How to Write a Final Year Project Proposal

How to Write a Final Year Project- Proposal – Tips for Students

How to write a Final Year Project Proposal

What is the Final Year Project Proposal?

The Final Year Project Proposal is a report showcasing the project problem definition. In addition, the Final Year Project proposal demonstrates the basic plan of how a student will accomplish the research and development goals required to solve the project problem.

What should you know before writing a Final Year Project Proposal?

First, every undergraduate final year project student must know the structure of the Final Year Project expected by the university where they are studying. Each university specifies a different report structure to follow when it comes to writing the Final Year Project Proposal.

Even though universities have varying requirements, generally, the structure of all the universities follows the same theme.

This article will present a structure for the final year project proposal. The final year project proposal structure shown here will look very similar to the format required by many universities. 

How to write the Final Year Project Proposal

In this section, we will cover the structure of the Final year project proposal. The students can use this structure to write a preliminary project report.

Final Year Project Title

Firstly, choosing a good project title is key to attracting the attention of the readers and examiners. The final year project title should not be a typical title. Students must put much thought and work into coming up with a good project title. The final year project title should be short, memorable and attract attention. It would help if you also tried incorporating the relevant keywords related to the project application in your project title. The project title should describe the essence of the work that you will do as part of your final year project.

It is advisable to use clear and concise language in the project title. The number of characters in the final year project title should be less than fifty (including punctuation marks and spacing). You should use the first page of the report as the title page and include Your name as author, date and revision of the report.

Abstract

Secondly, every professional report must contain an Abstract after the Title Page. The abstract is also crucial for the final year project proposal. It is best to write the abstract once you have completed the report. In the abstract, you should summarise what the report covers. Writing a brief, clear, and easy-to-understand abstract would be best. The report’s abstract explains what you will be doing, how you will do it, and why you are doing it. The abstract should be no more than 200 words.

Table of Contents

A table of content is a must for every academic report. First, it gives users an overview of the report’s contents and organisation. A table of contents allows readers to go directly to a specific document section. Finally, a well-laid-out Table of Content gives inviting vibes to the reader about the Final Year Project Proposal.

List of Tables

You should include a table to present qualitative and quantitative data in your report. Tables make it easier to digest such information. It is best to annotate all the tables to reference them as Table 1, Table 2, etc. All the tables used in your project should be listed after the Table of Contents under a single section, making it easier for the reader to refer to and navigate to the relevant table while reading the Final Year Project Report.

List of Images

A picture paints a thousand words and is also valid for academic reports. To convey the information to the reader, you must represent data in a graphical format. Include Graphs, charts and other visual indications for your reader to digest the information quickly.

It is best to annotate all the images or graphs to reference them as Image 1, Image 2, etc.,

Once you have included all the related images, charts and graphs in your Final Year Project Proposal Report, list them under a section called List of Images. A list of images section will make it easy for the reader to navigate and refer to the specific visual information.

Introduction

The final year project proposal’s introduction should detail the project’s purpose. The proposal of the final year report must describe the field of study. Clear and brief detail of the application and special hardware, software and technology related to the project will go a long way. In this section, you are giving your readers a chance to get to know the high-level details of your project. The introduction section should contain such information that the reader should be keen to read the rest of the elements in your project proposal report. You want to maintain the reader’s interest in your report; hence making the introduction enjoyable is essential.

Usually, the introduction should be between 200 and 300 words.

Problem Statement

The introduction section should contain a subheading called Problem Statement. In this section, the student should clearly and concisely present the problem statement related to the project. A problem statement should not be more than 50 to 100 words. In the problem statement section, you are trying to define the problem you are trying to solve. Therefore, the problem statement of the final year project proposal should be clear enough to leave no doubt in the reader’s mind about the problem you are trying to solve.

The problem statement section should state the hypothesis that needs to be tested, including the questions to be answered as part of the project.

Aim

The aim is another crucial section within the introduction section. Here the student should detail the aim of the project. The project’s aim should be a single line/sentence statement that comprehensively defines the project’s objective.

Background

Following the introduction, the background section is another essential part of the final year project proposal. Before completing the background section, you must thoroughly research and comprehensively understand your chosen project topic.

Within the background section, you should explain to the readers the relevant facts about your chosen final year project topic. The facts should help the readers understand the literature review and other report sections. Again, it would help if you linked these facts and how they relate to the hypothesis you are trying to prove or solve a problem.

The purpose of the background section is to contextualise your research and to explain its relevance to the final year project topic. For example, it would help if you discussed your findings chronologically to explain the progress in your field of study. Also, address and highlight the missing or incomplete aspects of previous research. On a higher level, the background section summarises your interpretation of how your work adds to and builds upon existing academic studies related to your final year project topic.

Literature Review

A literature review is essential when it comes to making a start on the final year project topic and proposal. Firstly, the final year project student should conduct a thorough assessment to analyse what other work is out there to solve the problem highlighted in the project. Then, the final year project student should create an analytical review of the previous scientific works on the topic. As part of the literature review, the student has to provide the historical background and also clearly explain to the reader current achievements in the specific field related to the project. Furthermore, it is essential to mention that the student should only use credible sources from peer-reviewed research papers and seek help from books that have credibility in academic circles.

Remember that a literature review is essential and gives you confidence that your work matters, and you can build on the previous research to improve your chance of solving the problem as part of your final year project.

Project Objectives

This section can also be called project specifications. In this section, a student will break down the final year project into smaller chunks called project objectives. A clear definition of project objectives is another vital part of the final year project proposal.

It is best to break down the project into smaller objectives as it becomes manageable and helps the student keep the project on track.

As the saying goes, well planned is half done, and so is the case with defining the project objectives. Describing your project objectives will help you visualise the project’s end goals. During the planning, you may find that the project’s scope is extensive, and you need to cut it down.

You should include the following significant tasks as part of your project objectives. Note that this is not an exhaustive list and depends on the nature of the project:

• Project Proposal
• Preliminary Investigation
• Methodology
• Mid Term Report
• Practical Work
• Hardware Development
• Software Development
• Project Review, you should plan at least three project review meetings
• Testing
• Results
• Discussion and Analysis
• Conclusion
• Final Year Project Report
• Project Poster
• Viva Exam

Methodology

In this final year project proposal section, the student should discuss some methods employed during the project’s execution.

You would state whether the project is quantitative or qualitative and what methods you would use to prove your hypothesis.

It is vital to elaborate on the practical approaches you would use to solve these problems. All the methods studied by the user as part of the initial research should be detailed at a higher level in this part of the final year project proposal. The students should also describe the hardware, software, platforms, and technology employed in this project. It is vital to detail the significant steps and technologies with examples you intend to use to help solve the problem as part of the project.

The methodology section should consist of between three to four paragraphs. The length of the methodology section should be enough to make a brief overview so the reader can understand how the student studied and researched different methods to help solve the problem.

Block Diagram

The Block Diagrams not only help the reader understand the student details of the critical blocks of the project but also help the reader understand the project on a higher level.

Block diagrams convey clear and concise information for any project regardless of how complex and technical the project is. Therefore, we highly recommend that you create a block diagram for your project to help the reader understand the crux of your project.

Equipment and Bill of Material

In this section, you will detail the tools or equipment required to do your final year project.

For research-based projects, you may want to interview, design a questionnaire or conduct a case study. For practical projects, you should detail what equipment and software tools you would use to prove and test your hypothesis.

It is crucial to fully understand the problem that you are trying to solve as part of your final year project. For example, suppose you fully comprehend what you are trying to solve and have read the relevant research papers as part of your literature review. In that case, you will be able to come up with a set of equipment and any other tools you may need to prove your final year project hypothesis.

Test Plan

Testing the validity of any project’s outcomes is an important task. Therefore, you must thoroughly test the final year project. As part of your final year project proposal, you must include a detailed plan to prove what you have developed. In addition, you must include various tests and validation mechanisms to help confirm the final year project hypothesis.

We suggest a student create a Test Matrix that covers the testing and validity of all the project’s features. Furthermore, the tests should include a positive and a negative test against each element. Automated testing is also encouraged to take out human error when testing.

Project Budget

A student can put together a project budget once the tools and software needed for the final year project are known. To create a project budget, a student should put together the cost of materials, tools, equipment, training, and software. The price of all the items should be listed in a table with a total sum at the end.

Some universities have a limit imposed on the final year project budget. Therefore, you would need authorisation from your project supervisor if you want to increase your budget.

It is pertinent to highlight that universities do not generally allocate much budget for the final year project. Hence, a student must pick a project topic that does not require a lot of expenditure. On the other hand, if a student selects a project that needs a big budget, then the student may not be able to achieve all the project objectives due to a lack of funding. 

Project Timeline

As part of the final year project proposal, it is imperative to define a start and a finish date for the final year project. In addition, a project timeline should include the timeline to achieve all the project objectives.

A student should list all the final year project objectives defined in the project objective sections in sequential order. Likewise, you must list the tasks sequentially and in the order of execution. It is also essential to realise that some tasks will run parallel to others. Once all the tasks are listed, the student should assign a start and a finish date against each task.

Once the project timeline is defined, it is presented graphically on a Gantt Chart. A Gantt chart gives a quick overview of the project objectives and each objective’s start and finish date. On a Gantt chart, it is easy to see both the blocker and parallel running tasks. A blocker task usually blocks the execution of other tasks before the completion of the blocker task.

Referencing

When writing the final year project proposal, you must adequately reference all the sources used in the report and cite any work that is not yours. Every university has its requirements when it comes to using referencing styling. You must use the format required by the university to reference the work. List all the references sourced in alphabetical order.

Note that you risk getting penalised for plagiarism if you cite someone else’s work in your report without referencing it. You must provide a reference for all work that is not yours.  

Appendix

You can include an appendix at the end of the final year project proposal to include additional items not included in other sections of the report. However, you must adequately reference the relevant sections of the appendix in your final year project proposal report.

The appendix can contain research papers, additional images supporting research, extended tables, results table, code, or any standards.

Proofreading and Grammar

Once you have written the final year project proposal, it must be proofread and checked for grammar. The report must also be written with a good vocabulary and excellent sentence structuring. Students commonly believe that a technical report does not necessarily have to be grammatically correct; this is entirely incorrect. All the reports, whether academic or professional, technical or non-technical, must be grammatically correct and more straightforward for the reader to read and comprehend.

Your report should be written so that a non-specialist can understand the crux of the project, no matter how complex the project is.

We can help with proofreading and grammatical checking of the report. The expert instructors at FYPHelp.com have read through and corrected thousands of reports and have the necessary technical and non-technical knowledge to ensure that your report is perfect.

Formatting

Formatting is key to making the final year project proposal report easy on the eye and a pleasure to read. Hence, a suitably formatted final year project proposal maintains the reader’s interest in the report. It also showcases that a student pays excellent attention to details.

The final year project proposal report must contain a Header, Footer, Page Number, and Revision of the Report. The pages must use the proper margin and size if there is a requirement from the university.

Some universities have requirements for the Font type and size for the headings and normal text. Sometimes a line spacing of 1.5 is also defined, and all of these requirements must comply. Please check the formatting requirements of your university before finalising your final year project proposal.

Conclusion

This article describes the final year project proposal to the final year project students. We started this article by explaining the importance of the final year project proposal. In addition to this, we emphasised that students should put effort into writing a proposal for the final year project.

We have clearly defined the final year project proposal to help students understand its need. Furthermore, we then explained to the students that they must know what report structure the universities expect for a final year project proposal. The students should also clearly understand the problem they are trying to solve as part of their project. Writing the final year project proposal will not be easy if a student does not clearly understand the project problem statement.

Structure of the Final Year Project Proposal

We have also presented an excellent report structure that students can follow to create their final year project proposal. Significant sections of the report include the following:

• Final Year Project Title
• Abstract
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Images
• Introduction
• Problem Statement
• Aim
• Background
• Literature Review
• Project Objectives
• Methodology
• Block Diagram
• Equipment and Bill of Material
• Test Plan
• Project Budget
• Project Timeline
• Referencing
• Appendix
• Proofreading and Grammar
• Formatting
• Conclusion

The above sections are discussed throughout this article 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.

At FYPHELP.com, we can certainly help you with the Final Year Project Proposal. As part of the Final Year Project Proposal service, we will help and guide you to write a complete and comprehensive Final Year Project Proposal. We will help you define the project problem, background, and literature review and will also help you to determine possible routes to solve the problem. Our Final Year Project Proposal Service also covers breaking the project into smaller digestible chunks. Each project objective is also shown on the Gantt Chart, with deadlines for each objective and milestone.

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