MIT Reports to the President

Style Guide

To assist authors preparing an MIT annual report, this style guide describes the information desired in each report and gives simple guidelines for submitting the document.

Quick Start

1. If you've done this before, you can use last year's report (which was returned to you as a Word document) as a model. But please take a look at some of the other reports, too, especially those covering comparable areas. You might find an idea worth emulating.
   
   
2. If you are new to this exercise, or would like a refresher, our content guidelines identify the kinds of information that are considered essential for preserving the continuity of MIT's historical record. These suggestions have been provided by the staff of the Institute Archives.
   
   
3. Before submitting your report, please review our submission guidelines.
   
   
4. Be concise. The principles of good writing are as pertinent in your report as they are, or will be, in your own memoirs.
   
   
5. Remember that your report refers to the year ending June 30, 2008. Use the future tense to describe events occurring on or after July 1, 2008.
   
   

Content Guidelines

Relevant information in all reports

• Current goals, objectives, priorities. Have they changed since last year's report? Also, if relevant, please gauge the impact of Institute-wide policies, recommendations, activities, or events; the impact of social or cultural policies and events, national and international, may also be considered.
  
  
• Accomplishments. Major accomplishments in new or ongoing programs; significant anniversaries; special projects, including special lectures, exhibitions, concerts, and events.
  
  
• Administrative initiatives. New procedures, processes, or policies; new or changing areas of responsibility; collaborative activity with other departments and offices; committee work and its results (include name of final report); new equipment, tools, or instruments, or new applications for same; physical movement into and out of particular locations, and its impact on work or program.
  
  
• Finances and funding. Major donations and bequests; new grants, fellowships, internships; other financial assistance.
  
  
• Future plans. Areas needing development or enhancement.
  
  
• Personnel information. Appointments, promotions, departures, and retirements (with brief reflections on tenure/stewardship); leaves (where, for what purpose, and when returning?); awards and honors; significant professional activities and publications, or involvement in special projects or programs.
  
  

Additional information from academic units

• Teaching and curriculum. Changes in curriculum; current impact of educational trends.
  
  
• Research activities. Review of current projects — their purpose, parameters, participants, and funding sources; important findings, inventions, or product breakthroughs — please summarize rather than provide extensive detail.
  
  

Submission Guidelines

How to submit your report

Submitting your report is easy. Just send the electronic files via email to referencepubs@mit.edu. In your message, please identify your report (document title and electronic file name) and other attachments so that we can be sure we have received everything we need. If you have many photos or very large file sizes, please contact us for alternate submission instructions.

Naming files

For easy identification, please use file names that begin with an acronym or a shortened form of your office/department's name. Use the same name for photos and other graphics accompanying the report and number them in sequence: fig 1, fig 2, fig 3 (we do not differentiate between photos and charts or other graphs, so please number them consecutively). Name the caption file using the same method. For example, the report of the Reference Publications Office might include the following files:

rpo.doc
rpo_fig1.jpg
rpo_fig2.jpg
rpo_fig3.jpg
rpo_captions.doc

Photos

Digital photos in any of the standard formats may be submitted, though we prefer high-quality jpgs. Just name the photos per the instructions above and attach them to your email message.

In the text of the report, indicate photo locations with a parenthetical notation: (fig 1 here). Photos will usually be aligned with the relevant paragraph.

Do not embed the photos in your report. Even if you submit photos separately and wish only to show us the intended photo layout, Microsoft Word does not always handle embedded photos gracefully. Please contact us by phone or email if you have a special layout in mind.

Be sure to include a brief caption for each photo, indicating the filename of the photo it corresponds to, and submit all the captions together in a separate Word file. This is preferable to appending the captions at the end of your report.

Charts and Graphs

Please do not embed Excel charts or graphs in your Word document. Instead, send us an Excel file containing only those graphics you wish to include in your report. Please include in the file the source data for the graphic so that we can regenerate it, if necessary. Label your files per the instructions above, and use consecutively numbered callouts (e.g., fig 1, fig 2) in the text to tell us where to place the graphics.

Formatting and Other Tips

Word Template

For those who wish to use it, the following Microsoft Word file—report_pres.doc—should cover the basic styles needed to format your report. To use it, simply download the file from the above link, add text, apply the styles, and save the file under a new name. Or, before adding text, you can also change the document type and save it as a clean Word template. The template will then be available for use whenever you create a new document. Please do not include headers or footers in your document.

Copyediting

Report authors are not expected to adopt any particular editorial style, but if you're curious about the decisions that editors make and the house style we follow, you are invited to refer to our style sheet.

All reports are copyedited before publication. Usually this is a routine matter, and you will not be asked to review the edited report. We may check with you, however, if there are unusual complications.

Tables

Please do not embed an Excel table in your Word document. Instead, create the table in Microsoft Word. Please do not use spaces or empty columns to format your table.

If you are updating tables used in last year's report, please use the final version of the Word file containing your report, as the tables are already formatted and new data can easily be added. If you need the Word file, or assistance creating or formatting your table, please contact us.

For ease of reference, tables are usually numbered consecutively when there are many tables in a report. If you number your tables, use arabic numerals (Table 1, Table 2) and position the number and title of the table in the topmost table row.

Author name(s)

Please remember to include the author's name and title(s) at the end of the report.

URL

It is a courtesy to refer readers to your office/department website for further information. We recommend the following citation, placed just below the author's name at the end of the report:

More information about [full name of department/organization/center] can be found at http://. . .