Abstract

The abstract is a very brief summary of the report's contents. It should be about half a page long. Somebody unfamilia r with your project should have a good idea of what it's about having read the abstract alone and will know whether it will be of interest to them.

Acknowledgement

It is usual to thank those individuals who have provided particularly useful assistance, technical or otherwise, during your project. Your supervisor will obviously be pleased to be acknowledged as he or she will have invested quite a lot of time overseeing your progress.

Introduction

This is one of the most important components of the report. It should begin with a clear statement of what the final year students project is about so that the nature and scope of the project can be understood by a lay reader. It should summarise everything you set out to achieve, provide a clear summary of the project's background, relevance and main contributions. The introduction should set the scene for the project and should provide the reader with a summary of the key things to look out for in the remainder of the report. When detailing the contributions it is helpful to provide pointers to the section(s) of the report that provide the relevant technical details. The introduction itself should be largely non-technical. It is sometimes useful to state the main objectives of the project as part of the introduction. However, avoid the temptation to list low-level objectives one after another in the introduction and then later, in the evaluation section (see below), say something like "All the objectives of the project have been met blah blah...". A project that meets all its objectives is, by definition, weak and unambitious. Concentrate instead on the big issues, e.g. the main questions (scientific or otherwise) that the project sets out to answer.