Abstract
(Start in a new page)
Two to three paragraphs describing your project, objectives, and expected results of your project. Write the abstract after you have written the report.
Introduction
(Start a new chapter)
It should show the reader the subject being investigated and give a reason for pursuing the project. It should give a brief general background to the subject area of the report and indicate the proposed development. It should give the context and scope of the project and should include your terms of reference. Informally state your objectives. Define the limits of the project, outline the method of enquiry. Write around 2 to 3 pages.

Statement of the problem
Formulate a problem that is carefully phrased and represents the single goal of the total project effort.
Always state the problem in a complete grammatical sentence with as great an economy of words as possible.
The problem should be so clearly stated that anyone could read it, understand it, and react to it without the benefit of your presence.

Objectives
Main objective
The main objective of your project. You can derive it from the statement of the research problem.

Specific objectives
The specific objectives of the project are:
• Objective 1
• Objective 2
• …
• Objective n

Importance of the project
The reason for undertaking the study. It should answer questions of what use is it? What practical value does the project have? What good is the project?

Scope and limitations of the project
Delimit the your research project: What you intend to do and do not intend to do.
State the assumptions: Offer a clear statement of all assumptions upon which the research will rest.

Methodology
A collection of theories, concepts or ideas. Rationale and philosophical assumptions that underlie the study. In software development projects, it might also include the method undertaken in the information collection, analysis and design of the system.

Tools, equipments and methods
Software tools, packages, APIs, software libraries, special environments, frameworks, etc. that are necessary to carry out the project.
Any special equipments, devices, hardware, etc. need for the project.
Any existing method such as software methods, algorithms, approaches that are needed in the project.

Time Table
Gantt chart of the faces of the project and their corresponding estimated time.

State of the art and review of related works
(Start a new chapter)
The current status of the area and topic in which you are doing your project. Review of works, projects, papers, algorithms, approaches related to your project and used in to solving the problem identified or similar problems.

Analysis
(Start a new chapter)
(This chapter changes and/or is included based on the nature of the project)
• Specify what the new system is to accomplish based on the requirements.
• The functions to be performed by the new system and their relationship with each other (function hierarchy).
• Functions which are common to more than one procedure (function network).
• List of attributes of the entities - these are the data items which need to be held about each entity (record)

Design
(Start a new chapter)
(This chapter changes and/or is included based on the nature of the project)
• Your own design based on the your methodology.
• Your own thoughts.
• What design did you end up with?
• What were the reasons for the final design?
• What were the intermediate designs that you rejected?
• Stages of design:
o preliminary or general design
o Structure or detailed design
• Tools and techniques used for designing. These tools and techniques are:
o Flowchart
o Data flow diagram (DFDs)
o Data dictionary
o Structured English
o Decision table
o Decision tree

Building the System and Testing
(Start a new chapter)
 Project management & planning.
 Approach you took to building, debugging, testing
o Rapid prototyping?
o Structured approaches
 Test program
o What test data did you use?
o Who did you test it on?
o Unit test vs. System test
o What did you change as a result of testing?

Conclusions
(Start a new chapter)
 Overview of what the project achieved
 A reflection on the whole project
 How far were the objectives achieved?
 What you would tell a student/friend about the project

Future work
(Start a new chapter or combine it with the conclusion in a chapter (Conclusion and Future Work )
• Things you wanted to do but couldn’t
• Why should you do them?
• Why didn’t you?
• What you would do in a different way & why?

Bibliography
(Start in a new page)
References such as books, papers, articles, web pages, projects, etc.
Use Microsoft office capabilities to make automatic generation of the bibliography based on the citations you make in body of the proposal. I will explain this in the class.

Appendices
(Start a new page)
 An appendix contains additional information relevant to the project but which is not essential to understand the content.
 The appendices can be consulted if the reader wishes but the report should not depend on them.
 It could include details of implementation codes, forms, interface designs, database tables, lifecycle charts, interview questions, statistical data, a glossary of terms, or other information which may be useful for the reader.
 Limit appendices to those required.