Some comments on writing up third year projects

Frank E. Ritter
2-Jun-98

I've marked and moderated a bunch of third year projects this year
that made simple errors (or easily corrected errors) that cost some of
them a significant amount of marks.

* Plan your analysis before running your experiment.  This may mean
  obtaining and running the software to do this, or it may just mean
  thinking about what data to gather.  The amount of time and level of
  preparation necessary varies by study, but not doing it shows up
  clearly too often.

* Include all your references.

* Don't copy or plagiarise.  You don't always hear when it gets
  caught, but you lose a lot.

* Make it clear why this is an important project, and make it clear
  what your contribution is.  Write so that another third year can
  follow your arguments in this area.

* Run your project through a spell corrector.

* Put your descriptive statistics first.  What are the main findings?
  And only then, are they likely to be reproduced?  Results go in the
  body, data might go in an appendix.  Do some analsyis of your data,
  don't just report a single ANOVA.

* Acknowledge help and the papers you read that influenced your
  thinking. 

* Use headings appropriately.

* Use your supervisor.  They probably know more.

* Read more than 5 papers.

* Work hard over a long period of time.