Preparing Your

Final Year
Project Report
DR. SUD SUDIRMAN
So, here we are
• We are on Week 06 of this semester.
• That is half way through this semester.
• You should have now finalised your project specification.
• You have a better idea on what to do.
• You have your project plan.

• Let’s do this! But first, …

If you have any problems that affect your
project
1. Contact and discuss the problem with your supervisor.
2. Ask your supervisor what support is available to you. This could be
• Short Deadline Extension
• Deferral via Extenuating Circumstance
3. Only after you discuss the problem with your supervisor, and s/he
agrees on the solution
• Ask your supervisor to put this in an email (sent to you and cc to me)
• You go to https://myservices.ljmu.ac.uk/
• Click Personal Circumstances from the left menu and select the relevant
option
Once you have made the relevant request

4. A request (will be created) and an email will be sent to:

• Me
• Your supervisor
• Your programme leader
• The Faculty Registrar
5. If it is an extension request I will approve it.
6. If it is a deferral request, the Faculty will consider it.
7. If you have not obtained approval from your supervisor, your
deadline extension request will be rejected and you will be asked
to follow these steps.
In the past, …
• Many students asked me: How important is the report for your final
year project mark?
• My answer is: Very Important.
• Your final year project report counts towards 80% of your project
mark. The other 20% are from:
• Project Management (Timeliness of submitting specification and interim
reports, adherence to initial plan, regular progress meeting with supervisors).
• Project Presentation
Let’s talk about a hypothetical case,
• For her final year project, Jane decided to develop a computer
program to help doctors cure certain type of cancer.
• The program is used widely in the UK hospitals and worldwide.
• Jane gets recognitions from the media and government.
• But Jane did not submit her final year project.
• Jane fails 6200COMP.

• It is that simple.
Maximising your mark
• Now you understand how important the report is, you need to know
how to get the best mark from it.
• To put it simply, your report must be:
• Technical: Describes a work that merits final year project in terms of scope
and difficulties/challenges.
• Structured: Contains all the required elements and which are presented in the
correct order.
• Legible: Easily understood, uses correct English spelling and grammar. Uses
figures, tables, etc. to help describe and explain complex argument. Uses
proper methods to reference previous published work.
Report Length
• Your report should roughly consist of a main text of around 15-20,000
words plus any appendices when appropriate.
• This is a guide and not a prescriptive word count, and you should take advice
from your supervisor as to what is best for your report.
• It is difficult to be more specific about the number of words as some
subjects will lead to more verbose reports than the others.
• Whatever the case, it should be just the right length needed to fully
document the project without unnecessary verbosity.
Chapters in your report
• The main text should be arranged as a set of well-defined chapters.
• Use the marking scheme to help you decide what information to be
presented where.
• To improve the readability of the report all supplementary material
such as source code, test data, questionnaire results etc. should be
relegated to appendices.
• Such detail must not be allowed to obscure or distract from the
important arguments and messages of the main text.
Source Code Listing
• Do not include your code in its entirety in your report – even in the
appendix.
• You should only include them as snippets and as part of a
description and/or context.
For example
• The dot product of two
vectors 𝑎 and 𝑏 having 𝑛
number of elements (length) is
calculated as:

• This is implented as a function

dot_product shown in the
snippet below:
Chapters in your report

Make sure these elements are

clearly present in your report.
You can specify them as
chapters or sub-sections to help
the person who is marking your
report to quickly find the
information they need.
Your report should also contain:
• An Abstract of not more than 300 words or one page.
• It is a summary of your report.
• It is placed at the beginning of the report.
• It should give a potential reader a framework showing the main
features of each section of the report, including the problem, the
solution, the results and main conclusions reached.
• It must be both self-contained and self-explanatory.
Your report should also contain:
• A Contents Page listing, by Chapter and Section, describing the
logical structure of the report.
• A List of Figures.
• A List of Tables.
• An Acknowledgements section where you must make full
declaration of all contributions made by others to the project as,
unless stated, the project is assumed to be entirely the student’s own
work. This would typically include the emotional support and
encouragement of family, friends, and academic staff.
Your report should also contain:
• A List of References, or simply a Reference section.
• The project must be conducted in the context of related work, and
so the report should contain a section for References to others’ work
used within yours.
• Make sure that all of the references listed are actually referred to in
the main text. Note that it is usually the work which others have or
have not done which provides the motivation and justifies the
project.
When presenting an argument …
• You need to back it up with reliable source materials.
• Choose information that relates to or supports your points.
• Always be faithful to the meaning of the source material.
• Cite appropriately: not doing so could lead to allegations of plagiarism.
• You can quote, paraphrase or summarise.
• A quote is the exact wording of the source material
• A paraphrase is a detailed restatement in your own words of source material.
• A summary is a condensed version of a passage in the source material.
Paraphrasing
• Paraphrasing is expressing the meaning of something written or
spoken using (your own) different words with the intention of
providing greater clarity.
• Tips for paraphrasing
• Read the text you are wanting to paraphrase, then close the book/turn over
the paper and write it in your own words.
• Consider rearranging the sentence structure and using some synonyms of key
words (although just changing a few words is NOT paraphrasing).
• Be aware of 'patchwriting' which is where you string together actual words
from the original with your own - even short phrases from the original should be
included in quotation marks if they are verbatim.
Quoting
• Quoting is repeating the exact words of something written or spoken
as it was initially written or spoken.
• Quoting is an important part of academic writing however should
be used sparingly.
• Only quote when:
• a new phrase/concept is coined or an old one is being redefined.
• the words have historic significance.
• the words are particularly well crafted and engaging.
• it is important to give exact words as meanings can be ambiguous.
• you're sure there is no better way to say it.
Summarising
• Summarising is taking the most important points from a piece of
writing and put these into your own words. The summarised text is
always significantly shorter than the original text.
• Tips for summarising
• Omit minor details.
• Highlight important points in the original and just summarise these.
• Always use your own words.
Use Reference Manager App.
• You will have read many
resources (articles, books,
etc.) when writing your
report.
• You will no doubt need to
refer to each one when
making a point in your
report. https://www.mendeley.com/DOWNLOAD-DESKTOP/

• I strongly recommend using

Mendeley Desktop.
Open Mendeley App.

!
Register a free Elsevier account

!
Register a free Elsevier account

x
!
Log in to Mendeley Desktop

!
Prompt to Install Microsoft Word Plugin
Mendeley Desktop GUI
Adding Reference Items
Import from another reference
Select a file or folder to manager, or BibTeX
add from your computer

Watch a folder

Add reference by
manually entering
details
Adding Reference Items

!
Adding Reference Items

!
Adding Reference Items

Right click !
Adding Reference Items
Drag ‘n Drop !
Reference Item Details

Auto Filled !
Microsoft Word Plugin

1. Create a new Word document

2. Type this in the document body.

3. Click References from the main menu

4. Click Insert Citation.

 Adding reference to your Word doc
Type in the keyword
Search results
!

Select this !

!
Adding Bibliography/Reference List
Change referencing
style
Use Spelling and Grammar Checking App.

• There is little excuse to write a

report with many spelling and
grammatical mistakes.
• You can use the built-in feature
in Word to do so, or use other
applications.
• Grammarly
• ProWritingAid
• I personally use Grammarly and
it is great. The free version is
more than sufficient for my
writing needs.
Interpreting the Similarity Report in
TurnitIn
• Read carefully the information on the link provided on Canvas.

Your report will be increasingly under

scrutiny the worse the similarity score it
has

If the person who is marking your report

suspects plagiarism, your case will be
referred to the Faculty Academic
Misconduct panel.
Presentation
• On Friday 12th January 2024, you have to present your project.
• There will be a Question-and-Answer session at the end.
• You can consider it as a 15-minute period to ‘defend’ your work.
• Assessed by two members of staff, your supervisor and the
moderator.
• This counts towards 10% of your project mark.
• Presentation sessions are arranged in groups of four students.
• There maybe other students present during your presentation.
Presentation
• FAIL (0-39)
• Failure to attend / submit.
• Presentation materials lack breadth or does not cover relevant project topics.
• Poorly-executed delivery and/or failure to adequately answer posed
questions
• PASS (40-59)
• Straightforward presentation style that covers relevant project topics.
• Answers address significant aspects of posed questions
Presentation
• GOOD PASS (60-74)
• Presentation runs to time
• Clear, prepared presentation style that covers relevant project topics and
accurately describes relevant/related topics.
• Persuasive and accurate answers to questions posed.
• EXCELLENT PASS (75-100)
• Evidenced discussion of personal gains / difficulties faced and overcome.
• Confident and refined presentation style.
• Confident, thoughtful and astute answers to questions posed.
Artefact
• You may think that you do not need to have an artefact to get a
good project mark.
• Artefact development is very important.
• Your report is about detailing a problem-solving process.
• You need evidence of the everything you claim you have done.
• Your artefact will be your evidence. It manifests as:
• UML diagrams
• Code snippets
• Charts, Graphs, Tables
Artefact Demonstration
• If you have developed a good software as part of your project you
may want to demonstrate it to the people who mark your project.
• Arrange a time with your supervisor days before or after submitting
your report.
• You can ask your supervisor if the moderator will be willing to attend
the demonstration too.
• If live demonstration is not possible, make a video recording, upload
it to Youtube and send its private URL to your supervisor.