Resources for written reports and oral presentations

Crediting others

Proper citations are a hallmark of any solidly written report, and are often useful in other forms of publications. Citation and Style Guides (2013) refers to several style guides; pick a suitable style and use it consistently. Especially see its section "How to cite sources."
For citations, submit a working link to a freely-readable copy if available, and also submit a working link to a URL based on digital object identifiers (DOIs) if available. Here is an example citation using Vancouver system format:
- Sakr S, Liu A, Fayoumi AG. The family of MapReduce and large-scale data processing systems. ACM Comput Surv. 2013;46(1):11. doi:10.1145/2522968.2522979.
The citation's title hyperlinks to a freely-readable resource <http://arxiv.org/abs/1302.2966>. Unfortunately, these versions are often preliminary or ephemeral or both, so it's better to also include a DOI to the final, stable version even if it's not freely readable, as shown in How to find a DOI and create permanent links to online articles. The DOI reference in the above citation hyperlinks to <http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2522968.2522979>.
If your publication uses an active format such as PDF or HTML, URLs should be clickable.
See Web of Science Journal Title Abbreviations for a list of reasonably-standard journal-title abbreviations.

Written reports

Simon Peyton Jones's Research skills (2013) contains a brief and pleasant section about how to write a good research paper.
Roy Levin and David D. Redell's An Evaluation of the Ninth SOSP Submissions –or– How (and How Not) to Write a Good Systems Paper (1983) points out common problems in technical papers, and gives suggestions for how to fix them.
The UNC Writing Center's Scientific Reports (2012) describes how to write and organize a scientific research report.
David A. McMurrey's Online Technical Writing (2006) contains many examples and much discussion of technical writing. For example, it has a chapter on recommendation and feasibility reports that contains several sample reports.
George Gopen and Judith Swan's The Science of Scientific Writing (1990) briefly summarizes some of the science behind writing clear writing for scientific audiences.
William Strunk, Jr.'s The Elements of Style (1918) is the classic style guide for American English writing. It excels at showing how to omit needless words.
The USENIX Templates for Conference Papers provides LaTeX and DOC templates for computer science research papers. The USENIX templates use a two-column format with 10-point font for most of the text, on an 8½"×11" page. LaTeX typically generates higher-quality output for technical papers. An example of the output format and an example student paper are available.
The Cabrillo Tidepool Study's Scientific Report Rubric (1997) is the sort of thing we use when evaluating your report.

Oral presentations

Simon Peyton Jones's Research skills (2013) has a section "How to give a good research talk" almost makes it look easy and covers the essentials. He's brave enough to point you to a video of himself, giving the talk.
Michael Ernst's Giving a technical presentation (giving a talk) (2011) contains workable and up-to-date advice for giving computer science talks.
Mark D. Hill's Oral Presentation Advice (1997) briefly describes how to give a good talk. It contains a summary of David Patterson's classic How to Give a Bad Talk (1983).
Judith P. Rhodes et al.'s Scientifically Speaking: Tips for Preparing Scientific Talks and Using Visual Aids (2005) contains advice and observations on preparing and delivering a scientific talk. Its advice on poster presentations is also valuable, though you can skip it if you are not making a poster.
The Science and Engineering Library (SEL) has a learning center with equipment with which you can rehearse your presentation. Reserve a time slot by visiting the circulation desk in Boelter 8270.
Caroline McCullen's Student Presentation Rubric (1997) is the sort of thing we use when evaluating your presentation.