This page describes the individual writing assignments: monthly individual progress reports in the style of short journal articles.

Style Guidelines

Follow the style and flow of these short journal articles as a template.

Todreas, N. E., and P. Hejzlar. "Letter to the Editor on the Paper by D. C. Groeneveld and L.K.H. Leung, 'The 1995 Look-up Table for Critcal Heat Flux in Tubes'." Nuclear Engineering and Design 163, no. 1–2 (1996): 25–6.

Verrall, R. A., and P. G. Lucuta. "Specific Heat Measurements of UO2 and SIMFUEL." Journal of Nuclear Materials 228, no. 2 (1996): 251–3.

Short Journal Article 1

For this assignment, you will write a short (1000 words or less) journal-style communication briefly describing your findings on the research portion of this design project. We would like you to focus on the following:

Introduction Talk about the design problem as a whole, while noting the significance of solving it.
Background Talk about your team's sub-problem, and some of the specific design challenges facing your team.
Results Here you will present the design importance metrics your team decided upon, and which of the possible solutions you specifically studied (just you). Talk about how the choices you researched align with your QFD criteria, whether or not one of your choices was chosen as the design path, and why.
Conclusions, Future Work Summarize your findings briefly (1 paragraph), and quickly state where you plan to go from here.

Sample Papers

The following two student submissions are examples of what we're looking for in this assignment. Pay close attention to style, formatting, referencing, abstract, organization, and using the passive voice. (Courtesy of the student authors, used with permission.)

Verma, A. "Assessment of Heat Exchangers for Coupling a High Temperature Nuclear Reactor to Hydrogen and Biofuels Plants." (PDF)

Sutherland, D. A. "Letter to the Editors on the Feasibility of Thermochemical and Bacterial Hydrogen Production Methods for Nuclear Systems." (PDF)

Short Journal Article 1—Resubmission

Students may resubmit a proofread and retooled article for regrading. Your final grade for this assignment will be the average of these two scores. This assignment is not required, but can only help. For example, if your second submission is lower than your first, it will not be factored in to your grade.

Short Journal Article 2

This second journal article should be a brief (1,500 words or less) compendium of the technical results that YOU specifically have contributed to your group's work. It's OK if you worked in pairs with someone, though please try to distinguish what you did if possible.

The structure should be very similar to the first journal article, though the results and the background should be more in-depth and quantitatively rich.

Don't forget to do the following:

  1. Use (and create) figures, tables and diagrams when you think they are appropriate in order to compactly and thorougly convey your important results.
  2. Give your article an informative title.
  3. Write a brief (75–150 word) abstract summarizing your key results in a way that draws the reader in to want to read more.
  4. Reference your sources in the paper where appropriate, and include a reference section.
  5. Include a nomenclature section for acronyms, if applicable.
  6. Finish a couple days early, proofread, and/or ask a friend to help proofread for both content and presentation.
  7. Use a professional, passive voice.

Sample Papers

Papers are presented courtesy of the students and used with permission.

Chilton, L. "UT-3 Hydrogen Separation Process Mass Flow Rate Characterization and Selection of Zirconium Silica Hydrogen Separator Membrane." (PDF)

Otgonbaatar, U. "Overview of Slurry Phase Bubble Column Fischer Tropsch Synthesis Reactor and Relevant Design Parameters." (PDF)

Salazar, A. "Implementation of Switchgrass as Feedstock for a Industrial Biofuels Process in a Nuclear Complex." (PDF)