PROJECT GUIDELINES
There are four principal phases to preparing your project:
- A formulation phase – when you decide on your study area, find out about your subject matter, locate data sources, and suggest a hypothesis.
- A planning phase – when you consider data handling and presentation, application of statistics, and the content and layout of your project. By this time, you should know how much data you are going to need, and how you are going to process it.
- A research phase – when you collect, process, and collate your data, apply your analyses and statistical tests and draw up your tables, graphs, and charts.
- A writing phase – when you complete the text, firm up your title, finalize your illustrations and figures, and organize your references.
Structure of the project
Your report, like most scientific writing, should follow a clearly defined structure. Specifically, it should contain the following sections, under these headings:
- Introduction and hypothesis
- Methods
- Results
- Discussion and interpretation
- Conclusions
- References and/or acknowledgments
- Appendices
You must also give your project a title (but not under the heading ‘title’). Further details of the various section are provided below