How to Write a Final Year Project Report

How to write a Final Year Project Report

What is the Final Year Project Report?

The Final Year Project Report is a comprehensive report submitted by the undergraduate students to explain the final year project, its need and execution. In addition, the report details the problem statement, aims, objectives and background of why the project topic is selected. The final year project report describes the literature review, methodology, and tests done to verify the solution. Overall, a final year project report summarises the project.

How many words should you write for the Final Year Project Report?

There is no official answer to how many words should be in the final year project report. Most universities will stipulate 10000 words for the final year project report. The word limit does not include the appendix section. We would encourage students to check with the university and supervisor about the maximum number of words limit.

What should you do before writing a Final Year Project Report?

Planning is one of the most important things a student should do before writing the final year project report. A well-planned task is already half done. The best thing to do is to go through the project proposal and review the project objectives. Following this exercise, you should gauge the project progress thus far. A quick review of what was planned and done so far will give you a good overview of what is outstanding in the final year project report.

How to get maximum marks in the Final Year Project?

The best approach to getting top marks in the Final Year Project is to put a lot of effort into designing the project and writing a final year project report. Your final year project report carries the maximum percentage of marks. Hence,  you should aim to write a concise and clear report regardless of whether your project is a success.

How to write a Final Year Project Report?

The format and style of the final year project report will vary considerably depending on the type of degree. This article will discuss how to write a final year project report for an engineering degree.

A final year project in the engineering degree involves much research and practica

Final Year Project Report is of great importance

The final year project is an essential aspect of the final year report. The final year project report is just as important as other critical aspects required to deliver a project. In our experience, students do not pay enough attention to writing a final year project report. The students get immersed in the practical aspects of the project. Therefore students neglect the final report until very close to the submission deadline. Please remember that even though the practical aspects of your project may be top-notch, if you do not have an excellent final year project report that summarises, demonstrates and discusses your work, you will not get good marks in the final year project.

Every final year project report should consist of the following sections to ensure the report includes the vital project content. We will primarily focus on the report’s structure and list the crucial section of the final year project report. We will also briefly describe what essential aspects you should cover in each section.

Final Year Project Report Structure

There is no set format for a final year project report. But a good report should follow a format similar to the one given below:

• Title page
• Statement of Originality
• Acknowledgements
• Abstract
• Table of contents
• List of Tables
• List of Images
• Introduction
• Ethical and Professional Considerations
• Literature review
• Method/Implementation/Design
• Testing and Results
• Evaluation of Results
• Conclusions
• References
• Appendices

Now we will discuss each of the sections listed above in great detail.l work. The work can include design, analysis, programming, prototype development, hardware and schematic design, testing, result evaluation, etc. All final year project students should aim to tackle the project professionally and, in the end, deliver something impressive. Hence, the final year student must meticulously plan and execute the final year project.

Title page

Each final year project should have a Title Page. The report’s title page should include the project title, student name, candidate number, the title of the degree course, university name, department name, name of the project supervisor and the calendar year. Some universities have a standard title page format; students should follow that.

Statement of Originality

The second section of the final year project report should contain a statement of originality. You should sign and date the statement of originality. This statement declares that you did not plagiarise the report. In addition to this, it also declares that work conducted as part of your final year project is purely yours. The statement of originality should state that the submitted work is yours. Where you have used someone else’s work, you have given credit to the author using proper referencing style as required by the university. You should think carefully and reflect if there are any elements of the report which you have not yet referenced. Furthermore, you must reference others’ work in its entirety. Please note that any tables, diagrams, text, and concepts taken from others’ work need referencing.

If any intellectual property agreements are in place as part of the final year project, you should highlight them in the statement of originality section. Each university usually provides its template of the statement of originality. Therefore, we encourage students to follow the template recommended by the university. A student then must sign the Statement of Originality to authenticate it.

Acknowledgements

In the acknowledgement section, you will recognise the support and guidance of the people who have helped you with any aspects of the project. For example, you may thank your project supervisor, other students, test users, family members or any organisations that supported you during your final year project.

Abstract

An abstract section contains a summary at the beginning of the final year project report. An abstract summarises the entire project using between 200 to 250 words.

Usually, undergraduate students do not pay much attention to the abstract and write it without giving it much thought. Not paying attention to the abstract is a terrible mistake and would cost students dear marks. Please remember that the abstract of any report or research paper is an essential part of the report. A report’s abstract lets the reader know what to expect from the rest; it is like the heart of the report. The abstract section of the report is the most read part of the report. Therefore, you must spend time carefully crafting the abstract of your report. The quality of the abstract will help the reader decide whether to continue reading the report. Hence, the abstract must be very attractive.

A student should spend relatively more time per word on the abstract section of the report than on the rest of the final year project.  

How to write an Abstract

Here we list some of the critical characteristics of a good abstract:

1. Start the abstract by briefly describing the problem statement you set out to find the solution. Next, detail some facts and figures highlighting that what you are trying to solve is a real problem and would benefit the user or the industry.
2. You should state the project objectives in one or two sentences.
3. As part of the abstract, you should define the actual work. Then, you can detail the strategy to solve the problem you described. How did you go about achieving the stated objectives?
4. If your project involved designing something, then you must detail how you went about testing it. How did you assess the performance of the final product? Explain how you tested the product, was user-level testing conducted, and how many users you used to test the product. Against what criteria did you assess the performance of the product
5. You must also summarise the results obtained from the testing. Clearly state the actual results and if the results were satisfactory.
6. Do not include Tables, Images, code or circuit diagrams in the abstract.
7. The abstract does not contain references.
8. All the facts mentioned in the abstract must be discussed and detailed in the subsequent sections of the final year project report.
9. Make your abstract engaging and attractive. Remember, if your abstract is not interesting that the reader will probably not read the rest of the report will full attention.

Where can I find examples of the abstract?

We suggest using Google Scholar and searching for research papers in your chosen field. Each search result will lead to a short abstract summarising the publication. By reading the abstract, readers can determine if they want to read a particular research paper or not. It would help if you thought about the abstract of your final year report as the essential piece of the report. If the abstract is not attractive, no one will read the rest of the report.

Table of contents

A professional and good report contains a table of contents for users to navigate the report quickly. The table of contents also gives a quick overview to the reader of the sections covered in the report. Therefore, your final year project report must contain a Table of contents. The table of contents should mention the page number of each section’s heading. Each section’s heading should also contain clickable links to the relevant sections.

List of Tables

The final year project report should present all qualitative and quantitative data as a table. Tables make it easier to understand complex test results and give a quick overview of the outcome. In addition, all the tables in the report should be annotated appropriately, with captions used for each table.

All the tables included in the final year project report should be listed in a list using their caption after the table of contents. The captions should be in the form of a clickable dynamic link such that the reader can easily navigate to the relevant tables.

List of Images

Following the list of tables, you must include a list of images used in your report. It is better to represent data in a graphical format to convey the information to the reader. Therefore, you must include pictures, graphs, charts and other visual indications for your reader to digest the information quickly. Please note that you must caption each image appropriately, and the links should be clickable for easy navigation. If you have included someone else’s visuals, you must adequately reference them wherever you show them in the report.

Introduction

The introduction section of the final year project report should detail the motivation for the project. It is usually the most frequently read part of the final year project report. The introduction of the report should be several pages long.

In summary, the introduction is a detailed version of the abstract. You should summarise the problem tackled in the report/problem statement/hypothesis, background, the aim of the project, and detailed project objectives (ideally in a bullet point list). The introduction section should also describe the methodology used to do the project and a summary of the results. You must also provide the structure and overview of the rest of the report’s section within the introduction. The introduction section of the final year project report should extensively use the tables, diagrams, images, and block diagrams of the system. Graphical information helps the reader understand the problem tackled in the project clearly. You can include images from other sources, but it is encouraged that you create your images.

The introduction section should include references for any facts that are not self-evident. The references must be provided from reputable sources and follow the referencing style required by your university.

After reading the introduction section of the final year project report, the reader should have a clear idea of what you are trying to accomplish, why you are trying to complete it, how you went about it, and how successful you were in achieving your goals.

Ethical and Professional Considerations

As part of the project proposal and interim report, a student would have identified any ethical and professional aspects that might need addressing as part of the final year project. For example, the ethical considerations may include safety, data protection, or other aspects affecting your project’s users/test users. The professional considerations may include following set guidelines related to your fields, such as following a certain standard and best practices associated with your domain.

In the final year project report, students must address how they met the ethical and professional considerations. In addition, the student must present the paperwork and any authorisations sought to address these concerns. Finally, the students must submit all the evidence to support their claims as part of the appendix.

If there are no or minor ethical considerations, you must still mention them in the final year project report.

Literature Review

As part of your project proposal, a general expectation is that you will spend a lot of time researching and reading recent publications on the subject of your project. A literature review helps the students understand if the core tasks associated with their final year project are unique. In addition to this students can gauge if they are reinventing the wheel or unintentionally replicating the work already done. There are two primary purposes of the literature review:

Understand the Background

Firstly, the apparent purpose of the literature review is to ensure that the reader of the report understands the background information they will need to know to appreciate the relevance of the work presented in the later sections of the report.

At the end of the literature review, the reader should know what state of the art is in the subject area chosen by the student for their final year project.

Establish your Credentials

Secondly, the purpose of the literature review is to establish the student’s (author of the final year project report) credentials in the reader’s mind. By presenting a good literature review, the author demonstrates to the reader:

1. The author has carried out ample research in the subject area.
2. They are knowledgeable about the subject area and were in a position to make logical and sensible choices about the direction of the final year project.

In case the literature review is inadequate, this gives the reader the impression that the author is not very knowledgeable in their subject area. The reader may think that the author has recreated someone else’s work from past projects, reinventing the wheel. A poor literature review also creates uncertainty in the reader’s mind about evaluating the author’s original work.

The literature review must be several pages long. The literature review should contain ample references to reputable publications. The report’s literature review should be the heavily referenced section of the final year project report.

Assess the impact of your work

The literature review should describe any existing work similar to the project a student undertook. Another advantage of the literature review is to allow the reader to gauge where the student’s project fits into the landscape of existing knowledge in the subject area. It would help if you described others’ work similarly as you have laid out your report so that the reader can see what improvements/innovations you brought in the subject area as part of your final year project.

Reference Other’s Literature

While conducting a literature review, it is sometimes helpful to reproduce images and graphics from other sources. You must adequately reference any photos or visuals presented in your report that you did not create. Improper or no referencing means you are intruding on others’ copyrights. The best way to reference is to give credit to the author. You can also reference the document which listed the original image.

While writing the literature review, it is vital to understand that in this section, you should only present and review the existing knowledge in the area and work done by others. It would help if you did not begin describing your work. You can mention some aspects of your work as a way of explanation. But you should not delve into much detail. Remember that there must be a clear dividing line between the literature review, which entails the work done by others, and the next chapter of the report. The next chapter of the report will describe your work as part of the final year project. A clear dividing line will help the reader and your project supervisor to identify what work you carried out yourself to further the technology and knowledge in your chosen subject area and topic.

Method/Implementation/Design

 In this report section, you will describe your work in detail. Please note that you should not give a day-to-day account of what you have done since you started working on the project. You should not include any dead-end you encountered or red herrings while undertaking the final year project. Instead of giving micro-level details of your work, you must concentrate on presenting a higher-level element of your work. It would help if you focused on providing a detailed description of what precise method you used to develop your project.

It would be best if you covered the following aspects of the final year project.

1. Requirements Analysis
2. Specification of the problem addressed
3. A description of the design of the project
4. Details of the build and evaluation of the project

Please note that the reader’s time is valuable, and they are most interested in knowing what methods you used to achieve your project objective. Therefore, it is OK to provide brief details of the failed and abandoned methods early on. This information is helpful, as it gives the reader a context of the student’s design decisions to execute the project.

Here is a list of essential things that you should include in this section of your report:

Mathematical Analysis

A student must detail the mathematical analysis while undertaking the project. You must include this in the report. The reader and your supervisor need to know that you applied a proper analytical approach to the project. The students can showcase their ability to model problems mathematically by presenting a mathematical model of the problem tackled in the report. You must use as much math as possible to demonstrate your analytical skills. You should also make use of equations to explain the model. All the equations must be neatly typed and adequately labelled.

Methods

You must include a description of the methodology used to execute the project.

Details of Design and Implementations

If you have designed and implemented a circuit, you must give comprehensive details of the software, simulation, etc., in this section of the final year project. You can include circuit diagrams, details of the PCB design, mechanical elements, relevant areas of the algorithm, firmware and software, flow charts, graphs, etc. As mentioned earlier, you should use suitable software packages to create the associated documents. Please do not use Microsoft Paint or other essential software to create them. A final year project is your chance to learn and demonstrate that you are an expert in using the latest tools and techniques relevant to your subject area.

Visuals and Graphs

We can’t stress enough the importance of making use of visuals in this section of the report. You should include graphs, tables, charts, 3D model images, screenshots and actual images of the designed physical prototype you developed as part of your project. A picture tells a thousand words. Hence, you should present as many visuals as possible for the reader to understand your work with minimum effort.

Testing and Results

Testing and obtaining results is an essential part of any project. It is the only way to measure the project against a set of parameters. Unfortunately, it is common for final year students to define an unrealistic project scope that leaves them with no or negligible time for testing. 

If you are working on an engineering project, you must spend the time to test and evaluate the performance of the developed prototype. In addition, testing helps to validate a physical prototype, simulation or mathematical model. Therefore, we advise that you define testing as one of the main project objectives and assign ample time for this task in the project proposal.

You must test, measure and log the useful output results of whatever you have developed. Therefore, we recommend the creation of a test matrix where you will not only define the test cases but also log the results of the tests. It would be best if you also provided detailed information about each test’s conditions.

Results in Graphical Format

You should present the results in a tabular or graphical format (graphs, charts, etc.) so it is easier for the reader to analyse them. Please note the following:

• All the graphs should have a clear, self-explanatory title
• You should clearly label the axes of each graph and the appropriate units.
• All the graphs should be legible. If you have to use a single page per graph, please do so. There is no advantage in presenting illegible information.
• You must add a caption for each graph.
• By inclusion of the results in your report, you are increasing your credibility in the eyes of the reader.

Evaluation of Results

Once you have obtained the results as part of the testing, you need to analyse and evaluate them. This section will assess the results against the project specifications, outcomes and objectives.

In this section, you will have an honest discussion and evaluate whether the results obtained to match the expected outcome.

Conclusion

Just like the abstract section, the conclusion section of your final year project report should be clear and concise. The conclusion section should echo the structure of the introduction section in many ways. But now you have to assume that the reader has gone through your final year project report.

Important points to cover in Conclusion

Here are some of the critical factors that you should bear in mind while writing the conclusion of your final year project report:

1. You should mention the problem you wanted to tackle as part of this project.
2. Include the aim and significant objectives of the project.
3. Undertake a critical assessment of the success of the finished objectives of the project.
4. All the achieved project objectives must be justified using solid evidence in the form of results.
5. If you have not been able to achieve all the objectives, then the reasoning behind this must be stated with evidence, whether technical challenges or otherwise.
6. The conclusion section should also offer suggestions for future work. Finally, it is worth presenting recommendations for further extension of the project. 
7. If, during the project, you have come across better methods and implementation techniques than the ones you employed for your project, then you must also be open about them. Presenting ideas for future work does make you look knowledgeable on the subject matter.

Conclusion is important

It is not uncommon for the students to tack on the conclusion as an afterthought. But, of course, a poorly written conclusion is a mistake and can give the reader a wrong impression of the work’s quality. Therefore, students should give a lot of thought to the conclusion section as it is the last section of the report read by the reader before deciding on the quality of the work presented in the final year project report.

Most students write in their conclusion that everything worked out OK, but the rest of the report does not reflect the optimism shown in the conclusion section. The work or the results obtained should also back up the claims made in the conclusion section. If you feel there are weaknesses in the final year project, you should be realistic and not be afraid to highlight them critically. You should also present decent suggestions about how you would have tackled those if you would pick up the project again. You should face and highlight the weaknesses and give ideas on how to address them.

References

An excellent final year project report always has a long list of references. A good list of references showcases that the student has adequately researched the project. Also, it demonstrates that you have backed up your research using the sources mentioned in the reference. Conversely, if you do not have enough references, it certainly shows that you have not done enough research, and there may be gaps in your knowledge within the subject area.

Please note that you must reference any work not yours as part of your final year project. Remember to reference all the websites, blogs, research papers, and any previously completed projects on the subject area. For websites, you should not only give the link to the website but also the author’s name and the last time you accessed the website. For past projects, you should mention the project’s name, year, student name, supervisor name, name of the university and the calendar year.

Use Reputable Sources for References

It is essential to mention that your report should contain references from reputable sources. The following are reputable sources for reference purposes:

1. Reports from government agencies
2. Textbooks
3. Datasheets
4. Publications in reputable journals
5. Well-known websites (generally speaking, references from websites are less reliable)

Every university prescribes it’s preferred referencing style for the final year project; you should follow that in your final year project report. The final year project report should format the reference with a consistent style. You should avoid mixing different reference styles. It is a good idea to review several examples of the referencing style you would use for your final year project.

Appendices

The appendix section of the report is a place where you can provide additional information and content to the reader without affecting the general flow of the final year report.

All the material in the appendix must be annotated appropriately and presented logically. For example, you can include the following items in the appendix:

• Final Year Project Proposal submitted at the start of the project.
• Final Year Project Interim Report
• Logs of any meetings with your project supervisors and test users
• Any test data and information that is considered too technical for the main body of the report
• Complete Circuit Diagram
• Complete PCB Layout
• Mechanical Enclosure Design
• Software/Code/Firmware. You must check with your university if you are allowed to submit a complete software code as part of the appendix. Unfortunately, some universities do not allow this.

Good Grammar and Proofreading

Good grammar and proofreading are essential for any report and more important than ever for the final year project report. While writing the report, you must consider if a non-specialist would be able to understand the crux of your project report. It would help if you tried to make the report interesting and digestible for non-technical people. You must always proofread the report after completion and correct technical and grammatical errors.

We also advise the student to use a good vocabulary and sentence structure throughout the report. A common misconception among undergraduates is that a technical report does not necessarily have to comply with good grammar usage and English sentence structure. A report with poor grammar and sentence structure costs students marks. Let us state that all reports, whether professional or academic, technical or non-technical, must conform to good grammar and always be proofread. 

The tutors at FYPHelp can help you with grammatical checks and proofreading. Our tutors will not only check the report for grammar and English sentence structure but will also be able to advise on correcting the technical aspects of the written content.

Formatting of the Final Year Project Report

A well-formatted report is easy on the eye and a pleasure to read. Imagine a reader having to read over 10000 words, and if the report is not correctly formatted, then the reader will quickly lose interest. A well-formatted report keeps the reader’s interest in the report and demonstrates that the student has paid great attention to detail in all aspects of the project report.

Some universities have requirements that every student should comply with when writing a final year project report. You must standardise and make use of the following features for formatting:

• Add a header for each page, except the Title Page. The header can contain the report Title and University Name.
• We would advise you to include a footer containing the page number, report revision, and the student’s name.
• You should use Microsoft Word’s heading features and keep the styling consistent for each heading.
• You must use the proper page size and margin.
• Sometimes universities recommend line margin, Font type and size for the heading and normal text. Please make sure you comply with this requirement.

Summary

We have written this article to answer the fundamental question, i.e., how to write a final year project report. At the start of this article, we detailed the importance of the final year project report and how students should not leave this vital task till the end.

To help the final year project students, we have elaborated on what your project supervisor expects from your final year project report. We clearly defined what a final year project report is and how it summarises the time you have spent working on your final year project. We have also mentioned that it is typical for universities to impose a limit of 10000 words for the final year project report. But this limit varies from university to university. It was also discussed how planning could help you write an excellent final year project report. A well-planned project ensures you gain maximum marks in the final year project module, as the final year project report carries most of the marks for this module. The effort put into writing a final year project report will pay off in the form of good marks.

Ideal Final Year Project Report Structure

Furthermore, we have defined well-rounded structure students can follow to write their final year project report. We have listed every section that must go in the report. Each section also has expanded details of the expected content from the students in each section. We have also given valuable tips detailing how to make each section interesting for the reader. We are confident that if the students follow this article’s final year project report structure and use the given techniques, they will achieve maximum marks in their final year project report. Once again, we have listed the headings of each section of the final year project report below. You can navigate to the relevant sections of this article to read a detailed explanation of each section. 

• Title page
• Statement of Originality
• Acknowledgements
• Abstract
• Table of contents
• List of Tables
• List of Images
• Introduction
• Ethical and Professional Considerations
• Literature review
• Method/Implementation/Design
• Testing and Results
• Evaluation of Results
• Conclusions
• References
• Appendices

Write an Exciting Final Year Project Report

This article discussed the above sections in detail to help the final year project student. As a result, a final-year project student can follow the structure and guidelines and create a remarkable final-year project proposal.

Please remember to make your final year project report an exciting read by writing a carefully crafted, interesting abstract. The introduction details the problem statement, aim and project objectives. A good project report also clearly indicates state of the art in the chosen topic by presenting a detailed literature review. All the method used to solve the problem and overcomes the difficulties faced during the project should be covered in the report. It would help if you also listed a detailed test matrix along with the discussion and validation of the results. Finally, you must conclude if the project was successful and justify how you have met the project objectives. If you did not meet any project objectives, then detail the reasoning behind it. Also, you should list how the project can be improved by further work and if there are any other methods you will use when thinking retrospectively.

Please reference others’ work by using a consistent and proper referencing technique. You can add extra information, including detailed technical content, in the appendix section of the report to aid the reader in understanding the project.

Use Good Grammar and Vocabulary

Good grammar, English sentence structure, and a good vocabulary are essential throughout the final year project report. You should also proofread your report and correct any grammatical, technical and non-technical errors within the report. A suitably formatted report also helps maintain the reader’s interest in the report. We have also given valuable guidance and tips on adequately formatting your final year project report. 

At FYPHELP.com, we can certainly help you with the Final Year Project Report. As part of the Final Year Project Report service, we will help and guide you to write a complete and comprehensive Final Year Project Report. In addition, we will help you define the project problem, background, and literature review and will also help you to determine possible routes to solve the problems. 

Please get in touch with us today, and we will help you achieve your Final Year Project Objectives.