Project & Dissertation Resources

Some of the links below are to articles I've written or resources that I maintain; some are links to external sources. As you can see, they are grouped by topic.

Starting on a Project

• Still can't think of a topic?
  When I was undergraduate project coordinator, I used to get a lot of students coming to me asking what topic they could do for a project. This article summarises what I said to them.
• Writing a Project Proposal
  An article I wrote that gives you an overview of what should be in a undergraduate project proposal.
• Web Applications as Projects (PDF)
  An article by David Sutton concerning the size and scope of undergraduate projects involving web-based applications.

Working on your Project

• Projects in Computing and Information Systems: A Student's Guide, by Christian Dawson (Addison Wesley, 2005).
  I haven't read this particular book but I have seen an earlier book by Dawson on this topic, which was useful.
• A Student's Guide to WWW Research
  A guide to searching, finding and using information produced using the WWW.
  Author: Craig Branham at the Department of English, Saint Louis University, USA.

Writing a Project Report

As well as the guidance listed in the undergraduate project handbook and on the projects website, check out the following:

• How (NOT) to write a project report (PDF)
  These are some slides of a talk I gave log ago in Feb 2005, when I used to be undergraduate projects coordinator. Some of the information right at the end is out of date, but the basic advice about writing reports still stands. Also includes some advice for producing posters.
• Referencing for a Computing Project Report
  This article is what you need to know about referencing when it comes to your project/dissertation write up. It tells you what citations of references are, and why you should reference, and answers common questions about referencing. For the nuts-and-bolts details of how you do referencing in a computing project report, it also points you to good resources elsewhere on the web.
• Project Report Writing: A Checklist
  I get asked a lot about various aspects of writing undergraduate project reports by students I supervise. This article is one of what will be a series of articles on project and dissertation writing. It's a checklist which you can print out and tick things off when you've done them. The information is aimed at undergraduates but is also relevant to MSc dissertations.
  
• Guidelines and suggestions for the project report
  A guide written by Norah Power for students in the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, at the University of Limerick. Apart from a small amount of advice specific to the University of Limerick about assessment, this guide contains lots of useful advice specifically for reports on computing projects.
• Chart Format Guide (.pdf)
  Some project reports call for data to be presented. This short but useful guide from the UK Parliament goes over the basics of how to present chart data clearly.

Producing a Project Poster

• The Poster Site
  This site by Ned Carter & Kenneth Nilsson (University Hospital, Uppsala, Sweden) is specially about producing good scientific poster presentations.
• Brookes Computing Projects Poster Gallery
  43 examples of posters by Brookes students for computing projects.