Lecture 5 - Writing a project report

Lecture 5 - Writing a project report

• 1.
  VDIS10026 Managing Design andeBusiness SANGEETA JAIN
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  Writing Project Reports
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  The project reportis a document that systematically records the entire process of a Project.
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  The purpose isto present the solution derived at and to communicate the methods used to obtain it.
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  Why a projectreport?  To systematically present facts, figures, conclusions and recommendations  To communicate the results, answers, solutions to the project problem  To give information about the process involved in the project  To explain, describe or justify the decisions made during the process  To convey the challenges and limitations of the project  To provide evidence of work  To determine further actions  To set benchmarks or to be used for evaluation
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  The problem youhave to solve is to transfer your own experiences of doing the project, and the knowledge you have gained, from your brain onto paper in a coherent, logical and correct form.
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  What to writein a project report? Typically a project report includes the following:  Introduction  About the topic/product/service  Overview of the project  Objectives and goals  Background  Any relevant/specific information about the topic  About the brand/product/service  Current market positioning/e-business systems/models  Target Audience/Competitors  Problem Statement
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  What to writein a project report?  The Plan  Your proposed plan, scope and limitations  List available resources/assets  Budget/Timeline/approvals required With reference to assessment task 3, you will also include:  Start-up funding/logistics/sales/delivery  Stakeholders/team members – roles and responsibilities  WHS legislation regulations applicable  Explain processes for identifying and managing risk in a project  Outline the process for Approvals, Taxation/ABN registration etc.
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  What to writein a project report?  The Design  The brainstorming, ideation and creation process  Design collaboration, testing and refinements  Final solution/results  Relevant observations, testing, analysis With reference to assessment task 3:  Link from where you got the website template  The process of editing the template  Justify the design decisions you made  IP/Copyright for e-business  Organisational policies and procedures
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  What to writein a project report?  Recommendations  Restate important solutions/results  Explain how the design will achieve e business goals  Recommendations to manage project finances, resources and quality  Conclusion  What was accomplished / learned  The challenges and issues you faces and perhaps solved  The techniques you applied to complete the project and product  Scope of work in the future  References
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  Must have ina project report The project report must have a cover page and table of contents You can also include:  Pictures/Graphs/Figures/Process diagrams  Pictures, photographs, sketches, screenshot of the website  Bulleted lists/Quotes/Highlights  Definitions of terms Reflections  What you learned about yourself from the project experience  How this project extended your knowledge and understanding  What you would have done differently
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  I m po r t a n t !  As a student of graphic design, writing a project report, you may believe that your final visual design solution should be the focus of a project report and that you may be penalized if it is small-scale or if it does not make grand claims of its power and functionality. This may lead to reports that are very graphic but light on reasoning. At times, students omit the reasoning because they are short of time and think the design is more important. However, this is dangerous!  What will actually give credibility to your design and eventually to the project report is the reasoning! The reader can “see” your design but will not know why it is so unless, until you do not write it. It is also impossible for the reader to know why you think of it as the best design solution if you do not explain the process, the decisions that you made during the process and WHY…
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  How to writea project report?  Precision: You must strive first to be absolutely precise. When you write, it is not sufficient that you know what you mean but what you write must not be capable of misinterpretation. Take exceptional care to choose the right word. Avoid generic words such as good, rich, young etc. Be specific! The options are to explain what you mean by good, write the range of income to define “rich” or an age group to specify “young” as you refer to in the report.  Vigour: Good writing is not only precise, however, it is vigorous, energetic! Prefer short sentences to long sentences. Prefer short words to long words, provided that the short word has the meaning you need. ``E.g.'' is overused and best used sparingly; prefer ``for instance'' or ``for example‘’. Use an active voice.
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  How to writea project report?  Spelling and grammar: Take extra care to spell correctly. Poor spelling is a distraction to the reader. You can use spell-checker programs which do a good job of finding the errors for you. Be especially careful with words whose common misspelling is a correct spelling of a different word like lead/led; loose/lose; affect/effect. If poor spelling is a distraction, poor grammar is more so. Follow the same tone and style of narration. Write well and spell well!  Typography: A variation in the size or weight in typography facilitates legibility and must be used in report writing. You should also try to split the information in paragraphs and also know the difference between the hyphen, minus, en-dash and em-dash, and when to use each of them.
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  How to writea project report?  Illustrations: Your report should generally contain illustrations (figures or diagrams or in some cases photographs) which are appropriate and relevant to the text content. It is also a good practice to include the illustrations close to the text which refers to and give it a short title. Also include a list of all tables and figures used in the report at the beginning of the report, after the table of contents.  References: References must be relevant. There are many styles for citing references. Although strict standards for citing references exist, it is more important to be consistent and complete. You can include references from websites that you may have referred to or video that you may have watched online or a book, journal or research paper. Mention all of them in your report.
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  Project report format A typical project report format has a 1 inch margins (left and right), 1 inch margins (top and bottom), 12 point times font for the main text and the text is usually fully-justified (where the letters are aligned on both the left and right) with single space for the text.  You may use these as basics for assessment task 3 however you are free to apply your judgement for other sections/headings/titles etc. The report must be presented in a proper lay out. For assessment task 3  Submit a written and pictorial report in a PDF format.
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  A Good ProjectReport A Good Report has:  A logical structure  Accurate and concise details  Clarity of thought  Relevant lists, tables, figures or graphs to support the text  Free of grammatical errors