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1.1 How long should the Report be?

• Be concerned with the subject matter and gather the necessary

information. Most of the time you will not have to worry about the
word count.

• The suggested word limit is 10,000 words. This length limit does not
include diagrams or appendices. "10,000" is a guide so you have an
idea of the extensiveness of the project.

• Get started, then you will have plenty to say and write.

• Do NOT pad your report with irrelevant or repetitious information and

long-winded phrases.

1.2 Details of Paper Size and Format

• Use A4 paper
• Use a Times New Roman or similar style font, point size 12 for most of
the document.
• The report should be typed, with reasonable spacing (1.5 or double)
between the lines.
• Number all pages.
• Use both sides of the paper.
• Allow a 40mm margin on the left-hand side, 20mm margins on the
right hand side and top and bottom.
• Start each section on a new page.

1.3 Where to submit the softcopy?

Softcopy of the project report to be deposited to the brightspace

1.4 Writing Style: Use of First-Person Point of View versus Third-

Person Point of View

First-person point of view involves the use of personal pronouns such as

“I” or “we” in report writing. It emphasises the person performing the
action. On the other hand, third-person point of view does not use “I” or
“we” personal pronouns.

Examples
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First-Person In my project, I found that prototyping is very Point

of View beneficial in clarifying the user requirements.

Third-Person The project shows that prototyping is very

Point of View beneficial in clarifying the user requirements.

First-Person I managed to complete the project successfully.

Point of View

Third-Person The project was completed successfully.

Point of View

Which style should you use? Technical reports are always written in the
third-person point of view. Because you are writing a report which
documents the work done (by you), using the first-person would be
“overdoing” it and inappropriate. So, use the third-person point of view.

Example to emphasise on system development approaches:

Instead of

First-Person For this project, I have considered two different

Point of View system development approaches – the Structured
approach and the Object-Oriented approach.

Use

Third-Person For this project, two different system

Point of View development approaches were considered – the
Structured approach and the Object-Oriented
approach.

Example to express a viewpoint or comment:

Instead of

First-Person I learned that it is important to conduct research

Point of View into issues related to the project so as to
broaden my knowledge and understanding.
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Use

Third-Person An important lesson learned is the importance of

Point of View conducting research into issues related to the project
so as to broaden one’s knowledge and understanding.

1.5 Penalties

• A penalty of 10% of report component will be deducted for each day

the report is late. This applies for a maximum of four days, after
which the report will not be accepted.

• A penalty will also be imposed if only one copy of the report is handed
in.

• The report must be submitted in its entirety, any parts handed in late
will not be accepted.

• The cut-off time for handing in is 12.00 noon each day.

2 The Abstract

The purpose of the abstract is to provide the reader with enough specific
knowledge of what has been done. It is a self-contained account of the
project and its scope.

The abstract is a summary of the whole report. More specifically, it might

cover the following:
• Objectives of the project
• Scope of the project
• How far the objectives were achieved
• Most significant Findings and, if any, Recommendations.

Make sure the abstract gives reasonable and balanced coverage of all the
important parts of the report.

The abstract should be quite short. The length limit is about 300 words.

Since the abstract is a summary of the whole report, it would be

reasonable to write it last, after the rest of the report is complete. You
are not in a position to write a summary of the whole until you have
written the whole.
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3 Evaluation

The following is a possible way to organise the evaluation of your project.

(Adapt it to suit your own needs)

• How far were the objectives achieved? Why were the objectives
achieved or not achieved? (Give a cross-reference to the objectives
section.)

• Are you satisfied with your overall achievements? Why or why not?

• Did you meet deadlines? Was each task completed on time? Why or
why not? (Give a cross-reference to the project schedule chart.) Was
each task done to your satisfaction? Are there better alternatives for
doing them?

• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the system developed?

(You find out about the strengths and weaknesses of a system by field
testing it, and observing the reactions of users. So this is not quite the
same as stating whether the objectives were met.)

• Can you suggest any improvements to the system? Note: This part
can, if you like, be given in the form of Recommendations. The
recommendations are assumed to be for someone who is going to
develop the system further in the future. Use "should be" for a
stronger recommendation, and "could be" for a weaker
recommendation - more of a suggestion, really. Some examples are
given as follows:

"The system should be enhanced to produce additional listings for ...

For example, a ... report could be produced to ..."

"In future, suitable data capture equipment should be used to collect

data directly, so that it will not be necessary to key in all data using a
keyboard. For example ..."

"More on-line help information could be made available at appropriate

points in the system."

• What experience have you gained from the project? What have you
learned that might be helpful to you in the future?
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4 The Bibliography

The bibliography is a list of all the books or journal articles that you have
mentioned, or quoted, in the report. These items should be listed in
alphabetical order of authors' names. Here is an example of a
bibliography.

Bibliography

Barr, A. and Feigenbaum, E. (1981), The Handbook of Artificial

Intelligence, Pitman, London.

Dijkstra, E.W. (1968), 'Cooperating Sequential Processes', in Genuys,

P. (Ed), Programming Languages, Academic Press, London, pp 43 -
112.

Mullender, S.J. and Tanenbaum, A.S. (1986), 'The design of a

capability-based distributed operating system', The Computer
Journal, 28, 4, pp 289 - 299.

Weiss, E.H. (1985), How to Write a Usable User Manual, ISI Press,
Philadelphia.

Write a book entry like this:

<name(s) of writer(s)> (<year of publication>), <Title of Book>,
<name of publisher>, <city of publication>

For example, see Barr and Feigenbaum, and Weiss entries in the above
bibliography.

Write an entry for journal article like this:

<name(s) of writer(s)>(<year of publication>), '<title of article>',
<name of journal>, <volume number of journal>, <part number of
journal>, pp <1st and last page numbers of the article>.

A journal is published at least once a year, and may be published four to

twelve times a year. All the parts for one year make up one volume of
the journal. See the Mullender and Tanenbaum entry above.

Sometimes a number of articles or papers are collected together and

published as a book. The book will have one or more editors, the people
responsible for collecting and editing the papers. (Most or all of the
papers will have been written by other people). An entry for a single
paper in such a book should be written like this:
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<name(s) or writer(s)> (<year of publication>), '<title of paper>'. In

<name of editor(s)> (Ed), <name of book>, <name of publisher>, <city
of Publication>, pp <relevant pages of book>.

See the Dijkstra entry (above) for an example.

5 What is Plagiarism?

Plagiarism is taking someone else’s words and ideas and using them as
your own. Students who steal an idea (eg, statement, program code,
illustration) from a book or other sources, and treat it as their own original
work, has committed an act of plagiarism and will be penalised severely.

To avoid plagiarism, it is important for students to acknowledge the

source of any idea or statement not truly their own. Students must:

• Provide a note or acknowledgement for any idea copied from another

source,

• Place quoted material within quotation marks (Please refer to Section

7.4 regarding quoting and summarising from published sources),

• Provide a bibliography entry at the end of the report for every source
used (Please refer to Section 4 on bibliography.)