or packet switching, the search will produce a vast amount of totally irrelevant material. This problem is partly due to authors who like to use "buzzwords" to get the reader's attention, even when the subject of their press release or brief news article is actually not close to the subject of interest.

Technical Level: Be consistent about the level of technical detail in your paper. Once you have established the purpose and level of detail in the beginning of your paper, maintain the same level throughout. If it is a paper on applications or business aspects, then you need only explain the capabilities of the equipment you are describing. Detailed theoretical technical analysis and information is out of place. If your stated level is highly technical, then include any necessary technical explanation of the fundamental technical subject.

Facts or Factoids? Beware of incorrect or controversial published information. This is more likely to occur in trade magazines, news articles, and popularized science and technology publications than in a reputable scientific or engineering journal where papers are reviewed by experts before publication. However, controversial and unsettled topics exist, even there. Two examples: Twenty years ago, there was considerable scientific controversy concerning a hypothetical Hydrogen-Oxygen polymer called "polywater," which was ultimately shown not to exist. A few years ago, there was a scientific controversy over the validity of "cold fusion" experiments. If you cite a controversial or unverifiable statement, you should acknowledge that it is controversial.

Usage and scientific jargon: A certain degree of uniformity of usage and of certain scientific jargon is important. Several specific items are cited here which have been the most outstanding problems in previous term papers. Please note them carefully.

To identify jargon, abbreviations or acronyms* when they first occur (as opposed to defining them in a glossary), give the full name or description first, followed by the abbreviation or acronym in parentheses. Some examples include the multiplexor (MUX), light emitting diode (LED), and packet assembler-disassembler (PAD). Alternatively, you may use a glossary. In the glossary, the first item on each line is the acronym or abbreviation itself, followed by its definition or explanation. After including either an initial explanation or a glossary, you may use the abbreviation or acronym freely. [*An acronym is an artificial "word", which is itself often pronounceable. Thus NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), LED (light emitting diode) and PAD (packet assembler-disassembler) are acronyms, but MUX is merely an abbreviation. Many technical people pronounce LED by spelling out the three letters ("ell-ee-dee"), but it is still considered an acronym.]

Remember to use ALL CAPITAL LETTERS for acronyms and most technical abbreviations. There are a few acronyms and invented words which have been generally accepted as ordinary words (for example, "codec", "laser"), but the majority of acronyms and technical abbreviations are clearer when fully capitalized. Remember, LED is not the same as the verb "led," and PAD is not the same as "pad." (Aside from its non-technical meanings, the word "pad" may also describe an attenuator device, which is different than a "packet assembler-disassembler" described by the three capital letters.) Many word processor spell checkers have the option of skipping the all-capital words in your text, so take care that you have verified each spelling occurrence.

Names of scientific and engineering units: One problem is associated with the unit of data rate. This is variously written: bps, b/s, or bit/s. The CCITT and IEEE have approved the third form, and the instructor will accept any but greatly prefers the two latter forms compared to the non-preferred bps. Common combinations with metric prefixes include the uses kbit/s, Mbit/s, and Gbit/s. Please note that a small letter k is used for the kilo prefix indicating 1000.

For a completely periodic signal which carries no information content but which is essentially used as a clock or RF carrier signal, the appropriate unit for the repetition frequency is hertz, abbreviated Hz. The cyclic rate should be given in units of Hz, even if the signal is a non-sinusoidal wave form such as a square wave, so long as every cycle has the same wave form. Please do not describe a clock signal as having a certain number of bit/s. The unit "baud" (sometimes abbreviated with the capital B or with the abbreviation Bd) is related to, but not always equal to bit/s. When the modulation and coding method uses one bit per modulation symbol, the number of bits/s is equal to the number of baud. When 2 bits/symbol are used, the bit rate may be 2400 b/s while the baud rate is only 1200 B/s. Baud is rarely abbreviated in practice, and is more often spelled out. It is named for the 19th century French telegraph engineer Emile Baudot. Please note that this unit abbreviation, and all others similarly derived from the names of eminent scientists and engineers, have the initial letter capitalized. Examples, W for watt, A for ampere, Hz for hertz. However, when the unit name is spelled out in full, it is not capitalized (unless you are referring to the person, Heinrich Hertz, himself). The letter "z" in Hz is merely lower case and is not a subscript.

Metric prefixes: The preferred metric prefixes as standardized by major scientific and engineering organizations are as follows:

The notation 10^-3 means .001, and the notation 10^6 means 1,000,000. The exponent indicates the implied positive or negative power of 10. The first 'g' in the prefix "giga" is preferably pronounced like the first 'g' in the words "gigantic" and "general" and not like the "hard" 'g' in "giggle," although the "hard" g is widely used in North America (see the December 1994 IEEE Spectrum magazine and subsequent letters to the editor on this topic).

Four seldom used and non-recommended prefixes have been intentionally omitted from this list. They are h (hecto), da (deka), d (deci), and c (centi). Two others are omitted because they are so large they are seldom used in telecommunications, even though they are recommended prefixes. These are E (exa, 10^18) and P (peta, 10^15).

Correct usage of capital versus small letters makes a significant difference with these unit prefixes. Note in the list of preferred prefixes that all the prefixes larger than unity are capital letters except k (kilo). Do not use a capital K for this. The capital K, in fact, stands for the Kelvin or absolute degree of temperature. Some writers use capital K to represent 1024, as opposed to 1000, for computer memory sizes. Note also that micro (µ, Mu) can be approximated with a 'u', but it is best to use the actual Greek letter Mu (which is available on most computer word processing systems), or manually add a "tail" to the front of the letter 'u' for complete clarity.

Grammatical and spelling problems checklist: Usage errors in technical and business papers will give the reader a very bad and unprofessional opinion of your work. Some of the worst offenders, which often occur in technical writing, are homophonic word pairs which have spelling differences only in the un-stressed syllables.

Affect - effect: Affect is a verb. Affected is an adjective derived from the verb. Proper usage: "This information does not affect the result." "The bit error rate is strongly affected by electrical noise."

Effect is a noun, except for one case where it plays the role of a verb. Its approximate noun synonym is "result". Proper usage: "This experiment shows an example of the Wolfschmidt-vonSmirnoff effect." "The high bit error rate is an effect of the electrical noise present with the signal."

The one verb case is a synonym for "caused" or "brought into existence", as in: "The presence of competitive carriers effected a reduction in prices due to competition." Notice that the following sentence is only superficially similar, and does not imply the same thing as the previous sentence: "The presence of competitive carriers affected the reduction of prices due to competition." In the first sentence, the presence of competitive carriers caused the reduction in rates -- without them it would not have happened! In the second sentence, the presence of the competitive carriers had an influence on the size of the reduction, but there is no implication that their presence caused the reduction to take place..

Its - It's: Its = possessive pronoun. Proper usage: "The company used integrated circuits made by its own subsidiary."

It's = contraction of "it is" Proper usage: "It's too early to tell if this will become the accepted method."

Principal - principle: Principal is an adjective, except for the principal of a school. Its approximate adjective synonym is "major" or "primary". Proper usage: "The principal reason for the reduction in prices was the presence of competitive carriers in the market." "The principal problem with the equipment was poor reliability in field conditions."

Principle is a noun. Its approximate synonym is "rule" or "fact". Proper usage: "This is a result of the principle of relativity." "In principle, we can do almost anything with software."

Other Frequent Grammar Errors: Noun-verb disagreement (singular-plural) is far too common. It is usually caused by long and un-necessarily complicated sentence structure. Do not write long and convoluted sentences, when the ideas may be better expressed by two short sentences, or by a chart or a list.

Non parallel construction of two parts of a sentence, like a main phrase and a subordinate clause, is confusing to read and usually un-grammatical. The parts should have parallel construction with respect to the person and number of the subject(s) and the tense (present, past, future) of the verb.

Bad example with grammar errors: "The digital multiplexers, which replaces earlier analog muliplexer, were less expensive and have higher capacity."

Corrected example: "The digital multiplexers, which replaced earlier analog muliplexers, were less expensive and had higher capacity."

Notice that the second sentence has plural subjects and verb forms, and consistent past tense verbs in both the main and subordinate parts.

If you are not a native speakers of the English language and you are not confident of the grammatical correctness of your paper, you should obtain the help of a native speaker with good knowledge of English grammar to review the grammatical aspects of their writing. This does not imply that another person should write the paper. They should only review and edit the grammar. A good review of your own writing, with an explanation of the reasons for any changes or corrections, can be an excellent learning experience.

Incorrect spelling is almost inexcusable, now that spelling check software is available with most word processors. However, you must use still think when you use spelling checkers, since they will not detect a valid word used incorrectly (for example, effect versus affect). In this course, or in your professional career, any writing you do which is riddled with misspellings gives the reader the impression that you are a careless person.

Research: There are a number of sources for further information to use in your paper.

Books: There are numerous books and textbooks and practical handbooks on digital telephony and switching. Look in the Dewey Decimal classifications 621.385 or 621.387 or the LC classes TK6175, TK6550 and TK6560 and their subclasses in a technical library to get started. Some useful books are listed in the separate bibliography.

Journals and trade magazines: The major engineering journals in the area of telecommunications are published by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). These include the Proceedings of the IEEE, IEEE Spectrum, and various Transactions (Communications; Acoustics Speech and Signal Processing; Vehicular Technology) and Journals (Selected Areas in Communications) related to communications and telecommunications. The AT&T Technical Journal (formerly called Bell System Technical Journal) is another scholarly publication. Other major scholarly publications are published by the British IEE, and similar organizations in other major countries. There are several trade magazines, which are less rigorous technically but which concentrate more on news coverage of the business aspects of the industry. Major trade magazines of this type are Telephony , Data Communications, Teleconnect,, and Telephone Engineer and Management. The magazine Business Communications Review addresses the economic and business interests of the industrial user of telecommunications equipment such as PBXs. There are also several technical magazines published by vendors of telecommunications equipment which have well illustrated articles on their own equipment, usually explaining the principles of operation in a semi-technical manner. These include AT&T Bell Laboratories Record and AT&T Technology, Bell-Northern Research's Telesis, Ericsson's Ericsson Review, Siemens' Telcom Report, and Alcatel's (formerly ITT's) Electrical Communications.

Standards: There are four major sources of telecommunications standards. The ITU-T (formerly CCITT) 1992 "White Books" are the latest in a series of quadrennial publications covering international standards in voice, data, and facsimile telecommunications. Since 1992 individual standards documents are published as required by the ITU. Bellcore publishes Technical Advisories (TAs) and Technical References (TRs) which describe the standards followed by most of the US Regional Bell Operating Companies. The Electrical Industries Association (EIA) and its affiliate the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) publish numerous standards relating to consumer premises telephone equipment such as telephone sets, PBXs, and cellular telephone sets, and cellular and PCS radio standards. The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS - formerly the Exchange Carriers Standards Association -- ECSA) publishes standards relating to most equipment used by telecommunications exchange carriers, including multiplexers, SONET fiber optic equipment, switching equipment, etc.

Technical librarians are extremely helpful in finding material once you give them a clear explanation of what you are seeking. Most companies in the telecommunications industry, whether vendor or operating company, have technical libraries. The science library at SMU is available to you as a student of this course.

If you cannot find certain specific material needed for your term paper in your own locality, please communicate with the instructor.

Appearance and presentation: These final points are simple to control, and they avoid bizarre or distracting arrangement of your text.

Assembly: Do not present the paper in a form which makes notations or copying difficult. Do not enclose each page in a plastic envelope. Do not bind the pages so they cannot be taken apart for copying.

Spaces and punctuation: Some word processor programs will correct errors in the placement of spaces, but you should try to make them correctly yourself if you do not have a word processor or if yours does not fix the appearance of the text produced by wrongly inserted spaces. There should be no space before a period [.] or a comma [,] or a closing parenthesis [)]. There should be no space after an opening parenthesis [(]. There should be a space (some people use two spaces) after a period which ends a sentence (but not a decimal point) and after a comma (but not after a period or a comma which separates groups of digits in a number) and after a closing parenthesis [)] (unless the next character after the closing parenthesis is a period).

If you type the spaces correctly, the proper items are connected, (like this). On the other hand 

, if you type the spaces incorrectly ,the wrong things sometimes get connected to each other. (

 Like this second sentence ,with spaces in all the wrong places!)

If you are careless about your first draft using a word processor, you can remove spaces before commas by using a REPLACE command to change all instances of this " ," (a space followed by a comma) into ",". (just a comma alone). Similarly, you can replace all periods by a period followed by a space, but you must carefully edit out undesired spaces after periods such as those which act as decimal points in numbers, etc.

If you choose to save space by omitting a blank line between paragraphs, you must indent the first line of each paragraph. If you leave a blank line, you may indent or not as you choose.

Checklist of Important Do-s and Don'ts: Ignoring these things is sure to reduce the grade on your term paper. They are based on the most frequent errors found in past term papers. One of the objectives of this course, even for students with a non-technical background, is to learn how facts about technology are necessary for proper business decisions in telecommunications. The telecommunications industry has been having some well publicized and embarrassing reversals of direction in recent years, and many of these changes are due to decision makers who do not fully understand the technology they must deal with. Your paper should show that you are learning this lesson!

Do include your conclusion(s) in your abstract or executive summary.

Do give facts and information in the body of your paper which supports your conclusion(s). Don't state a conclusion which is not supported by the facts and information in your paper.*
[If you have an opportunity to see the film, the videotape, or the Broadway musical comedy How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, pay particular attention to the scene of the business meeting where the main character, J. Pierrepont "Ponty" Finch, presents his business "plan". He states conclusions without supporting reasons, and objectives without supporting actions to reach those objectives. Then think about this in relation to your paper, or to the most recent business meeting you attended!]

Do give specific facts and data wherever possible. It is true to state that "cellular radio has been very popular," but it is better to state that "the number of cellular customers has doubled in 5 years," and it is best of all to state that "the number of cellular customers doubled from 12 million in 1990 to 24 million in 1995." In some cases, graphs, charts or tables state this better than words.

Do use a small k for the kilo prefix. Use capital K only to represent the number 1024.

Do use diagrams where they improve the clarity of your presentation. Cite the source for any diagarams that you copy.

Don't just repeat back in your term paper only the information given in the textbook or in class lectures on the subject of the paper implies that you did no research or did not learn anything from your research. Better to gather more information, either with wider scope than the lectures, or more detail in some particular sub-topic.

Don't use only one source of information. This is only justified when there is only one source (one person, one published book or article, etc.) available. Don't attempt to hide the fact that you used only one source by not using any citations at all!

Don't quote from your sources without acknowledging the quotation. That is plagiarism. It also indicates that perhaps you did not understand the subject matter.

Don't include irrelevant material. This indicates that you do not understand what is relevant. Learn to understand and discard "junk news" in the trade press which originates from self-congratulatory press releases from business firms which are trying to promote their image when, in fact, nothing is really happening. In term papers which describe a piece of equipment, some topics which are important for using or repairing a product are not relevant in a brief term paper describing only the outstanding features of that product.

Don't present a paper with careless, sloppy organization of the topics, bad or unclear writing and incorrect spelling. These things indicate that you don't care enough to do a good job.

END