MSc project report Q&A session

Outline You should all be focusing on your report now Some guidance on the report structure Q&A session

Report Structure Should have already discussed this with your supervisor. Take guidance from existing reports on WEBCT and other sources

Abstract The abstract is a short (1 page) summary of your entire project. It is a stand alone piece of writing and should tell the reader: The hypothesis, the aims and objectives, the methods used, the results and key findings, and the overall conclusions from your work

Tables etc You need: – Table of contents – List of tables – List of figures – Abbreviations

Introduction chapter (2-5 pages) This chapter should describe the scope of work, the research hypothesis, an overview of your methods, and introduce the reader to the rest of the report

Literature and general background (about 10 pages) This/these chapters need(s) to review the general literature in the area of your project. This should not be reproduced from a text book and should not be a basic tutorial – but rather it should frame your work in the context of what other people have done before. You should have references to high quality IET/IEEE or other publications

Next chapters need to describe the work you have done (20-40 pages) You may have made something or written code etc. These chapters need to describe in detail the work involved and explain what you have done. This is the part of the report where the assessors will be looking for evidence that you have spent ~600 hours of effort.

Results and key findings (5-15 pages) You need to present your results and key findings and relate them back to your research hypothesis. Do your findings support your research hypothesis or not.

Conclusions (2-4 pages) What are your main conclusions?

References You need a well prepared list of references from good sources. Make sure you follow the UoB reference styles (Harvard style)

Technical appendices If you have extensive code or detailed design material then this can go here. Make sure that your new code is clearly identifiable (used colour coding or similar)

Plagiarism Make sure you understand the rules for this. Do not copy large chunks of text from other people’s work unless you correctly quote them. If you are using figures from papers or other sources – then each figure needs a full reference. Your work will be put through turnitin.

Questions