Based on reviewing past labs, here are some general recommendations related to writing reports / labs:

• You must always label every map, figure and table, and explicitly refer to them in your text. For example:
  • We can observe (Maps 1 and 2, Table 2) that the total area and the number of patches declined dramatically between the two years in some land use classes.
• It is better to refer to the tables, figures and map as above (bracketed) rather than to use them as the subject of the sentence (e.g., it is poor grammar to state: Table 2 shows that .... Since 'Tables' are inanimate objects, they can't 'show' us things!).
• You should caption things appropriately—a table should be labeled as such (not as a figure or graph), and ensure that the rows / columns are labeled appropriately (that is, for example, use 'Number of Patches' rather than NP in a header). If you do use acronyms, you should provide a footer that explains each acronym.  There is no need to include a row labeled ‘unlabeled’ in your tables.
• Sorting the legend categories (e.g., land uses) alphabetically helps the reader find a specific entry (e.g., the Urban land use) in the tables and in the map legends.
• Where possible, tables should be combined in order to make it easier for the reader to compare the values (e.g., two tables showing the same metrics but for two different years should be combined into one table).
• You should rotate figures / tables if necessary in order to maximize their presentation on the printed page.
• Ensure that your maps are properly labeled, with your name, a date, data source, scale, north arrow, etc.  Label entries should be checked for typos, and the legend provided with a proper title.  Watch out for the presentation of excessive (non)significant digits in the legend entries (that is, the ESRI default is to provide far too many digits when producing numeric legend entries). When adding an Inset Map, you need to ensure that the scale bar being used is the appropriate one.
• You must always consider what is an appropriate classification method for your data. You should not simply accept the default Jenk's classification, as it often produces widely-variable classes (that is, some class may contain only a few values but have a very wide spread, while other classes may contain a large number of values but have a very narrow spread). It is impossible to judge the 'significance' of each class unless we know something of the underlying data distribution, and the classification method used. You should explore the data distribution and determine which of the various classification methods best represents the data (and explicitly identify on the map which classification method you used).
• Neat lines around maps help to 'contain' the content.
• You should try to use 'standard' colours on your maps whenever possible. You can access a wide variety of application-specific styles in ArcMap by selecting Style Manager... under Customize. In the Style Manager window, click on Styles (button on the right side), and scroll through the list of Style References provided by ESRI. If you select Civic and click on Okay, you should see the Civic style added to the list of style choices. If you click on the [+] to open the Civic menu, you'll see that only some of the possible styles contain data (if the folder symbol is blank there are no civic-specific styles available). If you click on Colors (and Fill Symbols) you'll be presented with a large selection of colour choices. (Two other relevant styles are Conservation and Environmental.) Here are links to some mapping conventions: (NRCAN, The American Planning Association)
  
  
• The Executive Summary should be presented immediately after the title page, and on a page by itself. Adding appropriate headers, such as Introduction, Discussion, Summary (or Conclusion or Recommendations), throughout the text also helps the reader follow your work.

Notes specific to Lab 2

• When discussing your results, consider all of the related maps / tables that you have available (i.e., the transition matrix can tell you exactly what set of land uses in 1976 replaced those land uses in 1966, so in your discussion you should consider those results along with the Fragstat results). That is, integrate your analyses when presenting your results.
• You should also consider carefully what the maps are displaying, since sometimes the results presented in a table (or on the map) are incorrect (for example: there can be a lack of correspondence between the categorical values presented in a table and the area actually associated with each category on the map--a result of using the wrong fcd file), and a review of the map would highlight the problem (e.g., if, in the table, a class apparently occupies 40% of the total area, does it occupy 40% of the area on the map?).
• If you are discussing changes in land use in a specific area, it can be helpful to add a map (or simply a figure) that shows that zoomed-in area in detail.
• Technical descriptions of the metrics would be best presented either in a table or as an appendix (if you are simply providing a description of the metric).

• Many of you seemed to miss out this component of the lab:  You need to select two additional Class metrics and two additional Landscape metrics and, in your written report, you must describe those four additional statistics (why you choose them and what the statistical values showed).