HOW TO WRITE YOUR FINAL YEAR PROJECT (FYP) REPORT

Presented by NORMAH MOHD. GHAZALI, Ph.D., C.Eng.

Professor, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

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WHAT DO YOU WRITE ABOUT?

1. Identify the audience? supervisors and equivalent readers or lower level.

2. All documentations of your FYP? You are not including ALL of them in your report BUT enough to be repeated by a reader.

3. IntroductionTheoryMethodologyResults & DiscussionsConclusion

4. Essential complicated mathematical derivation may be included in the Appendix.

5. Concise and informative within the word limits. 27/4/2017 nmg.fkm.utm/Apr2017 2

HOW DO YOU BEGIN? FORMAT OF THE FINAL REPORT!

• Title

• Table of contents

• Introduction/Literature Review

• Theory-Methodology

• Results and discussion

• Conclusions/Recommendations

• References

• Appendices (if any)

DISCUSS WHAT IS

APPROPRIATE WITH YOUR SUPERVISOR

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YOUR MATERIALS (DOCUMENTATIONS)

• Introduction

• Theoretical formulations

• Methodology

• Results & Discussions

• Conclusion

1ST SEMESTER

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WHAT GOES WHERE - INTRODUCTION

• Social or technical background - PRELIMINARY

• General then leading to a focussed past studies

• A problem statement of your research/study

• Objective(s) and Scopes

• Contain previous related studies that imply the need for your study (from journals, reliable magazines, recent textbooks etc.)

• NOTE: Your FYP DOES NOT have to be NEW!

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WHAT GOES WHERE - THEORY

• The physical system of your study – real system, a process, a component, etc.

• A schematic of your analysis domain – define your boundaries

• Basic concepts & theory related to your study

• Assumptions and justifications

• Governing equations – conservative eqns, laws, etc.

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WHAT GOES WHERE - METHODOLOGY

• Describe the procedure – a flow chart may be included to support your descriptions of the work

• If a computer code is used, list the algebraic equations (some may be included in the Appendices)

• If a particular method/model is used, justify it.

• Explain the standards followed (ASME, ASHRAE, etc.) reliability of your method is important.

• State the accuracy of your measuring devices

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WHAT GOES WHERE – RESULTS & DISCUSSIONS

• Select the important relevant data to be presented.

• Decide in what form your data could be best presented – graph, chart, 3D, etc.

• Present your results in a logical sequence, how the data was processed highlighting what is important

• Discuss what you infer from your data, critical analysis – cross referencing with previous studies.

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WHAT GOES WHERE – RESULTS & DISCUSSIONS

• This is the core of your project – what you had set out to obtain.

• Evaluate your results – expected/unexpected? illustrated? proven? Explored? Limitations?

• Yours Results may be just a repeat of past studies BUT could have been presented differently.

• Use your own words to describe your results.

• Captions for results must be appropriate – short & concise

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WHAT GOES WHERE – CONCLUSION

• Sum up the outcome of your FYP.

• State explicitly what you have obtained – should match your earlier objective(s).

• Highlight what you discovered from your results & discussions.

• Possible extension of the study may be recommended – relevant ones!

• No new ideas in Conclusion.

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CHECK:

CAPTIONS are where they are supposed to be.

REFERENCES are all in – cited ones only.

APPENDICES are referred to in the texts.

SYMBOLS & FONTS are compatible with your printer.

PAGES are all in and in order

UTM (FKM) FORMAT is followed.

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CAPTIONS

• Captions for tables are generally above the tables.

• Captions for graphs are below the graphs

• Table/Figure labels follow the chapter where the table/figure appear e.g. Figure 2.1, 2.2 etc. in Chapter 2

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REFERENCES

• Evidence of statements, equations, systems, etc. that you have used MUST be cited (textbooks, journal papers, magazines, etc.).

• The “Author, date” style (Harvard Referencing) is generally easier to use in the texts with the list in your REFERENCE arranged alphabetically.

• Be consistent in your format (surname 1st).

• Citing a website requires an accessed date 27/4/2017 nmg.fkm.utm/Apr2017 13

APPENDICES

Details of derivations, experimental procedure, sample calculations, etc.

Lengthy tables, data.

Other information not necessary in the main texts.

Your Report should be able to stand on its own without the Appendices.

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MY REFERENCES

• A Guide to Writing a Project Report by W.L. Barnes (2010), accessed at https://newton.ex.ac.uk/handbook/PHY/forms/WLB010919-4.pdf, March 26th 2017.

• University of Bradford, UK, “Report Writing: Writing Your Undergraduate Project Report”, written by Collin Neville, accessed at http://www.bradford.ac.uk/academic-skills/media/academicskillsadvice/documents/academicskillsresources/writing-reports/Infosheet-Report-Writing-for-UGs.pdf, March 26th 2017.

THANK YOU

NOTE: YOUR SUPERVISOR GENERALLY HAS THE FINAL SAY ON THE STYLE OF THE WRITE-UP 27/4/2017 nmg.fkm.utm/Apr2017 15