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344
Writing
Every
project has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Within this, your research will
entail a variety of specific tasks leading you to the completion of the project as a
whole. The other syllabus pages (use the buttons at the bottom of
this page to get to them), is a rough--and adaptable--outline of those tasks.
Project
Report Components
You
must submit your project report as a Web document via e-mail. ,
and
("Table of Contents") page.
ALWAYS,
ALWAYS, ALWAYS proofread your work before submission. Click "Style" on the
banner at left for connection to several excellent style guides.
Spelling,
grammar, and structural mistakes make readers discount your work. The best way to
catch unwitting flaws? Have someone else read your work; they will let you know if
something confuses or offends them! And do not take offense at their criticisms--I
know of only one author who never makes corrections to "final" drafts (it
certainly is not me!), and as a result very few people read his work. Why do the
work ALMOST to completion if nobody will look?
Statement of the Problem: Usually this occurs in the
Introduction pages. At most, you should devote no more than a single paragraph
presenting your research question. Sometimes you can do this in a paragraph having
only one sentence. Another option is to pose the problem as contrasting
hypothesis and null hypothesis statements. However you go about it, you should
ensure that the research question is concise and stands out clearly from other prose.
Literature Review: This often appears as a subsection of
the Introduction. You should review and cite only works relevant to your project,
not exhaustively list every article even remotely related to your topic. Offer brief
comments about each piece's significance to your research.
Use
the very concise and convenient "Author, date" citation style (Click
"Style" on the banner at left). You have no upper limit to the number of
citations in your report, but you must have at least five (including data sources), of
which at least one should be a book or a periodical article.
Methodological Design & Objectives: You must indicate what
methods you used to address your research question, and what purpose you had for using
them. You must also reveal what alternative methods you considered, and the reasons
you opted not to use them.
Data Acquisition & Assessment: This may be either a
subsection of your Methods section, or fall under a full separate heading of its
own. Either way, you must indicate how you obtained your data, attribute the source
if you use secondary data, and state your judgement about the quality of your data.
Data Analysis and Results: This should be a separate section
with two subheadings. The Data Analysis subsection should detail what rationale you
used for judging the raw results of your analytical techniques. The Results
subsection then provides your raw findings, and the outcome of any testing that you
conducted. Wherever possible you should use tables to help keep your report as
concise as possible.
Interpretation, Evaluation, & Significance: This separate
full section consists of three subsections. Under the Interpretation subsection you
will have a discussion first of your interpretation criteria, and then a presentation of
your interpretations.
The
Evaluation subsection is where you assess the quality and reliabilty of
your data, findings, and interpretations. This is an extremely important subsection!
You are to describe both the strengths and weaknesses of your research. Be
advised that discovering unavoidable weaknesses is not a deficiency that will diminish
your grade, but failure to disclose any that you recognize is unethical concealment.
The purpose of noting where weaknesses occurred is to enable yourself and other
researchers to devise improvements during further investigations. This is extremely
valuable insight that you provide as the experienced researcher!
The
Significance subsection all too often gets omitted, but you must
include it in your final report. This is where you "wave your own flag" a
bit. It is here where you indicate what you have done differently from previous
researchers, and point out what is original within your work. It is also here where
you give reasons for why you believe your project has been worth conducting, and how you
believe its results are of benefit to the professional community.
Placement within the Topic: This usually brief section is
where you tie your work to the body of literature that you described earlier in the
Literature Review. Make special note of any of your findings that differ from what
is usual in others' work, but also note where your work supports the findings of others.
You should also note where your specific work falls within the more general
theories that pertain to your topic.
Summary & Conclusion: This section is your final
"wrap-up", where as briefly as possible (this section should not exceed three
paragraphs) you reiterate the main generalizations that have emerged from your project.
You do not include any further literature citations or discussions of methodology
here; concentrate on YOUR findings and interpretations.
References: This is a listing of all work by others that you
have cited anywhere within your report, including any figures or data sets. It must
NOT be an exhaustive listing of all literature that exists about your topic (that is a
bibliography, not a reference list). Include ONLY the works that you have cited.
Abstract: A brief (200 words or less) overview of your problem,
methods, findings, and conclusions. Be direct and to the point; the number of people
who read your abstract typically is an order of magnitude greater than the number who read
your entire report. Abstracts are the academic equivalent of executive summaries in
the business world. You should write the abstract AFTER you finish your report, so
as to include only the salient details of what actually exists in your work. The
abstract appears at the beginning of your report, however.
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