Teacher: B.

Badjou EL502: Part 01/Lecture 02 Spring Term, 2025 IEEE/UMBB

Research Design: (I) Layout

Introduction

All academic productions—irrespective of their types-- use document design to help

readers easily scan for information and better understand the structure and meaning
of the material. That design concerns two different levels: micro and macro, called
layout and format1, respectively. In this lecture, we will be covering layout.

1. What is layout?

Layout concerns the form and physical appearance of the page, including all the
constituents below, grouped in a downloadable template.

1.1. Page Format

IEEE style recommends using Times New Roman as a font, size 12 pt. The margins should
be of at least 1 inch on all sides of the page. The main text should be double-spaced, and
each new paragraph should begin with a ½ inch indent.

1.2. Title

The paper title should be informative and detailed enough to give a specific idea of
what is covered—e.g., Soot Morphology: An Application of Image Analysis in High-
Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy. Concerning capitalization, all the initials
should be capitalized unless they are empty words like articles, prepositions and
conjunctions (a, the, in, to, from, and . . .).

1.3. Headings

1
A range of vocabulary can be used to refer to the levels outlined above, user interface, form, etc.

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 Teacher: B. Badjou EL502: Part 01/Lecture 02 Spring Term, 2025 IEEE/UMBB

Style guides differ with regard to headings’ recommendations. Being the most convenient
in your field, the style guide IEEE, recommends the following guidelines. Headings are
four levels and one, as follows.

 Level 1 text headings begin with a roman numeral followed by a period. They are
written in small, bold caps, in title case, and centered.

 Level 2 text headings begin with a capital letter followed by a period. They are bold,
italicized, left-aligned, and written in title case.

 Level 3 text headings begin with a number followed by a closing parenthesis. They
are bold, italicized, written in sentence case, and indented like a regular paragraph.
The text of the section follows the heading, immediately after a colon.

 Level 4 text headings begin with a lowercase letter followed by a closing

parenthesis. They are bold, italicized, written in sentence case, and indented slightly
further than a normal paragraph. The text of the section follows the heading,
immediately after a colon.

 Special headings
Different components of your paper outside of the main text like acknowledgments and
references are formatted like primary headings, but are not enumerated. Likewise,
appendices are formatted the same way except that the number or letter should come after
the word appendix, not before—Appendix A, or Appendix I, not A. Appendix, or I.
Appendix.

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 Teacher: B. Badjou EL502: Part 01/Lecture 02 Spring Term, 2025 IEEE/UMBB

1.4. Enumeration system

Of the two general enumeration systems widely used, the numerical system is clearer than
the alphanumerical system. In the numerical system, the reader can always locate his or
her place in the document from the single decimal number.

numerical system alphanumerical system

1 I.
1.1 A.
1.2 B.
1.2.1 1.
1.2.2 2.
1.2.3.1 a)
1.2.3.2 b)
2 II.
2.1 A.
2.1.1 1.
2.1.2 2.
2.1.2.1 a)

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 Teacher: B. Badjou EL502: Part 01/Lecture 02 Spring Term, 2025 IEEE/UMBB

1.5. Header & footer

The header contains the running head, which is in your case the title of the chapter
and a shortened form of the title in a research paper. Also, it can contain the page
numbers if they were not put in the footer.

1.6. Data insertion

Tables, figures, and equations are the three categories of extra-textual items that require
numbering and labelling, which should go below graphs and figures but above tables.
Each should be numbered consecutively from the beginning of the paper to the end.
For instance, if you have four figures in section I, the first figure in section II is simply Fig.
5, not Fig. II-1. Captions of tables, figures and equations should be in sentence case.

1.7. LaTeX vs. Word Processor

LaTeX is a document preparation system for high-quality typesetting. It is most often used
for medium-to-large technical or scientific documents, but it can be used for almost any
form of publishing. LaTeX is not a word processor: instead, LaTeX encourages authors not
to worry too much about the appearance of their documents but to concentrate on getting
the right content.

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 Teacher: B. Badjou EL502: Part 01/Lecture 02 Spring Term, 2025 IEEE/UMBB

2. Editing

After they are written, revised, and edited, almost all academic documents undergo one or
more reviews. Common types of reviews are peer reviews by colleagues, technical
reviews by experts, managerial reviews by supervisors, and editorial reviews by
editors. More reviews your manuscript is subject to, better it is marked up as a finished
document.

3. Submitting vs. publishing

The scholarly papers can be written for submission as a manuscript at college or for
publishing at specialized journals. The latter are produced by professionals, while the
former are the craft of students. It is noteworthy that although they both must abide by
the instructions given by the instructor (university) or publisher through the templates
they provide, they can slightly differ in containing or not some elements.

3.1 Journals and patents

Being able to publish your work or secure a patent is a great reward to your efforts. High
standard journals are indexed in top databases like Scopus, Web of Science, etc. and
have higher impact factors 2.

Note

Remember that the quality of a report indicates the quality of an individual's thinking,
organization, and technical prowess. Thus, your impeccable work will earn you inner
satisfaction in addition to outsider rewards.

2
A measurement of citation rate of your article and the journal wherein you published it.

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 Teacher: B. Badjou EL502: Part 01/Lecture 02 Spring Term, 2025 IEEE/UMBB

Assignment

1) Scan for any issues of layout in the model report.

2) Consider the headings of all types in your report.
3) Instruct yourself on the differences between Word processor and LaTeX and
decide which will suit you better.

References

1) Sample IEEE Paper for A4 Page Size.

2) IEEE Editorial Style Manual.

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