School of Engineering and Computing

Honours Project
Guidance in Writing and Submitting your Final Project
Report

(This handout will also be accompanied by a talk, in the Professional

Issues Module lecture “slot” from 9-10 on Wed 8th April 2009)

Prepared by Dr. Richard Foley

Session 2008-09

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Table of Contents

1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 3
2 The Status of your Project at the Final Report .................................. 4
2.1 A Develop and Test Project.............................................................. 4
2.2 A Case Study Based Project............................................................. 5
2.3 An Experimentally Based Evaluation Project.............................. 6
2.3.1 A HCI based evaluation:............................................................ 6
2.3.2 A Practical or Simulated Network Performance
Experiment.................................................................................................... 7
2.4 A Wider Scale Questionnaire Based Survey Project................. 7
3 The Purpose of the Final Report............................................................. 9
3.1 Its critical role in communicating your project and its
associated story ........................................................................................... 9
3.2 Its target audience and how you should approach them ..... 10
4 Structure, Content and Style of the Final Report ........................... 12
4.1 The (so called) differences in a Develop and Test project
report ................................................................................................................ 12
4.2 Some Reminders about General Presentation ......................... 13
4.3 Commentary about each Key Element of the Final Report.. 14
4.3.1 The use of Appendices ............................................................. 14
4.3.2 Abstract......................................................................................... 14
4.3.3 Introduction Chapter ................................................................ 15
4.3.4 Chapter 2 Literature Review .............................................. 17
4.3.5 Chapter 3 Development of your project s Primary
Research Instrument ............................................................................ 17
4.3.6 Next Chapter Presentation of Results/Evaluation ....... 18
4.3.7 Final Chapter Conclusions (and your final discussion of
them) ......................................................................................................... 19

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1 Introduction
This handout is aimed at providing more detailed guidance for you in developing your
Final Project Report. The Honours Project Handbook provides a high level outline
structure and more general commentary about that document. That commentary,
however, does not necessarily convey the full purpose or detail which is required and
should be strived for by the student and so this handout will cover:

1. Advice about what work you should have done by the end of undertaking your
Honours Project (since this is what you will need to convey in the Final
Report)
2. Advice about the purpose of the Final Report, including
o the audience it is intended for,
o the fact that it is the main instrument of assessment for the marks of the
project. I.e. many aspects of the “quality” of any project
“implementation” will be ignored if it is not properly conveyed
through the final report.
3. Specific advice about structuring your Final Report, including
o How aspects already initially presented in the Interim Report must be
further refined for the purpose of the Final Report.
o Stressing the need to explain and justify the development of all aspects
of your project work.
o Advice about the structure and content of each individual chapter

Your Final Report must be submitted by: 4.00pm on Friday 8th May 2009.

Two hard copies should be submitted directly to your Supervisor. If by 4.00pm

that day your supervisor is not available to receive the two hard copies, then you
can submit to me in M611A. I will be available between 4.00-5.00pm in my room
for that purpose.

You should also deposit a softcopy on the Digital Dropbox of Blackboard

(COMU449 module). The file name should be of the form:
JoeBloggs_Final_Report_08_09

Finally you should email to me (r.foley@gcal.ac.uk), as an attachment, a short Word

document containing your Name, Programme, Project Title and Project Abstract when
you submit your project. The file name should be of the form:
JoeBloggs_Abstract_08_09

The project abstract is used in the judging of some of the prizes for projects which are
given by the School. All prizes are normally announced in the Graduation Programme
and are subsequently awarded at a School Reception and Dinner which normally takes
place during the course of Semester A in the next academic session.

Good Luck with your Final Report and the completion your project.

Richard Foley
Honours Project Co-ordinator

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2 The Status of your Project at the Final Report
The Final Report is submitted at the end of the project execution period. You are
given an extra week after the teaching period of the Semester to finalise the writing
and associated documentation which makes up the Final Report. However, much of
the material has already been written in a variety of related forms and thus you are not
starting the writing of the final report from “scratch”. Indeed, you should have been
writing up various elements as you “went along”, since the Interim Report. However,
for those previous aspects, which relate mainly to the Project Introduction and the
Literature Review these will have to be refined further from the stage of the Interim
Report to be made appropriate for inclusion in the Final Report. In particular you will:

• Have completed your project and so will have concluded the extent to which
the project investigation “answered” the overall research question. Thus you
will be expected to make some comment on that in your amended final report
version of the Introduction.
• Since the project is now complete, require to develop an Abstract for the Final
Report which will summarise the project as a complete entity.
• Have added to/improved your literature review from the stage of your Interim
Report, and focussed it to more closely support what you have actually now
done in your primary research part of your project and its associated
evaluation.

In terms of what you should now have done, since each type of project generally used
a different type of research method, then what will have been done by the end will
have some differences. Some comment about each type of project is now given, but as
we shall see, in terms of reporting upon the project, the “story line” will be very much
the same no matter what type of project you have undertaken.

2.1 A Develop and Test Project

By the end of undertaking this type of project:

• You will have developed some form of software implementation which can
demonstrate sufficiently the technology or use of that technology as a potential
solution to the problem you have already identified.
• You will have determined the precise functionality needed in that
implementation before you developed it and you will be able to justify,
through a discussion (based upon the conclusions you have already given in
your literature review), why that incorporated functionality is a representative
“test” of the aspects of the problem you investigated.
• You will have developed an appropriate algorithm/solution architecture to
make use of the technology to develop your implementation. You will be able
to justify this through an argument (which refers directly to the conclusions of
your literature review as necessary) to support your reasoning for the
development.
• You will have noted, as you developed the implementation, important specific
elements of programming the technology which were key in the
implementation. You will be expected to highlight/comment on this as it will

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 be important for someone else to know if they were intending to use the same
technology and apply it to an appropriate/similar problem area.
• You will have used the implementation in some form of “evaluation”/set of
tests which demonstrate the extent to which the implementation and its
underlying solution approach addresses the issues in the research question.
You will be able to justify the evaluation/tests you use to show that it is both
rigorous and representative of the problem you are investigating.
• You will have analysed the results of your evaluation and will be able to
present these and draw conclusions which will help give you an overall
“answer” to your research question.

All of this you will be additionally “reporting” on in the Final Report if this is your
type of project.

2.2 A Case Study Based Project

By the end of undertaking this type of project:

• You will have undertaken a case study on an actual organisation and produced
a detailed set of results from the data you gathered and analysed this data to
investigate your overall research question. This case study will have found out
specific information about the problem directly related to the issues you
identified in your literature review and you will be able to present your
analysis of your results in a similar format and categorisation to that derived
from the literature review.
• You will be able to present an overview of the nature of the Case Study
organisation and will be able to justify through an appropriate argument
(referring specifically to any appropriate conclusions from elements of your
literature review) that the Case Study organisation represents an organisation
which is “typical” and representative of the problem you are investigating.
• You will have adapted the general approaches for undertaking a Case Study
for the needs of your particular case study organisation. You will be able to
explain that adaptation in your report and you will be able to explain precisely
what you did in detail to undertake the case study in this case.
• You will have developed some “data capture” instruments for your case study
(e.g. interview checklists, data gathering questionnaires) and you will be able
to explain and justify (referring specifically to any appropriate conclusions
from elements of your literature review) the structure, content and precise
purpose of each instrument.
• Some data capture may have been done through document scrutiny and/or
direct observation. You will be able to explain and justify the purpose of each
and why each was used to gain appropriate information (again referring
specifically to any appropriate conclusions from elements of your literature
review).
• You will have recorded the results of all of your Case Study “instruments” and
will have analysed them to extract appropriate information which can be
presented and evaluated. You will be able to justify any methods of analysis
you used to perform this “extraction”.

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 • You will have analysed the results of your Case Study and will be able to
present these and draw conclusions which will help give you an overall
“answer” to your research question.

All of this you will be additionally “reporting” on in the Final Report if this is your
type of project.

2.3 An Experimentally Based Evaluation Project

As has already been indicated these can take a variety of “forms” but fundamentally
they are all similar. The main illustrative examples being:
• a HCI based evaluation
• a practical or simulated Network performance experiment

2.3.1 A HCI based evaluation:

By the end of undertaking this type of project:

• You will have developed and undertaken a detailed HCI evaluation
experiment and produced a detailed set of results from the data you gathered
and analysed this data to investigate your overall research question.
• The HCI evaluation will have used an appropriate evaluation method and you
will be able to justify that specific method as appropriate for your project
(referring specifically to any appropriate conclusions from elements of your
literature review or similar literature based narrative if you decide to place
some of that material in the Methods section)
• You will be able to present and describe the detailed development of the
components of your evaluation with justification (referring specifically to any
appropriate conclusions from elements of your literature review). Thus:
o You will be able to justify why your selected experiment is sufficiently
realistic to investigate your specific problem area.
o You will be able to explain why your user group (if it is a user based
evaluation) is representative of the overall target population your
project is aimed at and you will be able to justify the sampling method
you used to decide upon your actual set of users for the evaluation.
• You will have developed some “data capture” instruments for your evaluation
(e.g. interview checklists, post evaluation data capture questionnaires) and you
will be able to explain and justify (referring specifically to any appropriate
conclusions from elements of your literature review) the detailed structure,
content and purpose of each instrument.
• You will have recorded the results of all of your evaluation “instruments” and
will have analysed them to extract appropriate information which can be
presented and evaluated. You will be able to justify any methods of analysis
you used to perform this “extraction”.
• You will have analysed the results of your HCI Evaluation Experiment and
will be able to present these and draw conclusions which will help give you an
overall “answer” to your research question.

All of this you will be additionally “reporting” on in the Final Report if this is your
type of project.

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2.3.2 A Practical or Simulated Network Performance Experiment

By the end of undertaking this type of project:

• You will have developed and undertaken a set of experiments and produced a
detailed set of results from the data you gathered and analysed this data to
investigate your overall research question.
• The configuration of your experiment(s) will be sufficiently representative of
the characteristics of the specific problem you are investigating and you will
be able to justify that specific configuration and experimental technique as
appropriate for your project and its performance and/or deployment domain
area (referring specifically to any appropriate conclusions from elements of
your literature review or similar literature based narrative if you decide to
place some of that material in the Methods section)
• Similarly you will have conducted a series of specific tests using your
experimental configuration and you will be able to justify that the set of
individual tests represents the characteristics of the problem domain of your
investigation (referring specifically to any appropriate conclusions from
elements of your literature review)
• You will be able to explain and justify any technical aspects of the
construction of your experiments, either the hardware resources used, or the
development of simulation software to represent your configuration.
• You will have recorded the results of all of your experiment’s “instruments”
and will have analysed them to extract appropriate information which can be
presented and evaluated. You will be able to justify any methods of analysis
you used to perform this “extraction”.
• You will have analysed the results of your Performance Experiment and will
be able to present these and draw conclusions which will help give you an
overall “answer” to your research question.

All of this you will be additionally “reporting” on in the Final Report if this is your
type of project.

2.4 A Wider Scale Questionnaire Based Survey Project

By the end of undertaking this type of project:

• You will have undertaken a substantially sized questionnaire survey and
associated response analysis. This survey will have found out specific and
detailed information about the problem directly related to the issues you
identified in your literature review and you will be able to present your
analysis of your results in a similar format and categorisation to that derived
from the literature review.
• You will have used a detailed questionnaire, the format and detailed structure
of which (both questions and data capture mechanisms) you will be able to
present and justify through an appropriate argument (referring specifically to
any appropriate conclusions from elements of your literature review) to show
that it was appropriate for gathering the detailed information you required to
draw appropriate conclusions concerning the issues you identified in your

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 literature review. You will also be able to demonstrate through explanation
that you have utilised techniques and approaches for good questionnaire
design (and data capture) in the construction of your particular questionnaire
instrument.
• You will have distributed this questionnaire to an appropriate sample of an
appropriate target population group. You will be able to present a justification
of that target population group as a group which are appropriate and likely to
be sufficiently knowledgeable about the detailed area(s) you are investigating.
• You will be able to explain why the sample population you used is
representative of the overall target population your project is aimed at and you
will be able to justify the sampling and sourcing method you used to
determine and source (including the sample size of) the group to whom you
sent your questionnaire.
• You will be able to outline the method of distribution and return of the
questionnaire, demonstrating specifically how that method endeavoured to
maximise the rate of response of the questionnaire.
• You will have recorded the results of the returned questionnaire “instruments”
and will have analysed them to extract appropriate information which can be
presented and evaluated. You will be able to justify any methods of analysis
you used to perform this “extraction”.
• You will have analysed the results of your questionnaire survey and will be
able to present these and draw conclusions which will help give you an overall
“answer” to your research question.

All of this you will be additionally “reporting” on in the Final Report if this is your
type of project.

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3 The Purpose of the Final Report

3.1 Its critical role in communicating your project and its associated
story

The core purpose of your final project report is to tell the “story” of your project. It
cannot be stressed how important it is that the “story” is told fully, with appropriate
detail, justification and argument.

In that sense the Report (and the Final Presentation) is all about communication. If
you do not communicate your project’s “quality” via this report, then you will not get
the credit you might deserve from your efforts in undertaking it. All too often, in
markers discussions I have heard a supervisor disappointedly say about a student that
he/she “had done some very good work, but that hasn’t come through in the final
report”. Unfortunately the student cannot be given credit for work which is badly
presented in the final report. In the sample reports given to you Dr Black’s is a
“classic” example of that disappointment! The marking scheme comments directly
reflect that and he “paid the penalty” for it in his final mark (i.e. a 3rd class project
grade!). This grade was not because he was a “poor” student. Indeed, the opposite was
probably the case. He came across as very knowledgeable in the area of the project
and competent in the development aspect of it. However, absolutely none of that was
communicated via the report and so his grade suffered correspondingly for it! You
need to make sure that does not happen to you!

The term “Report” is probably a bit misleading. Really the “report” is a cross between
a Report and a Dissertation. A dictionary definition1 of a “report” is:

an account or statement describing in detail an event, situation, or the like,

usually as the result of observation, inquiry, etc.

However, many honours students also use the term “Dissertation” when talking about
a final year project. A look at the origins (or etymology) of the word “Dissertation”2
gives the following:

[dating from] 1611, from the Latin dissertationem (nom. dissertatio)

"discourse," from dissertare "debate, argue," frequentative of disserere "discuss,
examine"

Thus, you should note that in your final “report” you must not just give sufficiently
full detail of everything which you undertook, but you must also present:

• Associated discussion
• Your argument for what you are doing and how you have done it
• Your analysis (or discussion and examination) of what you are doing, why you
are doing it and how you have done it

1
From dictionary.com
2
From www.etymonline.com

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Thus, what is the “story” of your project and is it really different for different types of
project?

The answer to the latter part of that question is “No - the story is essentially the same
for all project types”! If you compare the (so-called) different project types previously
given from the presentation in section 2 of this booklet, then you should note that you
are being asked to present much the same “story” in each case. In summary, the
“story” of every project is:

• The background, reasoning for, and context, of the project

• The specific objectives of the project and why these might be useful
• The literature based conclusions/solutions potentially relevant to the project
• Your analysis of the project problem in relation to the possible
solutions/approaches (you identified in the literature)
• The (academically) well founded development of a detailed
solution/investigation.
• The evaluation of that solution/investigation results
• The lessons you have learned from the project (both in the answer to your
originally posed research question and any other issues which might have
arisen as you undertook the work)

You need to continually remember these as you write your final report and ask
yourself if you have clearly done each of these and told the “what, why and how” for
each of them in the associated justification, discussion and analysis of your
presentation of each.

3.2 Its target audience and how you should approach them

In terms of the assessment of your project, the final report will be potentially read by
4 different individuals (each of them having a different “perspective” on the work).
These 4 individuals and their perspectives are:

• Your Supervisor: who will have first hand knowledge of your work and
overall effort and is also likely to know what you might have meant to say in
your report even if you don’t manage to communicate that!
• The Second Marker: who will not have any detailed first hand knowledge of
you or your work. This person is “waiting to be impressed” by a well-
communicated story! If there are “flaws or omissions” in that communication
then he/she will not be impressed!
• A Possible Third Marker: if the Supervisor and 2nd Marker (after separate
“blind” marking of the report) cannot agree a mark, then a third marker is
appointed to arbitrate. This 3rd marker is normally the Honours Project Co-
ordinator (i.e. me!). He separately reviews the report along with the associated
Supervisor and 2nd Marker marking scheme comments and determines the
mark.
• The External Examiner: who won’t know you from “Adam”. Who, if he looks
at your report, will not read it from cover to cover, but will “sample” key
aspects of it to see if you are “communicating” the story in an appropriate

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 manner at those key points. If you are not doing that then he may “delve
deeper”. If he does “delve deeper” and look at more elements of your report,
then it is normally “bad news” for you since you are not communicating your
project’s story in an appropriate manner!

They say that the “art of a genius” is the “ability to explain difficult and complex
concepts in a simple fashion”. That is very much the “art” you are striving for in the
writing of your final report. Your main target audience is not really your supervisor,
but the other 3 individuals who know very little about your project. You have to target
them as your audience and thus your report has to strike an appropriate balance in
doing that.

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4 Structure, Content and Style of the Final Report
There is a reasonable amount of good quality guidance given in the Honours Project
Handbook about the structure and style of the Final Report. This is in chapter 7 (pages
48-57) of that Handbook and you should study it carefully alongside your study of
this material and your study of the sample reports (and associated marking scheme
comments) which are available to you on the Blackboard (COMU449) module.
Before giving some final “pointers”, I will go over some general points of
presentation.

4.1 The (so called) differences in a Develop and Test project report

The chapter in the Honours Project Handbook suggests that the Develop and Test
(D&T) project should have a different “structure” of report. In reality the differences
are actually comparatively minimal and the same “story” is being communicated. Six
separate chapters are suggested for D&T projects, but essentially the suggested
chapter 3 (Problem and Systems Analysis) and the suggested chapter 4 (Design and
Implementation) is really just the same as the “Methods” chapter in the other project
terminology. After all the “Research Method” in a D&T project is the development of
a piece of software. In (for example) an HCI based evaluation project, you are
developing a “piece of” HCI experiment and associated evaluation. In both (indeed
also in all other project cases) you will need to explain:

• what it is you are “developing”

• why it has the characteristics you have chosen to incorporate in it
• why these are representative of the project domain you are investigating
• how these choices are based on your literature review and its conclusions

Indeed depending on the nature of the non D&T projects, you might also decide to
take 2 chapters to explain the corresponding element of that work.

Also, when the terms “Problem and systems analysis”, “Design and Implementation”,
“testing” are used for D&T projects, we are not really using them in the application
development sense. This often leads to confusion (particularly amongst students who
undertook an application development type project in their 3rd year Degree Project).
You are not meant to give the detailed functional specification and associated design
documentation or the detailed test plans and checklists in the main body of these
chapters. You will probably include the detail of these as appendices, but you have to
basically tell the “story” of them in your main body. Thus you will give the overview
of each in those chapters, but this will be given because the more important aspect of
these chapters is the “story” of why you have decided upon the functionality, the
architectural design, the specific aspects of the technology implementation and how
these decisions and choices you made came about and how they relate to the findings
of and are supported by your previous literature review.

Very often my experience has been that students treat the report as an application
development report and give none of this “story”. They may or may not have an

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underlying sound academic project, but none of that comes across in their “report”
and the final grade suffers accordingly!

The other main misleading aspect of the guidance (if taken naively at face value) is
the title of Chapter 6/final chapter of the report. This chapter heading is “Final
Discussion and Conclusions”. If a student takes this too “literally” (and this is often a
mistake which is made) then the student decides not to have any discussion of their
results and what they might mean when they present their results in the “Results”
chapter (or in the “Testing and Evaluation” chapter of D&T projects). Please note, the
last chapter is headed “FINAL Discussion and Conclusions” and as such is a
culmination of the discussion which you will have presented in the other chapters. It
is not entitled the “only discussion and conclusions”. Thus when you present your
“Results” (in whichever form of project) you must provide accompanying
“discussion” as you present each key component of those results, so that you are
effectively “softening up” the reader so that the “Final Discussion and conclusions”
section is more a “discussion of the finally drawn conclusions” chapter. Indeed,
remember that we want to see “discussion” throughout every chapter of your final
report.

4.2 Some Reminders about General Presentation

Before we go into the detailed final tips on each main chapter/element of the report,
you should remember to continue to strive for a “professionally produced” report,
e.g.:

• Clear front page

• Proper Academic Title
• You will now have a clear summary abstract
• No use of the 1st person in the narrative
• Adopt a proper academic writing and reporting style
• Use appropriate “signposting and linkage” in your writing (including the use
of an un-numbered introductory “synopsis” paragraph in each chapter after the
first chapter)
• Follow some basic common-sense tips in terms of presentation:
o Use the automated table of contents facility in Word.
o Use “full margin” justification throughout.
o Take a new page for each chapter within the Report
o Have headed sub-section with sub-numbering in all of your chapters (use
Styles in Word to automate this, you can set up the font, size and
numbering you prefer or use the default values.
o Use page numbering
o Use a “Standard” 12 point Times Roman font single spaced.
o Don’t allow headings to be left alone on the bottom of a page, keep them
with at least one sentence of the text to which they refer (again Word has
support for this under the heading ‘Widows and Orphans’ – read the help)
o Label all tables and figures (use the Caption facility in Word). Figure
labels go beneath the figure and table labels go above it.
o Make sure that when you present any table or figure that you explicitly
comment about it within the text of the report itself.

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4.3 Commentary about each Key Element of the Final Report

4.3.1 The use of Appendices

You might find it unusual that I should start with the Appendices which you might
have in your report. This is because it is one of the most commonly confusing
elements for students. The basic explanation on section 7.12 (p56) of the Honours
Project Study Guide is:

Appendices are used to include detail which supports the content of the main
report, but which would interrupt the flow if it were included in the main body
[of the report text].

The worst example of confusion I generally see is that the student comments in their
main body that “a questionnaire was used to evaluate the use of …. and a copy of that
can be found in the appendix”. There is then no further mention of that questionnaire
again in the main report! Thus, the student has failed to explain, argue for or justify
one of the main instruments which were used in the project’s evaluation! Somehow
the student expects the reader to “know” the reasoning (including any reference to
appropriate literature review conclusions) for the nature, format, style and core
content of the evaluation instrument. Not telling much of a “story”, is it?

In general Appendices would include elements of the following (depending on the

type of project):

• Complete code listings (will full source code comments)

• Detailed Functional Requirements, design, testing, user documentation
• (Completed) Questionnaires, surveys, interview transcripts
• Detailed Evaluation experiment results (if there is so much that only
appropriate summaries are required within the main text)

However, in all cases, you must ensure that you explain, present, discuss and justify
(referring back to appropriate literature review conclusions) these key elements in
sufficient detail to enable the reader to understand the what, why and how of them,
without requiring to actually “thumb forward” in your report to the appendix itself.
Thus appropriate detail and/or key illustrative elements must be placed within the
main body of your report in the appropriate chapter.

4.3.2 Abstract

Chapter 7.2.2 (p49) of the Honours Project Handbook provides guidance about the
Abstract. This is also an often neglected part of the project report. However, you have
been asked for an abstract in previous work (both in the Project Proposal and your
Professional Issues module). Thus you may now have a clearer understanding of what
is entailed in it. By now you should be fully aware that the abstract is to be a
complete and concise summary of your total project work and it is only at the
stage of the final report that you have actually completed all of your project work.

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Thus what should it cover? Again the “story” of your project! In this case the
highlights of:

• The reasoning for the project

• The main objective of the project
• The main approaches and technologies used
• The actual solution/method implementation
• The main highlights of your evaluation and its key findings

All as a single flowing narrative (although it can be written in paragraphs) - approx.

half page or more!

You should take great care over the abstract. It would be the first element related to
the project that will be read (by for example the external examiner!). Thus it is the
first place to impress with an overview of the full story (including its ending) of your
project. It is also the first place were “seeds of doubt” are sown in the project’s quality
if you do not!

You are also requested to send in your abstract separately and it is used to judge some
of the prizes which are available to Honours Students (both the national Young
Software Engineer award as well as departmental prizes). Thus it is worthwhile
spending some effort on this.

4.3.3 Introduction Chapter

This chapter will be similar in a number of respects to the Introduction Chapter of the
Interim Report. However, by this time the project will be complete and so (even if
you had a “perfect” Introduction in your Interim Report) you still require refining and
adding to it further. In poor projects I have actually seen students make no change
whatsoever in the introduction from Interim Report to Final Report. Thus, of course,
they will have told no highlights of what was actually done and then they wonder why
the markers are unclear about what it is that their project is all about!

Anyway, again it should act as a complete synopsis of your project (which is now
complete). Thus at this stage it should have 3 sections (where at the Interim Report
stage it only had 2 sections).

Background to the Project

This should set out the topic area and the specific aspects of the project which you
would intend to deal with. It really needs to make a case for the project in the sense
that at the end of it the reader will be led into the actual details of the particular
project you are going to undertake and the reasons for it. Think about some of these
“questions” as you write it (essentially the same as at the Interim Report):

• Why is this topic area important within the overall discipline of Computing?
• What are the key problem aspects of the topic area and which one will you be
focussing on?

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 • What are the potential solutions which have been suggested for this problem
aspect?
• What area and associated investigation would be worthwhile pursuing given
the points you have just made? (so that your next section’s actual investigation
doesn’t come as a “surprise”)

You may have done this element well at the Interim Report stage, but you may still be
able to make further improvements and you should strive for that.

Project Aims and Methodology

In the second section of the first chapter, you are trying to answer the question - What
is the overall aim/purpose of your project? What is it that you have investigated? You
should answer these questions through the narrative you present here.

Within this you will need to state and explain the specific research question you
decided upon and which you have used to “drive” your project focus and its
methodology. You should also give a description of your project’s methodology. You
should also indicate this as a set of specific (essentially “sequential”) objectives for
your project (this may not have been clear at the Interim Report stage). You should
also explain how each objective was to be carried out – e.g. through the literature
review, through the case study analysis (and consequent evaluation), through the
experimental prototype implementation (and consequent evaluation), through the HCI
evaluation.

Remember that at the end of reading this section, the reader (i.e. the person marking
it!) will want to know exactly what it is that you decided to do and why it is a useful
project to undertake. He should also be able to make a basic judgment about the
“soundness” of it as a realistic project which is likely to have academic “credibility”.

Structure of the rest of the Project Report

This is the main “additional” section from the Interim Report. Here you should
summarise what the contents of each of the next (normally 4) chapters are going to be.
Remember, that in this chapter 1 summary of the contents and structure of the project
report, that you should give some brief “highlights” of the nature/content of each
chapter. Remember, that by the end of reading this complete chapter that the reader
should have a “crystal clear” picture of what you have done, why you have done it,
how you have done it and what you have found by doing it? Don’t try to “hide” what
you are doing!

General points about the remaining chapters: Generally I suggest that each of
remaining chapters, after chapter 1, should begin with a single un-numbered
paragraph which actually summarises the content of the chapter. It essentially acts as
a brief synopsis of the chapter. This acts as a roadmap to the chapter (and collectively)
to the project. Many people think this is repetition, but that is not the case. It acts as
useful “linkage” (see point made again under my comments about the last chapter
starting with a brief project reprise). Similarly, when students see their abstract and
then start reading section 1.1 of their main report, then they start to immediately see
“repetition”, since they tend to use some similar phraseology from the start of the

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abstract which they have only just read. Again this is “natural” and indeed
“correct”/appropriate.

4.3.4 Chapter 2 Literature Review

You would have indicated in your report’s section 1.3 what the literature review
covers and what its overall conclusion is. Remember, the purpose of the literature
review (at the final report stage) is not really to “show that you are aware of what
others have done”, that is just a preliminary purpose of an initial literature review at
your initial proposal stage of the project. You have to have “moved on” by now (and
hopefully most of that would already have been done via the Interim Report). The
purpose of the literature review is to build the foundation upon which your actual
project work is built/constructed. Thus it essentially has to focus upon the aspects of
the project which you are going to “utilise”/discuss/cover in your primary research
Again, if you submitted a good Interim Report, then hopefully you have done that and
so not much refinement is required when reflecting on what you ended up doing and
finding out in you project’s primary research method. Thus its content might not
require too much amendment. However, if you were given specific feedback from the
Interim Report stage, then you must address this for your final report as you get marks
for taking this on board and improving your literature review for the final report.

4.3.5 Chapter 3 Development of your project s Primary Research

Instrument

Rather than refer to this chapter as “Research Methods” or “Problem and Systems
Analysis” (since there may be slight differences in structure depending upon the
project type) I will just describe it in terms of its purpose no matter what project type
is undertaken.

Essentially this chapter (possibly it will take up 2 chapters) will be the development of
your project’s primary research “instrument”. This will be different depending upon
your particular project. However, you must remember to “link” it back to the
conclusions of your literature review (as has previously been emphasised) as you are
presenting it.

It is also worthwhile (and expected) that you make a simple case for your overall
research methodology which you have used for your project. We are not really
looking for any deep comparative evaluation, rather just a fairly straight forward
justification as to why the method you have used: e.g. case study; theoretically
analysis; prototype development/implementation; evaluation experiment; is
appropriate for the objective of your project and that your adaptation of it is suitable.

After presenting your overall methodology, you must discuss, explain and present
precisely what your actual project work entailed and how it was undertaken. I have
given this as a series of questions you should think about as you are writing this for
each project type, although again you will see that there is a lot of “similarity” in
each!

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E.g. for a Case Study: Who is the subject (organisation) of the case study? Why is that
organisation “appropriate”? How are they structured, what is their “business”? How
are you going to go about your data capture? How are you going to analyse the case
study material? What are the logistics of all of this?

E.g. for a Develop and Test project: How did you derive the “functionality” of the
implementation and why is this “typical” and why does it demonstrate the key
features you are trying to investigate. What specific technology(ies) are you using and
why are these “sufficient” for your project implementation and evaluation? What
“data” will you be capturing for use in the evaluation of the implementation’s
development and performance in achieving the “functionality” you are trying to
“implement”? And why is this appropriate? What are the logistics of all of this?

E.g. for an Experiment-based evaluation: How did you decide upon the test
“subjects”. I.e. Both the software to be evaluated and the method(s) of evaluation? Or
if it is a practical/simulated performance evaluation – how did you decide upon that
test configuration and the set of specific tests/experiments which you applied to that
configuration? If the method required actual human test subjects, how did you
select/obtain these subjects and why are they “suitable”? How did you develop the
actual detail of the evaluation(s) and how do they “link” into the conclusions of your
literature review? Why are they “sound”? How will you capture the data from the
evaluation(s) and how will you analyse it? What are the logistics of all of this?

E.g. for a Wider Questionnaire Based Survey Project: How did you decide upon the
structure, content and format of your detailed questionnaire? How did you decide the
data capture mechanism? You will need to explain and present sufficient detail of
appropriate questions (or the whole questionnaire depending on the overall size of the
instrument) in doing this and it will all have to be justified? How did you identify,
source and distribute the questionnaire to an appropriate target group and why is this
population/sample representative and appropriate to meet the objectives of what you
are trying to investigate through the questionnaire? How are you going to analyse the
data you obtain through the responses? What are the logistics of all of this?

4.3.6 Next Chapter Presentation of Results/Evaluation

This chapter will be the detailed presentation of your results and your analysis and
discussion of them. In this chapter you have to discuss the detail of your findings and
you should clearly discuss and suggest reasons for your findings and what they mean
in terms of what it is that you are trying to investigate and what conclusions this might
mean (both individually and collectively) for this precise project area.

You will need to think carefully about how to structure and present your results. Also
you need to think about the level of detail in the chapter. If you have used
questionnaires or similar data capture forms, then you should not present all of that
detail within the body of the main text. The actual questionnaires/completed forms
should be clearly labelled in an appendix for more detailed reference, if required.
What you will be presenting and discussing in this chapter is the results and so it will
tend to be presented in a summary style (i.e. as a series of charts which you then
discuss in detail and derive initial conclusions).

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In terms of the structure of this chapter, the presentation will depend upon your actual
project. For example, your literature review may have identified several key issues
which have to be “solved”/investigated when undertaking the project. In that case, it
may be appropriate to present your results chapter in that format. I.e. As a set of sub-
sections one for each of these “key issues”. Or your chapter 3 may have set out a
particular (set of) evaluation format(s)/method(s) which you were going to use. In that
case, it may be more appropriate for you to structure this chapter around sub-sections
which reflect those since presumably each element of the evaluation is going to have
some slightly different (or cumulative) purpose. Or your chapter 3 may have indicated
a sequence of steps which had to be “gone” through in the development of your
primary project work (particularly if it is a D&T project) and it might be best to
structure the presentation of your results in that fashion.

There is no “definitive” answer as to how you should present your work. However,
there are actually probably several ways of legitimately presenting it. The key issue is
that you give at least a simple justification/reason for how you have presented it. At
the end of the day, the nature of a “research” based project is such that the marker
doesn’t “know” the answer when marking the project! Indeed there isn’t necessarily
an “answer” (at least not a definitive one). There is only your answer and your
reasoning for that “answer”. Ultimately, if your answer and its associated
methodology/reasoning seems sound, based solely on your presented
discussion/argument, then your project will be fine and it will get a good mark.
Remember all of this when writing all of your project report, not just this chapter!

It is worth noting that for Develop and Test projects the term “Testing and
Evaluation” is mentioned. However, we are not expecting lengthy material about
black box/white box or other detailed testing within this chapter. You would probably
just “get it out of the way” pretty quickly by a brief explanation of your testing
strategy, before concentrating on the presentation of your evaluation of what you have
done and you would use the same approach as commented on in this subsection.

4.3.7 Final Chapter Conclusions (and your final discussion of

them)

This chapter should contain your final overall conclusions of your project. Some
people (i.e. me!) like this chapter to start with a brief résumé of the project work. It
acts as a reminder to the reader. Often students feel that there is a lot of “repetition” in
a project report (as I have already stated!). This is actually good “linkage” not
redundancy. Remember, your project report will be of the order of 55-70 pages and it
is not “Harry Potter” (i.e. a gripping read which you just can’t “put down”!). Rather it
is mostly “comparatively dull” technical material (at least in comparison to Harry
Potter). Thus, you have to “make the connections” explicitly. Your average reader
(i.e. marker) has to have things “spelt out” to them. Also remember that the external
examiner is likely (if he does sample your specific project) to only “skim read” bits of
it to get an overall feel for its “quality”. Thus this “linkage” serves as a useful road
map to the project to which you are continually referring to throughout the report (not
just in this final chapter).

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After giving the reader the résumé (in a sub-section), the main (2nd) sub-section of this
chapter should draw together the detail of the presented points and individual
conclusions from the previous chapter. You are trying to give an overall “answer” to
your original “question”/project. Thus you should try to discuss it in that fashion.
What have you found in terms of the overall “question” you were posing/
investigation you were undertaking? What does this (potentially) mean for the project
area you have investigated, both specific and more general? When you do this, you
will more than likely need to “bring back in” some of your “results” to back up the
points you are making.

What we also like to see, and this should form a third sub-section of this chapter, is
that you have a clear awareness of the project and in particular the results of your
specific work and what “future work” this might lead. Also what might these results
suggest generally about the “way forward” and/or for different approaches in this area
of computing? Do these results indicate other approaches which might also be useful?
Indeed, could you suggest one or more other more detailed projects which could build
upon the work you have undertaken if you (or some-one else) had the time/resources
to undertake it? That final aspect can demonstrate good “maturity” and underlying
critical knowledge from a student.

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