FYP Preparation for
CSIS Student Writers
Lawrence Cleary and Dr. Íde O’Sullivan,
Regional Writing Centre, UL
www.ul.ie/rwc
Peer writing-tutor
• Yvonne Diggins and John Mulvihill are
•
available for one-to-one or small group
tutoring on writing in technical fields on
Monday from 2-4pm and Thursday from 24pm respectively.
Register for an appointment by going to
www.ul.ie/rwc. Click on the link to
WCOnline. Register as a new user. Then
log on to make an appointment.
Questions addressed
• What is the best way to begin my FYP?
• How should the FYP report be structured?
• How do I cite and reference sources of borrowed
•
•
•
•
information?
How much quoting should I do?
How do I know when to start a new paragraph?
I am not great at grammar. What is the best way for
me to address grammar problems if I don’t even
know they are there?
How do I make this report sound professional?
What is the best way to
begin my FYP?
• The best way to begin is to employ
•
•
•
strategies that work well.
These strategies are individual. What
works for me might not work for you.
If you do not write a lot, a smart strategy
might be to find out what good writers do?
What follows are some strategies
employed by good writers.
Good Writers Engage in a
Writing Process that Works
• Planning, Drafting, Revising, Editing
•
•
and Proofreading
Assessing the context into which
you write
Assess your own writing strategies.
What works? What is not working?
The Composing Process
•
•
•
•
Prewriting
Drafting
Revising
Editing and Proofreading
Prewriting
• Planning
– Evaluating the rhetorical situation, or
context, into which you write
– Choosing and focusing your topic
– Establishing an organizing principle
• Gathering information
– Entering the Discourse on your Topic
– Taking notes as a Strategy to Avoid
Charges of Plagiarism
– Evaluating sources
Planning: Assessing
the Rhetorical Situation
•
•
•
•
•
The Occasion
The Audience
The Topic
The Purpose
The Writer
The Occasion
• What has prompted you to write?
• As part of my course requirements for a B.Sc.
(Hons) in Music, Media, Performance and
Technology (MMPT) or in Digital Media Design
(DMD), I have to do a report on my final year
project.
• What do I need to know?
– What are my obligations?
– What are the procedures?
– When is it due? How much time do I have?
– What’s involved?
The
Occasion
• My guidelines tell me about procedures that I must
follow.
– I know that I had to choose a topic pretty
quickly. I had to submit a proposal by …when?
– I have to submit reports on how my project is
progressing or interim reports—when? A draft
report, when?
– The deadline for submission of the final report
is when? What day?
The Occasion
• What kind of project will I choose?
• How do I write about it?
The Occasion
• When we consider the occasion for
writing, we think about
–
–
–
–
What has prompted me to write?
How much writing do I have to do?
How much time do I have to do it?
How much time should I allot for planning and
organizing, and for drafting and revising?
– What tone should I adopt? Formal? Informal?
Authoritative? Conciliatory? Assertive?
Audience
• Whaddaya mean, “audience”?
•
•
What, like a song and dance?
Whaddayatalkinabout, “audience”?
I’m writing for my professor, right?
Mmmmmmm-maybe.
Audience
• Your audience affects how you
write.
– Terms that need not be explained for one
audience, may need to be explained to other
audiences.
– General audiences may not have your subject
knowledge, but they are usually thought of as
intelligent, thoughtful readers willing to be
informed or persuaded.
– Your classmates make good audiences. Write
for them. Let them read your report and give
you feedback on the ease with which they were
able to read and understand it.
Audience
• Who am I writing for?
• Can my peers understand what I’m
•
•
•
saying?
Am I fulfilling the criteria established by my
instructors?
How much revising and polishing will be
necessary to meet the instructor’s
standards?
What format appeals to my audience?
(from [Ebest et al. 1997, 9])
Topic
• Your topic is something that will
•
have your supervisor’s approval.
Some things to think about:
– How much do you already know about this
topic?
– How much am I going to have to know in order
to do this project and report on it? To say
something meaningful?
– How much research am I going to have to do?
– How much time do I have to do it?
Topic
• Strategies for choosing topics and
narrowing or broadening the
coverage you will give it.
–
–
–
–
–
–
Taking suggestions from your supervisor
Brainstorming (individually or in groups)
Listing
Clustering or mind-mapping
Free-writing or discussing
Asking wh-questions—who, what, when, where,
how and why?
Topic
• Topics do not stand in isolation.
They exist in a context.
– What is the relationship of your
topic to your course of study?
– What are people saying about
your topic in the literature you
have read?
– What are the issues of concern?
Purpose
• What is your purpose for writing?
– To express your feelings and opinions?
– To inform?
– To persuade?
• As you draft, revise and edit, make
sure that every contribution to your
report works to realize that purpose.
Purpose
• If informing is the purpose of your
report, then the point of order is a
triangulation of your audience, your
topic and your purpose.
– Audience analysis
– Relevance
– Rhetorical appeals
The Writer
•
•
•
•
•
•
What do I already know about this topic?
How quickly do I learn? Read? Write?
How much writing have I already done?
Have I developed an academic or
authoritative voice?
Have I addressed this audience before?
What are my weaknesses? What are my
strengths?
The Writer
• Knowing who I am, how much time will it
•
•
take ME to write my dissertation? Am I a
ditherer? A procrastinator?
Having assessed and prioritised my
weaknesses, what should I work on first?
Knowing my strengths, how can I turn this
strength to my advantage?
Rhetorical Appeals
• Logos—persuade by appeals to
•
•
reason
Ethos—persuade by establishing
your own credibility
Pathos—persuade by appealing to
your audiences emotional
attachment to your topic
Appeals for Credibility
• Use credible sources of information
• Be authoritative
– Do not use personal, self-reflexive pronouns
– Do not refer to your own mental processes (“I
feel…”; “I think…”; “I be loving it…”)
– Do not use conversational markers (“…, you
know?” or “Okay, so.”)
– Avoid quoting—paraphrase and summarize
instead
– Avoid vagueness; don’t hedge.
Appeals for Credibility
• Persuasive elements in a report like this
are largely restricted to the presentation of
sound evidence, explicitly stated.
– If you need to justify conclusions, use
observable evidence obtained through sound
scientific principles such as observation and
reason.
– Methods of analysis and those used for
obtaining data should be repeatable (verifiable)
and should be valued in your discipline.
– Conditions under which data is obtained should
be free of environmental variables (reliable).
Drafting your Report
• Try to visualise your report. Work toward that
•
•
•
•
vision.
Begin to structure it—establish your section
headings; give them titles. These do not have
to be permanent.
Examine the logical order of ideas reflected in
those titles.
Do not get hung up on details; elements of the
draft are subject to change in the revision
stage.
Start to write the sections that you are ready to
write. Don’t try to write the Introduction merely
because it comes first.
Drafting
• Continue to reassess your rhetorical
•
•
•
situation.
Does what you have written so far
contribute to the achievement of your
purpose?
Experiment with organisation and methods
of development.
Don’t get bogged-down in details; focus on
the big issues: organisation and logical
flow.
Drafting
SAVE OFTEN,
AND FOR
JAYSUS’ SAKE
WILL YOU EVER
BACK UP YOUR
DOCUMENT!!!
Drafting
• How should it look? Do you have a vision?
• What should the dissertation look like?
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Project Summary
Introduction and Objectives
Background and Research
Design—User Interface, Database design
Implementation
Testing and Evaluation
Conclusions and Further Development
1. Preliminaries
Can
Title page
Project Summary
you
Table of Contents and List of Figures
picture
2. Main text
Section / Chapter 1. Introduction / Objectives
this?
Section / Chapter 2. Background & Reasearch (Why you did it)
Section / Chapter 3. Design—User Interface, Database design
(What you did)
Section / Chapter 4. Implementation (How you did it)
Section / Chapter 5. Testing and Evaluation (Why you did it the
way that you did it)
Section / Chapter 6. Conclusions & Further Development
3. End matter
References
Appendices
Revising
• Is your report logically organised?
•
•
– A good way to check the logical flow of
your ideas is to outline your report
AFTER you’ve completed your draft.
How did you introduce your topic? By
giving it definition? Describing its
development? Explaining what it is?
Does each section contribute to your
reader’s understanding of your topic?
Does your report service your purpose,
aims, and objectives?
Revising
• Outline each section. How does each
•
•
paragraph contribute to our understanding
of the topic of that section?
Take a close look at paragraphs: Does
each paragraph have a central idea? Does
it have unity? Is it coherent and well
developed?
Is there a correspondence between the
title of your report, your section headings
and sub-headings and the central ideas in
your paragraphs?
Revising
• Do the methods used to illuminate your topic lead
to logical discovery?
• No truths are self-evident.
• Claims have to be defended with evidence.
– Processes have to be described and explained;
– Design features and research methods have to
be justified;
– The justification for generalisations and
conclusions need to be made explicit;
– The criteria used to qualify our results also
needs to be explicitly put forward and evaluated
for objectivity;
– Underlying assumptions need to be evaluated
for their objectivity.
Editing and Proofreading
• Once the report is cogent, it must be made
•
•
•
to be coherent.
Work methodically, checking one feature
at a time.
Do not exclude formatting issues.
Editing and proofreading is more than just
grammar and punctuation; it is also about
voice, rhythm, tone, style and clarity.
Editing and Proofreading
• Check for ambiguity
– Squinting, misplaced or dangling
modifiers.
– Check sentence structure and
modulation.
• Check for comma splices, run-ons, stringy
sentences and fragments.
• Check for how sentences introduce new
information: is it in the beginning of the
sentence or at the end?
• Check that you use sentence types that are
appropriate for your discipline.
Editing and Proofreading
• Check word order and usage. Are you
•
•
using an indefinite article when a definite
article is more precise.
Check for agreement: Subject / verb;
pronoun or noun substitute / antecedent or
concatenation.
Check for bias (gender, race, religious,
creed, persuasion, etc).
Editing and Proofreading
• Check for obstacles to clarity:
–
–
–
–
–
Poorly chosen words
Vague references
Clichés and trite language
Jargon
Inappropriate connotations
Editing and
Proofreading
• Check for clarity:
– Effective subordination and
emphasis
– Sentence variety
– Parallel structures
– Choppy writing
– Explicit logical links
Editing and
Proofreading
• Check formatting issues
(appropriacy and consistency):
–
–
–
–
Margins
Font (size and style)
Section heading numbers
Paragraph style (block, semiblock, indented)
Editing and Proofreading
• Check for plagiarism
– Check the form of your in-text citations and of
your full references in your References page.
– Check the content of your citations. Is
everything that should be there there?
– Check that paraphrases are not too close to the
original.
– Check that all figures, tables and graphs are
captioned and cited (below figures and graphs;
above tables)
– Check that any borrowed ideas, words or
methods of organising information are
referenced and clearly marked.
Logical Choices and Unity of
Purpose
• Every choice serves to defend a claim,
answer a question, or confirm a
hypothesis
– Word, phrase, sentence-structure
• Does the choice satisfy audience
expectations?
• Does it speak to your authorial credibility?
• Does it further your argument, analysis?
Writing is a Social
Activity
• Lexical-grammatical
•
choices affect the culture
of register, which in turn
affects the culture of
genre.
Illustration: (Martin &
Rose, 2003, p. 254 cited
in BALEAP 2007).
Arguments & Logic
• A good argument will have, at the very least:
– a thesis that declares the writer's position
on the problem at hand;
– an acknowledgment of the opposition that
nods to, or quibbles with other points of
view;
– a set of clearly defined premises that
illustrate the argument's line of reasoning;
– evidence that validates the argument's
premises;
– a conclusion that convinces the reader that
the argument has been soundly and
persuasively made.
(Dartmouth Writing Program 2005)
Literature Review & Logic
• The Lit. Review that you wrote for your
•
proposal will not necessarily be the same
review that you submit as part of your
dissertation.
Think in terms of your argument and the
support that you provided for claims:
– Include a review of all the literature that you
read to learn about your topic and the
particular aspect of your topic that you focus on.
– Include a review of the literature on the
methodologies that you used.
Methodologies & Logic
• When you know what you need to know in
•
order to answer a question, then it is
logical to choose methods of inquiry that
will supply the reliable verifiable data that
you need in order to answer the question.
Don’t forget to qualify your data—what
does it tell you and what is it unable to tell
you?
Methodologies &
Credibility
• All data has to be analysed. You need a
methodology for analyses as well.
– Quantitative data: can it be generalised?
– Qualitative data: what criteria will be used to
establish its value?
• Do not overstate your results. An honest,
quality analysis will speak volumes about
your credibility, regardless of the quality of
the data.
Unity and Coherence
• If information included in your dissertation
•
does not contribute to an understanding of
the value of your conclusions and
recommendations, then it only serves to
befuddle the logic of your piece.
A unified text is a more coherent text.
Writing Strategies
• Map your paper
– What sections or subsections are completed
(keeping in mind you still have to revise),
– Pick one or two of the holes in your paper that
you would feel comfortable filling,
– Assess the reasons for any anxiety you have
over the unfinished parts that cause you anxiety
• Do you need to read more?
• Do you need to rethink your paper?
Writing Strategies
• Outline your paper
– Devise headings and
subheadings for uncompleted
sections
• This helps you see the logical progression
(or lack of it) of your ideas
• It identifies the main ideas
• It helps detect omissions
Writing Strategies
• Write about why you are having difficulty
making advances in your paper
– It gets the fingers tapping and the cerebral
juices flowing
– An awareness of fears and anxieties helps you
to develop strategies to overcome those
emotional roadblocks
– You may discover that the reason that you are
having difficulty is that there is some chink in
the logic of your argument that you must either
fill or that requires a major rethinking of the line
of reasoning.
Writing Strategies
• Don’t allow yourself to freeze up. When
you are feeling overwhelmed…
– Satisfy yourself with small advances until you
feel more confident and unstuck
– Seek help. Talk to friends. Talk about how you
feel, but talk about your ideas as well.
– Eat lots of ice cream and candy
Works Cited
• Cleary, Lawrence (2007) “Comparison of Report and
•
•
•
•
Essay Introductions for Clause Structure” [unpublished].
Dartmouth Writing Program (2006) “Logic and Argument”
[Online], available:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~writing/materials/
student/toc.shtml [accessed 08 Jan. 2008].
Ebest, S., R., Brusaw, T., Oliu, W., and Alred, G. (1997)
Writing From A to Z, Mt. View, CA: Mayfield Publishing.
Forde, J. (2007) Comparative Dissertation: Timberframe
vs. Masonry Hoursebuilding, B.Sc. (Hons) Construction
Management, College of Engineering, Institute of
Technology, Tralee. [Dissertation], unpublished.
Glucksman Library (2007) “Cite It Right: Guide to
Harvard Referencing Style”, 2nd edition; University of
Limerick’s Referencing Series [Online],
http://www.ul.ie/~library/ pdf/citeitright.pdf [accessed 08
Jan. 2008].
Works Cited
•
•
•
•
Institute of Technology, Tralee (2007) “A Guide to
Dissertation Preparation for Degree Students”
(unpublished).
McGrath, R. (2007) “Is the Education process for
Buildability being promoted in our Institutes of
Education”, B.Sc. (Hons) Construction Management,
College of Engineering, Institute of Technology, Tralee.
[Dissertation], unpublished.
McMurrey, D. A. (n.d.) Online Technical Writing: Online
Textbook, Austin Community College / Brooklyn
College [Online], available:
http://www.io.com/~hcexres/
textbook/acctoc.html#introduction [accessed 26 Oct.
2007].
New York Public Library (2007) Lewis Wickes Hine:
The Construction of the Empire State Building, 19301931. [photographs online], available:
http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/spe/art/photo/hinex/e
mpire /empire.html [accessed 08 Jan. 2008].
Works Cited
•
•
•
•
O’Donnell, I. (2007) “The benefits of mobile computing on a
utilities project”, B.Sc. (Hons) Construction Management,
Institute of Technology, Tralee. [Dissertation], unpublished.
“Outline of FYP Procedures” (2004) The Department of
Computer Science and Information Systems, University of
Limerick [Online], available: http://www.csis.ul.ie/
StudentResources/FYP/fyp_student.htm [accessed 26 Oct
2007].
Power, N. (2000) “Final Year Project, B.Sc. Computer Systems:
Guidelines and Suggestions for the Project Report”, The
Department of Computer Science and Information Systems,
University of Limerick [Online], available:
http://www.csis.ul.ie/StudentResources/ FYP/fypwriteup.htm
[accessed 26 Oct. 2007].
University of Hertfordshire (2008) “Describing & Analysing
Language: Handouts”, University of Hertfordshire, School of
Combined Studies, BA (Hons) in English Language for
Commercial Communication [online], available:
http://www.uefap.com/courses/baecc/dal/handouts.htm
[accessed 08 Jan. 2008].