FYP Final Report

The FYP final report is due in It is usually about 40 to 60 pages long, single spaced, not including the appendix. (See Table of Contents for the FYP Final Report.)

To guide you through the process of writing your Final Report, we will be referring to Purdue University's On-line Writing Lab [OWL] on Writing a Research Paper.

The site's information is very comprehensive but not very concise. Therefore, we will highlight the best of the site. Please refer to the OWL web site if you need more in-depth explanation.

Q&A about the final report

What if we changed our project scope and cancelled some objectives?
You can delete all mention of the cancelled objectives in sections 1-5 of the final report, because they are no longer relevant, but be sure to mention what parts you cancelled and why you cancelled them in section 6, Discussion.

Can we change the title of our project?
Yes! The title should accurately and concisely describe your project in its final state. Many FYPs start with a title that reflects a concept that is quite different from the final concept. Make your final title describe the final concept. If your CT suggested a new name and that name fits, it is probably best to use that title.

How do we label pictures and graphs?
Most writers center the picture or graph or table and put a description underneath which identifies the figure for easy reference and identification, for example, Figure 3 - System flowcharts or Figure 9 - The initial page of our application. Figures are also usually best placed under the paragraph that first references them.

What is the proper way to label pictures and graphs?
Most writers center the picture or graph or table and put a description underneath which identifies the figure for easy reference and identification, for example, "Figure 3 - System flowcharts" or "Figure 9 - The initial page of our application". To be reader-friendly, figures are also usually best placed directly under the paragraph that first references them, not several paragraphs down or on another page.

What verb tense should we use?
There is no fixed rule, because projects differ, and sections of the report differ. However, in general present tense is usually appropriate for concepts and application features, for example, "The frequency is denoted by ..." or "The system calculates ..." Past tense is usually appropriate for work you did, for example, "We developed a system..."

What do we do with the Project Planning and Required HW & SW sections?
You can simply move these to appendices, for example, "Appendix B - Project Planning" and "Appendix C - Required Hardware and Software". You can have several appendices, if necessary. In the past, some FYP groups had 5 or 10 different appendices.

What do we put in our Evaluation and Discussion Sections?
In your evaluation you summarize the results from testing and state how well you achieved your objectives. In your discussion you interpret the results. You can also try to anticipate questions you will be asked during the Q&A time of your presentation by viewing some questions asked during previous presentations.

Abstract

What's an abstract?

An abstract is a summary of

your project
the extent of your research
selected results

To help you write the abstract, OWL suggests that you think about the following questions:

Why would another researcher be interested in this research?
What are the most important aspects of the research? What should a reader be sure to know about the research?
What information will the reader have to have in order to understand the most important aspects?
What are the main points from each section of your report? Summarize each section in one sentence, if possible.

In addition, we would add:

Incorporate the key facts and conclusions from the body of the report.
Write the abstract using mainly present simple verbs.
Keep your abstract to 100-150 words.

Introduction

See Introduction.

Body

Design, Implementation, Testing, Evaluation, Discussion and Conclusions:

The body should serve as an instruction manual with which another researcher could completely duplicate your results. It should include facts, methodology/procedure, equipment, data, details, tests performed, results and conclusions.

Focus on the problems you faced and explain how you attempted to solve these problems.
Be specific.
Most of your verbs should be in the past simple tense.

OWL suggests that you think about the following:

How was the experiment designed?
On what subjects or materials was the experiment performed?
How were the subjects/materials prepared?
What machinery and equipment was used in the experiment?
What sequence of events did you follow as you handled the subjects/materials or as you recorded data?

In the Evaluation section, detail any discrepancies you found between theory and practice. If you had another opportunity, could these problems be solved? How? Use your analytical thinking skills.

Discussion [also called 'Interpreting Results']:

Excellent tips from OWL for structuring and writing your Discussion:

Your interpretation will be most convincing if it proceeds logically. There may be many ways to organize your interpretation of data logically; consider your readers’ needs to help you decide how to organize your information:

What does your reader need to know before anything else in order to understand and be persuaded to believe your argument?

What does your reader need to know next, or what naturally follows from this first idea?

What is the most important thing for your reader to understand from your interpretation? Consider placing this first.

One basic way to organize your information logically is to move from what you are most certain about to what you are least certain about. For most research reports, the most certain part of your case will be your data, and many research reports will develop along this outline:

begin with a discussion of the data

move on to generalize about or analyze the data

consider how the data addresses the research problem or hypothesis outlined in the Introduction

discuss what can be inferred from the data as they relate to other research and scientific concepts

Conclusion:

In this section, you bring together the salient points of your project. In addition, areas for future research and analysis should be addressed. Focus on:

the major accomplishments of your project and its key features
problems not addressed in your paper
questions that were not answered in your paper

The Conclusion isn't long - about half a page to a page.

For more information see Writing a Research Paper.

Recommendations

For your Final Report, you will not need a separate Recommendations section as it will be written as a part of your Conclusions. Please be aware that business and engineering reports commonly have a separate Recommendations/Suggestions section. To learn more about when to include and how to write this section, refer to OWL's Writing a Report: Recommendations.

A Possible Plan

Your final report is your finished product. After your CT copy edits your submitted progress report, you can meet him/her to discuss it. This can be done between February and April. Then, you can go back and edit your progress report document and save it as your final report. Basically, you add to it as you complete your testing and evaluation and complete it with your discussion and abstract. The groups who procrastinate end up working extremely hard during this short period of time. Some basically drop their studies and get very little sleep in April so they can just get the project done and graduate. This is a painful and often ineffective route to take. Smart groups do a lot of their testing by the end of the March, complete a draft final report for their CT to copy edit or proof-read in early April and then make changes before submitting their final report.

Caution!

The sooner you start each phase, the better! Keep in mind that some employers and grad schools might want to look at your FYP to see what kind of work you can produce, so it could affect your future studies or career.