Oxford Brookes University
U08096 Project
Note 4
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Supervisor
Vincent Ching
Email
vincent@6838.info
vincent@hkucs.org
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Note 4
Presenting your Project in Written form
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Learning Outcomes
Structure and write professional reports.
Write clear and concise abstracts.
Present data and results clearly.
Correctly reference and cite material.
Document software and produce supporting
user guides.
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Introduction
 Writing a good report is not a simple task and
will require much thought and detailed work if
you are to say clearly what you want the
examiners to hear.
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Introduction
 It is worth noting that you cannot disguise
sloppy investigation, poor research, inept
implementation, poor analysis and so on by
trying to write a good report. The report is an
expression of the hard work you have put into
the project and no amount of clever writing will
be a substitute for that.
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General Considerations
 Report Readership - who is going to read your
work and what message do you want to convey
to those readers?
 Reader Expectation - what do your intended
readership expect to see in your report? Every
institution will have guidelines and you would
be well advised to know what they are and
follow them explicitly.
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General Considerations
 Report Style - your institution may well have
allowed for different report styles. E.g., it is
common to find two styles: firstly where an
artefact is required and secondly where the
report is essentially a review of some important
topic area.
 Report Length - there will always be
guidelines on how long a report should be. If
you exceed the limits you may find that your
report is returned to you for correction before
the institution will mark it.
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General Considerations
 Subject Matter - consider how the nature of the
subject matter affects the way you structure
your text.
 Report Importance - how important is the
content to the reader and to you?
 Content Relevance - it is important that the
content is all relevant to your project topic.
 Factual Content - a good report will have
strong factual content based on sound sources.
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General Considerations
 Report References - it is very important to read
and research widely and you must include
appropriate citations and references.
 Report Analysis and Synthesis - it is not
sufficient in a scholarly work just to list
important facts or quote from other authors, or
even list your own ideas and thoughts. For the
document to be worthy of a wide readership it
must contain adequate discussion, analysis and
synthesis of the facts and observations you have
made that lead to conclusions that are logically
derived.
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Writing Style
 Style is difficult to define exactly but one needs to be
aware when writing of the following facets:
 Individual - style should make one’s writing accessible to
the reader yet be individual and personal in some way to you.
 Clear and concise - written work must be clear and concise.
This does not to mean writing lots of short sentences because
that will make your text very tiresome to read, and at the
same time writing long complex sentences will make the
work difficult to understand.
 Suited to the subject matter
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Writing Style
 Coherence - aim to make the work coherent in the sense that
every sentence, paragraph section and chapter follows
logically and harmoniously from the previous ones. It is
unfortunately very common in student work to jump from
ideas to idea without any linking ideas - this is very poor
style and must be avoided.
 Suggestive of new ideas - this implies that the written work
stimulates the reader to appreciate new ideas and encourages
them to generate their own.
 Simple - always accept the simplest words and phrases, they
are invariably the best choices for expressing ideas.
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Writing Style
 Third Person - it is usual to write reports in the third person.
Now use of 'I' is the first person, use of 'you' is the second
person and lastly use of 'he', 'she' or 'it' is the third person. So
in simple terms whenever you are tempted to use 'I' or 'you' try
to think how you would say the same thing using 'he', 'she' or
'it' or some other construction. For example:
I thought the best way to alter the algorithms was….
Becomes
It was thought best to alter ….
 All writers have typical ways of expressing ideas,
however, one must avoid structures and words that
cause offence or distract the reader.
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Structural Elements
 The following tables are intended to give
you some guidance on how to construct
documents in a scholarly fashion and in a
way that leads to clear and concise
presentation.
 Though there is no need to use all of them in
every document you produce, the best advice
is to choose a structure and those elements
that best suit the work in hand.
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Control
Description
Location
Title
A focused and short description of the document that
summarises the deliverable element
Front page and above the contents
list
Contents List
A short index based on the major chapters and/or sections
Before the main document begins
but after the title page
Glossary
Used to list and describe special terms or abbreviations
Towards the end of the main
document
Index
A detailed listing of all important words or phrases
specifying location in main text
After the glossary if it exists
otherwise after the main document
Appendix
For inclusion of explanatory notes, special documents or
copies of originals
After the glossary but before the
index
Footnotes
Notes at the bottom of pages and linked to pieces of text.
Immediately before the page footers
Headers
Standard text
Every page
Footers
Standard text
Every page
Keywords
Words or phases used to form a simple classification of
your work
Near front of report
References
List of all reference material in an approved manner
Toward end of document
Organisation
Description
Chapters
Major elements in the development of the subject matter of the
document
Sections
Minor elements in development of each chapter
Headings
Indents
Used to emphasise small but important points in the text
Bullets
Used to further emphasise an indented text
Tables
Used to represent important information concisely
Paragraph numbers Used when it is necessary to reference all parts of a text
Page numbers
Used for indexing purposes
Diagrams
Captions/Legends
Added to diagrams where necessary
Columns
Use when the subject material lends itself to such a view
Writing Abstracts
 The function of an abstract is to summarise your
project and its context in order to give the reader an
overview of the main project themes so that they can
make an informed decision on whether they want to
read your report or not.
 A good basic structure might be defined as follows but
remember you will usually be limited to around 300
words for a complete abstract.
 What have you done?
 Why did you do it?
 What does it all mean?
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Writing Abstracts
 Most academics find writing abstract difficult
simply because one has to be concise yet
convey a clear idea as to the focus of what
might be quite complex work and do it in a way
that is interesting and hold attention.
 In practice it is best to follow the above
structure to start with and then gradually refine
what you have written until you and your
supervisor are happy with its content.
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Citations and References
 It is very important to cite your sources
correctly. The University recommends you use
the Harvard System - it is simple and
comprehensive.
 Details will be discussed on next class.
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Documenting Software
Almost all computing projects involve building software
either as a full working system or as a prototype to
demonstrate some idea or principle. In either case it is
necessary to produce some documentation to support what
it is you have done. The documentation needs to be
comprehensive because you will be expected to show how
you carried out the development.
Some of the documentation would be placed in the body of
the report and some (such as programme code) would be
placed in an appendix.
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Report Readership
You need to be aware that your project will be
assessed solely on the contents of your final report.
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Your report will normally be assessed by
 Aims and objectives
 Scope, Depth and Difficulty
 Understanding
 Investigation on possibilities
 Originality of Works
 Literature review
 Approach, methods and Tools
 Requirements and specification
 Analysis and design
 Implementation and testing
 Evaluation
 Project plan & management
 Conclusions
 Results and Contributions
 Readability & Clarity
 Organisation & Abstract
 Compliance to formats
 Quality, reliability, timeliness and
maintainability of the artefact
 Project specification
 References
 Spelling & Grammar
 Other supervisor-determined
categories
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Preparing to write your report
Hopefully as you have carried out the project, you have
kept notes of what you have read and what you have done.
Here is a list of things to keep a note of as you go along:
Things you have read;
Things you have been told;
Advice from your supervisor;
Decisions you took along the way;
Problems you encountered and how you solved them;
Test case and evaluation results;
Ideas for developing the work
Anything else that is interesting.
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It is difficult to say when you should start formally
writing your report but a good guess would be that
you need to start thinking about the report and its
structure about mid-way through the project timescale.
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Report Structure
The following is a list of what should be in your report
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Cover Page
Project Declaration Form
Acknowledgement
Table of Contents
Abstract
Introduction: Background, Objectives, Organisation of Report
Literature Review
Analysis:
 E.g., Use Cases, Class Diagram, Sequence Diagram/Collaboration Diagram, State Chart
 Design:
 E.g., Object Design, U.I. Design, Data Management Design
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Results
Discussions
Conclusions
Bibliography / References
Appendix
Acknowledgements Page
It is common practice to add a page listing those
you wish to thank for their help and assistance. As
a rule acknowledgements should only be given to
people who helped you directly with your work but
were not involved in it.
For example if a colleague supplied you with a
statistical analysis they should be acknowledged
however it is not usual to acknowledge your
parents, your friends or your supervisor.
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Plagiarism Declaration
“I confirm that the enclosed assignment including
any associated software is entirely my own work
except where explicitly stated otherwise. I further
declare that when such other work is used it only
supports my own work and its inclusion is in
accordance with normal scholarly conventions.”
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Contents list, Table List and Diagram List
This must be comprehensive and Include indexes
to all sections and subsections and as all tables
and diagrams
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Report Content Checklist
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Does your report identify what the focus of your project is?
Has your report got an introduction?
Does the introduction describe the problem and its background?
Does the introduction specify the objectives and constraints on your project?
Does the introduction describe the structure of the rest of the report?
Has your report got a literature review?
Does your report describe the problem domain?
Does your report discuss the requirements for the artefact you built?
Does your report discuss the methods and processes that you used?
Does your report describe alternative approaches they you considered for your
solution?
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Report Content Checklist
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Does your report describe what you did, how you did it and why you did it that way?
Does your report describe how you tested your artefact?
Does your report discuss the tools you used and your experience of them?
Does your report describe the problems you encountered and how you
solved/avoided them?
Does your report show evidence of evaluation of your work and the methods used?
Does your report show which requirements have been met and which have not?
Does your report show how your project was managed?
Has your report got a conclusion?
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Report Content Checklist
Does the conclusion show which objectives were met and which weren't?
Does the conclusion discuss possibilities for future work in your project's area?
Does the conclusion place your work into a wider context?
Does the conclusion state whether the project has met its objectives?
Does the conclusion reflect on how you conducted the project?
Does your report make clear what is innovative/original/new about your work?
Does your report make clear what you have done, what you have adapted from
elsewhere.
 Does your report distinguish between work that you have done and work done by
other people?
 Do you distinguish between work done as part of the project and work done prior
to the project starting?
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