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Notes in CS Project Report Writing

Some Notes on Computing Project Report Writing

Report Structure

The relevant project rules pages indicate the required structure of your report.

From the Honours Student Resources page, you can obtain a LaTeX template for a thesis; this has an appropriate structure for research-oriented projects.

Proper Citation and Avoiding Plagiarism

In order to write your report, you will use various sources of information, including relevant research papers, technical reports, books, web pages and possibly previous eScience project reports. It is essential that when you are quoting the exact words, summarising, paraphrasing or even using an idea / result from another source that you properly attribute the source. This must be done by citing the source at each such point and including full details of the source in the Bibliography section of your report. The Harvard citation style is preferred.

Otherwise, your report may be marked down for insufficient attribution. In its most severe form, this may be regarded as plagiarism, and could result in you failing your project! Plagiarism can easily occur when the electronic form of papers are available, and sections of text can be cut-and-paste from one document to another. This is quite easily detected by an experienced reader (such as you can expect when your report is examined!). Plagiarism is regarded as a very serious offence in academic circles!

Text taken from directly another source should be properly quoted, as well as cited. It should be limited to small amounts as well, and comprise of only highly relevant and crucial ideas. Otherwise, everything else in your reports should be in your own words (with citations, where required); this will indicate whether you understand what you are writing about.

Further Sources of Information

Justin Zobel, Writing for Computer Science, 2nd Edition, Springer, 2004. ISBN 1852338024.
This is an excellent book on technical writing for computer science, covering issues such as writing style, presentation of mathematics and code, graphs and tables, principles of experimentation, ethics and giving presentations.
Specifically, it has sections on references and citation, quotation, acknowledgements and plagiarism that should be read.
Research School of Computer Science Handbook (available from the Project Co-ordinator).
In Appendix B (Style Guide for Written Assignments)
Academic Skills and Learning Centre Online Resources contains useful articles, including Oral presentations: Review seminars, Academic Writing: Literature reviews & Research Proposals, and Time and Project Management..
It also has sections on Referencing (especially documents on the Harvard citation style, and when you need to reference), and Plagiarism.