The research project consists of six compulsory components, each with its own value and associated penalties for incompleteness:

Project proposal

The project proposal is a 3-5 page document that outlines the work to be completed during the research project. There is no mandatory/fixed structure for the research proposal, but it should provide adequate background material to understand the research area, motivate the specific problem the project is focusing on, list and address the open questions the work will examine, state the aims the project wishes to achieve, and discuss a plan for completing the work in the given time-frame.

Project Summary

The project summary is a short 1-2 paragraph overview that outlines the aims, significance, and expected outcomes of the project. The summary will be added to your personal entry on the 4th year web-site and will present an overview of your project to the general public. Hence, the summary should be written in plain language and should be free of any specific technical jargon.

Revised project proposal

The revised project proposal is a revision of the original project proposal updated in the light of work undertaken in the first part of the research project.

Literature Review

The literature review is a 6-10 page document a selected body of work related to the work to be completed during the research project. The literature review must review what has already been achieved in the research area, identify the research question and justify the needs of the research project.

There is a soft requirement on the number of references and the maximum length allowed for the literature review, which is governed by the points value of the research project unit being completed:

24 point research projects:

5,000 - 6,000 words

10 - 20 references

The word limits include the reference section. You can justify and seek support from your supervisor(s) if your word limit is severely under or over the limit. See the marking rubric

Dissertation

The dissertation is a 30-50 page document that describes the work achieved during the research project. The dissertation should detail the work and scholarship carried out during the year. The dissertation must review what has already been achieved in the research area, clearly stating what additional contributions have been made by this project.

The maximum length allowed for the dissertation is governed by the points value of the research project unit being completed:

Literature reivew will be assessed by one examiner in consultation with your supervisor(s).

24 point research projects:

up to 15,000 words

around 20 references

excluding any appendices. Appendices typically consist of derivations, theorems, lemmas, concise code extracts, concise data sets, series of graphs or tables, etc. considered non-essential to understanding the core material of the dissertation. If the material is essential to understand the dissertation, it should not appear in an appendix - it should appear in the body of the dissertation. Any large sections of text appearing as an appendix may be considered as an attempt to circumvent the word limit.

Project dissertations will be assessed by two examiners. An overview of the assessment criteria is here.

Seminar

The seminar is an oral presentation of the work achieved during the research project. The presentation should run for about 25 minutes (including software demonstration if appropriate), with an additional 5 minutes allocated for questions and changeover. The following marking rubric gives an indication of the seminar will be assessed.

Poster

The poster is a glossy A1-ish sized page summarising the main achievements of the research project. The poster acts as a form of "advertisement" for the honours dissertation. See the marking rubric.

Corrected dissertation

Completed 4th year dissertations are added to the Department Library at the end of each year to form a record of the work achieved by the research project. In order to present your work at a high standard, project examiners may point out minor errors in the production of the dissertation which must be corrected and returned to the 4th Year Coordinator by the due date, timed to correspond to the end of the examination period. Final grades and degrees (and therefore graduation) will not be released until the corrected dissertation has been received.