How to Plan, Create, Structure and Present Your Project Report Perfectly? Master the Techniques to Produce Quality Project Report !!

Abstract:

Have you ever got a bad mark for an essay because your tutor said she couldn’t follow what you were trying to say? Have you ever started writing an essay and found you’d used all your words on one point? If you answered ‘yes’ to one or both of those questions then you probably hadn’t thought about making an essay plan and then using that plan to structure your report.

Structure: What to Include

A project report should include a front page, Preface, Declaration, Certificate from the Guide, acknowledgements, an executive summary or abstract, a table of contents, possibly a glossary, an introduction, a literature survey or market survey, some sections describing the work done, a conclusions and further work section, bibliography, references, and appendices. There's no need for version control or a revisions page: a project report will only ever have one revision (another difference between project reports and technical reports). A few more thoughts on each of these sections follow:

Keywords:

Front Page, Executive Summary, Abstract, Glossary, an Introduction, Literature Survey,  Workdone, Conclusions, acknowledgements, Bibliography, References, and Appendices

Learning Outcomes:

After undergoing this article you will be able to understand about what to include in project report and How.

Let's dive into details of the contents which form an integral part of a project 

Project Content Sequence 

The Front Page / The Top Cover Page

Probably isn't part of this document, and can be prepared in a separate file if necessary (certainly that helps keep headers and footers away from it). You're often given specific instructions about what should be on this page and where. Stick to them.

Blank Pages: 2 Number

Inner Cover Page : This can be replica of Top cover page.

Preface

Some reports (notably PhD, MPhil and MSc theses) have a preface at this point. The purpose of the preface is to place the report in context of the degree, and to allow a statement that all the work that has not been attributed to others is your own. Have a look at some other theses to get examples of the requirements for this: it depends on which degree you are doing.

Acknowledgements

It’s always nice to thank people that have helped you.

Declaration from the candidate 

As prescribed by the university or institutions

Certificate from the Guide / Supervisor 

As prescribed by the university or institutions

Table of Contents

Always include one of these (Word can generate them automatically, provided you use heading styles for your chapter and section headings), but make sure it's not too long. For a project report, much more than a page isn't sensible, it would take too long to find what the user wants to find. Not every sub-sub-sub-heading has to be here: use some discretion. Bear in mind that this is a table in name only: it doesn't need a caption, and it shouldn't have a border; that makes it look very odd.

Word can also automatically provide tables of figures and tables of tables as well. Include them. 

Individual chapters 

can have mini-tables of contents themselves; and this can be quite useful if the chapter has a lot of sub-sub-sub-headings that have not been included in the main table of contents. 

List of Tables 

The table description should be at the top of the table aligned centrally and bold with a proper numbering system.

Table 2.6: xyz description 

The list of tables names and locates any tables in a report or similar document. Figures and tables are not listed together, but the lists follow the same guidelines and use the same format. If the list of tables is short, it can simply be added at the bottom of the page that lists the figures.

List of Figures

The figure description should be at the bottom of the figure aligned centrally and bold with a proper numbering system.

Example 

Fig. 1.3: xyz description 

A List of Figures is a complete list of all images and diagrams you reproduce in your written work. As with any other material, you must credit the source from which any images you use in your work originated.

Executive Summary or Abstract

One or other of these should follow. An executive summary is never any longer than one page, and often rather less. It is a one-page summary of the report, including the key results. 

It is written for managers who only have time to read one page: bear this in mind when you are writing it. 

An abstract is a description of what is in the rest of the document, without necessarily containing any of the key results. It's about 100 words long, usually one paragraph, and acts as an advert for the rest of the report. After reading the abstract, a potential reader should know whether he wants to read the rest of the document or not.

Both executive summaries and abstracts get separated from the main report, so they must be capable of standing alone.

That means no references and no cross-references in either.

In most examples of an undergraduate or first-year postgraduate project report, 

I would suggest that an executive summary is more appropriate. 

Abstracts are more appropriate for technical papers from where they are collected in abstracting journals and made searchable on the web; this isn't going to happen here.

Glossary

I like these, I find them very useful. Not just for the acronyms, but any terms that you are using to represent a particular technical concept.

Nomenclature or Abbreviations:

As you use in the running text

CHAPTERS

Chapter 1: Introduction

The introduction has two functions: to introduce the project 

(why you're doing it, 

what part of your degree it takes 

(if you haven’t already said that in the preface) and 

what the aims were), and 

to introduce the report 

(what is coming in the following sections). 

After reading this, the readers should know 

what the project is about, 

why you are doing it, 

whether they have the necessary background to read the rest of the report, and 

know how to find whatever they want in the rest of the report.

The introduction is the chance to tell the readers 

what you're going to tell them.

Probably the most common fault with introductions is that they go into too much detail, too fast, assume knowledge that the reader doesn’t have, and don’t put the report in context. 

A useful visual image is that of a cone: 

the first paragraph of the introduction should be very broad and understandable to “the man in the street” so that everyone can understand how the subject of the report relates to something they are already familiar with. 

Then the following paragraphs should narrow the focus, explaining what part of the previous paragraph the report is concerned with, and 

why it is an interesting part of the wider problem. 

The last paragraph can then introduce the specific subject that the rest of the report will consider.

Chapter 2: Literature Survey or Market Survey

A literature review should be structured like any other essay: it should have an introduction, a middle or main body, and a conclusion.

Introduction of literature review 

The introduction should:

• define your topic and provide an appropriate context for reviewing the literature;
• establish your reasons – i.e. point of view – for
• reviewing the literature;
• explain the organisation – i.e. sequence – of the review;
• state the scope of the review – i.e. what is included and what isn’t included. For example, if you were reviewing the literature on obesity in children you might say something like: There are a large number of studies of obesity trends in the general population. However, since the focus of this research is on obesity in children, these will not be reviewed in detail and will only be referred to as appropriate.

Main body of literature review 

The middle or main body should:

• organise the literature according to common themes;
• provide insight into the relation between your chosen topic and the wider subject area e.g. between obesity in children and obesity in general;
• move from a general, wider view of the literature being reviewed to the specific focus of your research.

Conclusion of literature review 

The conclusion should:

• summarise the important aspects of the existing body of literature;
• evaluate the current state of the literature reviewed;
• identify significant flaws or gaps in existing knowledge;
• outline areas for future study;
• link your research to existing knowledge.

This should be the next section: a literature survey for theoretical projects or a market survey for projects that ask you to build something for production. 

It’s evidence that you have looked at what others have done in the field. As the saying goes “a couple of weeks in the lab can save almost an hour in the library”. 

 If you haven’t looked up what others have done before, you are almost certainly not working efficiently.

Chapter 3: Theoretical Concept of Experiment Design and Experiment : Sections Describing the Work

This section usually contains three parts, 

one describing the subjects,

 one describing the materials or apparatus employed in testing the hypothesis, and 

one describing the experimental procedure. 

It should be sufficiently detailed to permit duplication by any other competent investigator. Equipment items should be described in detail only when the information is needed to indicate what has been done in terms that will be reliably understood. Details of procedure, technique, or instrumentation that have been adequately described by earlier investigators should not be described in details again, but references to the original sources should be cited.

The description of the procedure should summarize each step in the actual execution of the experiment, e.g., the instructions given to the subjects, the method informing the experimental and control groups, and the order in which the various experimental and/or stimulus conditions were administered. The criteria here are the same as before. The description should be written in terms that you can reasonably suppose are generally and reliably understood and in sufficient detail to permit duplication by other qualified investigators.

Published research reports often assume that both reader and writer understand why certain aspects of the experimental procedure were conducted as they were. It is reasonable to assume that readers of technical articles have considerable background knowledge of the problems and methods in a given area. In this respect it would be well for you to depart from the standard format and to indicate why you did what you did. Why were your particular procedures required by the questions to be answered, or in what way did they control some unwanted variable or variables?

I’ll try in this section to give some advice about how to describe work done; this is often one of the hardest sections of the report to structure in an easily readable way. 

[Hypothesis/Purpose]

For a project report, I’ve found these are best written chronologically, almost like a diary of how you got to wherever you did; this is the easiest way to impose a structure on the document. Of critical importance are the reasons why you made any decisions you did (if you don’t write these in the report, you are sure to be asked about them in the viva). 

[Previous experience.]

If the project has different strands (e.g. if software and hardware were developed essentially independently), 

then these can be separated in different sections; 

otherwise I’d suggest writing them in terms of the phases of the project: 

planning, 

implementing and 

testing, perhaps; 

or 

whatever else seems appropriate. 

Each section, and each subsection of a report can be divided along similar lines; 

this section of this report included. 

Of course, not all of the sections mentioned here will be relevant to every part of your report, but you might like to think about them, or use them as a structure. When reporting on an actual experiment, I would expect to see all of them. 

 [Experiment design.]

For each section, it is often useful to consider exactly what you are trying to say. A lot of the time you can use the structure:

Hypothesis/Purpose. 

First, state what you are trying to find out, or trying to do, as clearly as possible.

Previous experience. 

 Describe relevant information from the literature review, advice gained, and any other relevant facts. Try to cite the works and results obtained by the authors with proper citing style.

Chapter 4: Results and Discussion

This section should present a description of the data collected in the experiment and the analysis or analyses performed on them. 

It is desirable to summarize the results in tabular or graphic form in addition to the verbal description. 

A table or figure can frequently communicate your results far more effectively than words.

 Raw data should not be included in the Results section. Include an appendix for raw data, computations, etc in the appendix, if desired.

Graphs and tables should be concise and clear. 

Summarily, I suggest you to develop this chapter with

Experiment design. 

State how you designed the experiment, simulations, including what results would be considered to confirm the hypothesis, and what results would be expected to reject it (with supporting maths if appropriate).

Experiment execution. 

What happened when you tried to run the experiment, what went wrong, what unexpected things happened (if any).

Experiment results. 

 Was the hypothesis confirmed or rejected?

Inferences.  

What you got, comparison with previous findings etc.

Including what you would have done better.

[Experiment execution.]

I’ve tried to divide this section of this report along the lines it describes. It’s not a perfect fit, since I am not describing an experiment here. Nonetheless, I hope you can see how this section is structured. It’s useful to consider the structure of every document, and every section of a document, along these lines. 

 It really does help the reader if there is a logical flow of ideas, rather than a whole series of facts and observations in no real order (or at least not in an order that is clearly stated at the beginning).

Of course, there are also parallels between the hypothesis/purpose to a section, and the introduction to the whole report; and between the previous experience and the literature review sections. 

 Good reports are like fractals: no matter on what scale look you should be able to find the same structures. 

Management

Unlike projects in industry, we don’t really ‘manage’ these projects, we don’t have time. We just supervise them. You’ll have to manage yourself, in the sense of setting milestones, budgets and monitoring progress. 

In your report, it would be good to include a management section including a breakdown of what you spend most of your time doing, how you planned your time, whether your original time-plan was followed, and if not, why not.

Conclusions of Discussion 

1. Don't repeat results.
2. Order simple to complex (building to conclusion); or may state conclusion first.
3. Conclusion should be consistent with study objectives/research question. ...
4. Emphasize what is new, different, or important about your results.
5. Consider alternative explanations for the results.
6. Limit speculation.

Scope for Future/ Further Work

How to develop one 

1. Get the whole team involved. 
2. Give specific, thorough descriptions of the project scope, requirements, and objectives. 
3. Write clear, concise statements. 
4. Assess project failure or success with benchmarks. .
5. Use simple words.

Chapter 5: Conclusions  

This is always one of the most interesting chapters to read (anyone short of time will tend to read the introduction and this chapter first). 

A couple of rules about conclusions: they should always follow logically from the rest of the work, and they must never reference any material not included elsewhere. 

There should be no new information contained in this chapter, it is just a summary of what has been stated before, and what can be logically deduced from it.

If there are a lot of ideas for further work, this could be separate chapter, coming just before the conclusions.

How to write a conclusion: The final points

1. Summarise the thesis. A useful conclusion reminds the reader of the topic and the aim of your article. 
2. Repeat your supporting arguments. 
3. Connect your introductory and concluding paragraphs. 
4. Provide some useful observations. 
5. Give the readers some points to think about.

Bibliography

A bibliography is a list of sources that you’ve found useful for background information, but haven’t directly quoted, or taken any specific piece of information from. Alternatively, they might be sources that the reader can look for to get further information. They appear after the main text. Project reports may or may not have bibliographies, but they always have references.

Conventionally, bibliographies (and references sections) don’t have chapter numbers.

References

A reference is a source from which you have taken a specific piece of information. Unless your work is completely original (highly unlikely), you will have references. 

The golden rule about references is that they should contain enough information for the reader to easily find the original sources without using a search engine. 

For a technical paper this means name of author(s), title of paper, journal or magazine title, date of publication, volume number and page references; 

for a book this means name of author(s), title of book, edition, date of publication and publisher. 

For a web-site, just the URL and the date you accessed it might be all you have, although most web-pages have titles, and if you know the name of the author then include that as well.

All academic publishers have their own set of (very strict) guidelines about the format of references. 

Unfortunately, they do not agree: the IEEE style is not the same as the IET style, and the Kluwer style differs again. 

The important thing is to be consistent. You could do worse than adopt the IEEE style [2]. 

 

This includes such details as the titles of books of papers, conference proceedings or journals should be in italics, and the authors initials and surname should precede the title, which is placed in quotation marks. 

Book titles should be followed by the edition number, publishers and publication year; journal titles by the volume, page numbers and date.

Web-pages are usually not good references for two reasons: firstly many web-pages are not peer-reviewed and have not been edited for accuracy so the information is not reliable; and secondly web-pages can change at any time, and anyone looking at your reference might not see the same thing that you saw. At the very least, the reference should have information about when you viewed the page.

This is easy to do: in the “Tools” list on the left-margin menu, select the “Cite this page” menu item, then choose whichever version fits into the referencing style you have chosen (Chicago is a good one for engineering articles).

At this point, I should add that I don’t encourage people to use Wikipedia. 

However, Wikipedia is often a good place to start, and there are often a good set of references at the end of the articles that are worth reading.

Some examples of references 

There are many Referencing styles and guidelines are available about how to make use of them. Important reference styles are

• APA.
• Chicago.
• Harvard.
• MHRA.
• MLA.
• OSCOLA.
• Vancouver.

In an acceptable and consistent style follow the referencing style guides documents available.

Some examples of referenceing are presented below 

APA

Ronson, J. (2012). The psychopath test: a journey through the madness industry. Picador.

Skelton, A. (2011). Value conflicts in higher education teaching. Teaching in Higher Education, 17(3), 257-268. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2011.611875

Wright, P. (2020). Visible and socially-just pedagogy: implications for mathematics teacher education. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 52(6), 733-751. https://doi.org.10.1080/

CSE style

Graham JR. 2019. The structure and stratigraphical relations of the Lough Nafooey Group, South Mayo. Irish Journal of Earth Sciences. 37: 1–18.

Harvard style

Hoffmann, M. (2016) ‘How is information valued? Evidence from framed field experiments’, The Economic Journal, 126(595), pp. 1884–1911. doi:10.1111/ecoj.12401.

MLA style

Davidson, Clare. “Reading in Bed with Troilus and Criseyde.” The Chaucer Review, vol. 55, no. 2, Apr. 2020, pp. 147–170. https://doi.org/10.5325/chaucerrev.55.2.0147.

Other styles 

[1] G. Murray, et al., “LaTeX class file for IEEE publications,” http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/IEEEtran/IEEEtran.cls, (accessed on September 17th 2004).

[2] B. Crow, I. Widjaja, J. Kim, P. Sakai, "IEEE 802.11 Wireless Local Area Networks", IEEE Communications Magazine, Vol. 35, no. 9, September 1997.

[3] Wikipedia contributors, "Reference," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Reference&oldid=50359148 (accessed June 17, 2006).

[4] J.G. Proakis, “Digital Communications”, 4th edition, McGraw-Hill, September 2004.

Appendices

Anything that isn’t essential for reading the report, but the reader might find useful. I can think of a few possibilities for suitable contents in project reports: software code listings; introductions to subjects that some readers will need, but others won’t (for example OOP); a full set of circuit diagrams, if they have been drawn in a suitable computer-aided design (CAD) package, could usefully be included here; or perhaps a lot of raw test-result in list or graphical form which are discussed in more detail in the text. Again, the rule is that they should not be essential to the text: the reader should be able to read the entire document without feeling they are missing anything.

Appendices do not share the same numbering scheme as chapters. 

The first appendix is usually appendix A, then appendix B, etc; whereas chapters are more conventionally numbered.

Blank Pages: 2 Number

These 2 no blank pages be included at last of the report.

Page Numbering

From starting page to Nomenclature: Roman Capital as I, II, III, ...With suitable placement at bottom of page

Chapters: chapter 1 to reference : Numbering as 1, 2, 3, ..... With suitable placement at bottom of page

Appendix: Roman Small as I, ii, III,... With suitable placement at bottom of page

Spacing: 

Double spaced or as prescribed.

( Ideally slightly 1.5 spacing is considered by many institutions to make the report attractive.

Font:

Times Roman, if not prescribed

Font sizes: 

Top cover

Main heading: 24" or suitably aligned as asked

Chapters

HEADING: 16,  ALL CAPITALS , BOLD

Sub Heading: 14, Starting Word Capital, Bold

Sub sub heading: 12, Sentence Case, Bold

Alignment: Properly Justified 

Margin of the pages

Top: 1"

Bottom: 1"

Left: 1.5"

Right: 1"

Or 

as prescribed in the guidelines of the university or institutions 

Good Luck