Writing up

Writing up your report is an exercise in following a specific style guide, as you would have to do for a published paper.

In this section:

• Formatting
• Content
• Scientific writing
• Submission and marking

Formatting

Your report must conform to the following specification:

• Use IEEE Transactions double-column style, with single line spacing
  • Templates for Latex and Microsoft Word can be found the IEEE template selector here :
    • To obtain a zip file of the, e.g. LaTeX, template files select:  Transactions, Journals Letters > IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing > Original research and Brief > LaTeX
  • If you are using LaTeX (very strongly recommended), use the bare_jrnl.tex template.
  • Follow the style as closely as you can, including the in-text citations and references.
  • Replace the author name on the first page with your exam number + wordcount, and omit the author profile and photograph on the last page.
  • Include the abstract and index terms.
  • Your report should have the same overall format (but not necessarily the same structure) as the PDF versions of published papers: Example 1; Example 2; Example 3.

You should ensure that figures and graphs are large enough to read easily and are of high-quality (with a very strong preference for vector graphics, and failing that high-resolution images). It is recommended to use single-column figures as far as possible. However, a small number of large figures or table may be included at full page width, spanning both columns, if they are at the top or bottom of a page.

Length

• Word limit: 5000 words
  1. including: headings, footnotes, words within figures & tables; captions
  2. excluding: numerical data within figures and tables; references; statement on use of AI
• Page limit: no limit enforced, but typical papers will be 7 or 8 pages long
• Figures, graphs, & tables: no limit on number (but excessive or unnecessary ones may impact your mark in the “Scientific writing” category)

The word limit is a hard limit. The markers will simply not read anything beyond these limits, and your mark will only be based on what they read.

Content

Originality

The rules on originality for this assignment are strict, so that you have to explain everything your own way. That will help you learn better. The rules are stricter than for most academic journals, and that is intentional.

These rules are not designed to trick you or catch you out. They are designed to make you focus on your own understanding of the material.

All material in your submitted report (including text, figures, graphs, plots, tables, etc) must be your own original work. You must not include (even with proper attribution) any material from other sources.

These are not acceptable:

• Using a figure from another paper, or one of your own from a previous assignment
• Quotes, even if properly marked as such and with attribution
• Citing something without reading it (e.g., because you found it referenced in some other source)
• All of the unacceptable uses of generative AI for assessment listed in the university’s AI policy
• Any form of academic misconduct including, amongst other things, falsifying experimental results

whilst the following are acceptable:

• Your own explanations, in your own words, of concepts and ideas from other sources (with appropriate attribution of whose ideas those are, typically by citation)
• You are allowed, if you wish, to use AI to generate your recording script and/or test material for evaluating your system, in which case you must acknowledge this and provide details of your method, in your submitted report.

Use of AI

In addition to the above, this course requires you to comply with everything in the university’s AI policy. Your attention is drawn in particular to item 2 in the list of unacceptable uses of generative AI: “English is the language of teaching and assessment at Edinburgh – machine translation is treated as false authorship and is not acceptable.”. You are therefore very strongly advised to work in English only, from your initial notes and early drafts through to the final version for submission. This has the added benefit of being the best way to improve your English! For the same reason, you are also advised to follow the original, English language instructions for the assignment.

You probably know this by now, but it’s worth restating. Generative AI based on Large Language Models generally produces fluent, confident-sounding, and grammatically-correct writing. It can also give the illusion of ‘scholarly’ writing. However, this writing style is often verbose and over-complex. Perhaps it would score highly in an English language examination, but real scholars simply don’t write like that: we are succinct, precise, and direct.

Submitting writing produced by Generative AI isn’t just against University policy. It also means that any feedback from the marker will not be about your writing or your understanding, so it won’t help you keep learning and improving.

Statement on your use of AI

At the end of your report, you should briefly describe any use of AI tools in doing this assignment: for example, grammar checking, or using a generative AI chat app to investigate the topic. If you used tools based on Large Language Models (e.g., ChatGPT), describe the prompts that you used.   If you did not use any AI in your work, you must still include this section but can simply write “none”. Text in this section does not count towards the word limit.

Scientific writing

You should take advantage of all of the following sources of help to improve your scientific writing:

1. Advice from the Speech Processing course

You should check out the writing tips provided for the Festival exercise from Speech Processing – they apply equally well here. Students who did not take Speech Processing will be offered additional help and guidance on writing the report. They can ask for this at any point during the course, but not later than 1 week before the submission date.

Tips on writing

2. PPLS skills centre

PPLS Skills Centre

3. Scientific writing forum

4. Forum for this assignment (login required)

Submission and marking

Submission

• do not include your name or student number anywhere in your report
• submit a single document in PDF format via Learn; the filename must be in the format examnumber_wordcount.pdf (e.g., “B012345_4672.pdf”)
• state your word count on the first page of the report (e.g., “wordcount: 4672”)

Your work may be marked electronically or we may print hardcopies on A4 paper, so it must be legible in both formats. In particular, do not assume the markers can “zoom in” to make the figures larger.

If, after marking your report, there is reasonable uncertainty whether you hold the knowledge presented in your report – including that you did all the practical work described yourself (e.g., speech recorded, models trained, experimental results), we have the option of inviting you to an Affirmation Meeting with the Course Organiser.

Marking scheme

You must read the 2025-26 structured marking scheme because it will help you focus your effort and decide how much to write in each section of your report.

Then design a structure for your report that is consistent with the marking scheme, but do not simply copy the marking scheme sections as your headings because that is not the best structure.

 A well-structured report will be awarded marks under “Scientific writing”. Making the relationship between your report structure and the marking scheme clear will help the marker find all the places they can give you marks.