Summary

The student must write a summary with a short background and the
major results and conclusions.
Remember that you should write the summary after writing all
other sections of the report, since here you will summarize that has
been done in other chapters.
This section should be understandable for all types of readers, and
due to this, you should avoid abbreviations or expressions that could
be unfamiliar for a general reader. The summary should also be inde-
pendent of the other sections of the report, i.e. understandable
without referring to the chapters of the report.
Include following moves in your summary:
 Why the study of the problem is important. Include a very
short background to the problem and define the problem.
 The aim of the study
 Methods and models that you have used and experiments
that you have made.
 Overview of results
 Conclusion, (e.g. how the results of the study can be used in
practice and if further studies are needed.)

Preferred Style in Summary:

 Past or past perfect tense, and passive voice
 Short and concise sentences
 No citations, tables, equations, graphs, …
 Acknowledgement

The acknowledgment should be short and only contain related work

information but not its contents. For example, give the facts about
the report's creation which does not affect the technical content. It is
appropriate to acknowledge any substantial contributions from other
individuals or organizations. It is not necessary to include an Ac-
knowledgement (or Preface) section in your report, but it is often
very useful. If not used please remove the entire page.
You can mention the possible financial support for the project. In
addition you can thank those who have helped and guided you in
your research. You may write this section in the first person (using
I).

ii
 Affirmation

This project report, Short descriptive title of the work, was written
as part of the industrial placement course (INP600) in manufacturing
engineering master programme at University West. All material in
this report, that is not my own, is clearly identified and used in an
appropriate and correct way. The main part of the work included in
this degree project has not previously been published or used for ob-
taining another degree.

__________________________________________ __________
Signature by the author Date

MyFirstName MyLastName

iii
 Contents

SUMMARY.......................................................................................................................................... II
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT........................................................................................................................ III
AFFIRMATION.................................................................................................................................... IV
CONTENTS.......................................................................................................................................... V
SYMBOLS AND GLOSSARY.................................................................................................................. VI
1 INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 BACKGROUND...................................................................................................................................1
1.2 AIM................................................................................................................................................2
1.2.1 Research question...............................................................................................................2
1.3 GUIDELINES FOR WRITING YOUR REPORT................................................................................................2
1.3.1 Order of writing...................................................................................................................2
1.3.2 Too deep structure..............................................................................................................3
1.3.3 Template.............................................................................................................................3
1.3.4 Figures.................................................................................................................................3
1.3.5 The suggested method for including Figures.......................................................................4
1.3.6 Language.............................................................................................................................4
1.3.7 Equations............................................................................................................................5
1.3.8 Program code......................................................................................................................5
1.3.9 Tables..................................................................................................................................6
2 METHODOLOGY......................................................................................................................... 7
2.1 MOVES IN THE METHODOLOGY SECTION.................................................................................................7
2.2 LANGUAGE IN THE METHODOLOGY SECTION............................................................................................7
3 RESULTS..................................................................................................................................... 9
3.1 MOVES IN THE RESULTS SECTION [1].....................................................................................................9
4 DISCUSSION OF RESULTS.......................................................................................................... 10
5 CONCLUSIONS.......................................................................................................................... 11
5.1 GENERALIZATION OF THE RESULT........................................................................................................11
5.2 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY...............................................................................................................11
5.3 FUTURE WORK AND RESEARCH...........................................................................................................11
5.4 MOVES IN THE DISCUSSION SECTION....................................................................................................11
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................... 12

Appendices
NO TABLE OF CONTENTS ENTRIES FOUND.

iv
 Symbols and glossary

[] An empty matrix.
The finite set of all physical and logical preconditions. A
task i,j can only be executed if the precondition is fulfilled,
see chapter 7.2 for a full definition.
OPC An open standard for communication of real-time plant
data between control devices from different manufactur-
ers. Formerly, but no longer, an acronym for Object Link-
ing and Embedding for Process Control.

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 Project report for Industrial placement (INP660) course
- Introduction

1 Introduction

In this chapter you should give an overview of the problem and

clarify the aim and objective of your project work. In short, this
chapter should tell the reader what your research question is
and why it is important. The remaining chapters will guide you in
answering the research question.
The space here will be used to give you guidelines about style
and format of writing your report. You should remove these
guidelines from your report before submitting it.
The introduction chapter should include following sections:
1. Background: to introduce the topic, define the termino-
logy, and establish the importance of the topic.
2. Aim: Problem that you will address:

1.1 Background
The background section deals with the theoretical background
for the project. This section is important and must exist. It must
consist of facts that the project is based on, with references to
relevant literature. This is to prove that the writer has enough
knowledge to attack the real problem later on and uses a more
scientific approach than an ad-hock approach. It must also
provide the reader with good background information to under-
stand the problem area. The purpose of this section is to deepen
the reader's knowledge. It may include formulas, facts about
technology or equipment. Any statements, formulas or fact must
be supported by a good reference.
Today it is easy to find references that are web based from
universities, companies and popular sites such as Wikipedia.
Avoid these kinds of references as far as possible. First of all,
after two or three years, the reference might be dead and point-
less. It is also much harder for the writer and the reader to judge
the quality of “free information”. For a degree project at the
masters level, the maximum number of web links should be three
(if any). It is much easier and better to refer to peer-reviewed
articles [1] and [2]. Peer-reviewed articles and standards have
been evaluated by qualified persons to determine their quality
and suitability before publication [3]. This will help the writer
(and the reader) to “trust” the content in a reference.
Try to focus on related work, what others have done in the
area before, and how it relates to the current study. In some
cases it is not possible to find references about a specific detail.
It’s then important to “zoom out” and search broader. Maybe

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 Project report for Industrial placement (INP660) course
- Introduction

search for a parallel domain that has the same theory base. All
degree projects must include good references and it is always
possible to find, discuss with your supervisor. A decent level is
10-20 scientific references for a project. A literature study must
always be carried out and is usually not addressed as a part of
the method section.
You should also in this section show that there is a gap in the
existing knowledge that will be filed, even partially, by your re-
search/technical work. This is called creating a research space.

1.2 Aim and purpose

To clarify the presentation of the problem you must state the
aims or objectives of the study. Make sure that the aims are
clear, measurable, not too many and not spread out as different
aims all over the report. Be aware that all aims should be
answered in the report. Usually, aims are at different levels, in
that case, try to formulate the overall aim and then the specific
intermediate aims to reach the overall aim. A subsection of the
introduction called aim must exist in the final report.
You should start this section with “Creating a Research
Space”, i.e. showing that there is a gap in the available literature
and some important questions are not answered, and you aim to
answer them with your work. After that you should introduce
your work and explain the problem what you will address. At the
end come up with a purpose of the entire work/report/thesis
work.

1.2.1 Research question (Optional heading)

In the research question section, you should state the research
question (or questions) and objectives of your study. Remember
that these questions should be answered in the conclusion
chapter of your report.

1.3 Guidelines for writing your report

Avoid headings after headings without a text section in-between.
In general, also avoid too small chapters and sections. Sections
that only contains two-three sentences, can usually be included
in another section/chapter.
Avoid too deep structure. The structure is to help the reader to
read and understand. If the structure contains too many levels (4
or more is not ok) it’s too hard to follow. It is usually easy to re-
structure to avoid this.

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 Project report for Industrial placement (INP660) course
- Introduction

1.3.1 Order of writing

You will naturally start your research by a discussion with your
supervisor and a literature study on the field to get a good idea
about the past works relevant to your research, and a gap in the
existing knowledge that your research intends to fill. You should
formulate the identified gap as a research question (or multiple
research questions) and bring it in the introduction chapter as It
is better to leave the introduction chapter in a draft format and
then focus on finishing the methods and results chapters. You
can then come and revise the introduction chapter based on
what you have learned and new literature that you came across
during your research work.
Based on the background studied and discussions with your
supervisor, you will be able to choose methods for answering the
research question. It is best then to describe these methods in
the methods chapter. The methods could be described by photos
of instruments, description of the equipment used, flowcharts of
operations and description of equations or formulae used or de-
veloped.
In the results chapter, include the results of your research, in
form of figures, tables and micrographs in the results chapter. It
is important to explain the figures and charts and tell how they
are related to the questions.
You can (optionally, after discussion with your supervisor and
examiner), include a separate chapter for discussion of results,
or discuss them as you present them.
After description of results, you will be ready to make conclu-
sions. Along with writing the conclusion section, you can go back
and update the introduction chapter and background chapter,
where you can position your results and conclusions more
clearly. Remember that you should answer the questions presen-
ted in the introduction chapter in the conclusions chapter.
You should write the summary of your report after finishing all
other chapters of your report.

1.3.2 Too deep structure

The introduction is a section that must exist. The purpose is to
create an interest and understanding of the problem. The intro-
duction should introduce the project, study, or whatever the re-
port is meant to describe. Begin by explaining the area or put the
research question into context. The introduction should intro-
duce the reader to the area and logically justify the problem that
the report treats. The introduction starts broad and describes the
area in general and then concludes the specific problem area.
The problem area description in a degree project shall be partic-
ularly well described, justified and explained. The beginning can
be written as a single section, but can also be broken down into

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 Project report for Industrial placement (INP660) course
- Introduction

sub-sections with sub-headings (e.g. 1.1, 1.2, etc.). A sub-section

must not be less than four lines. Whatever structure it should be,
for the reader, easy to follow and understand. An introduction
chapter less than one page is usually not ok for a degree project.

1.3.3 Template
Everything in a Word file such as headings, pictures, tables and
all the text is formatted with styles, use them. Don’t invent “your
own style”! In this document template, all styles begin with “Re-
port”. The layout and style used in this template are exactly the
same, as you should use when writing your report. To utilize the
template you must let the template work for you. Don’t try to re-
format things on your own.

A common mistake is to add an extra space (“enter” as intention-

ally done before this line). This is not ok. Do not use this tech-
nique to create space between sections or before/after headings,
a good template will fix this in the best way automatically.
In this template, the style “ReportNormalText1” shall be used
after a heading to make a normal start. For a new section, it will
automatically switch to style “ReportNormalText2” to make an
indentation for the new section (see the example of this section).
However, remember there shall be no extra “enters” line spaces
in-between section. If you look in a good textbook, you will not
find this extra “enter” spaces in-between sections. This automat-
ically switches to style “ReportNormalText2” for a new section
sometimes fails during copy/paste etc. If that happens apply “Re-
portNormalText2” manually for a new section to create the ne-
cessary indentation and to keep the style of your report.
Totally avoid colures in text sections and in figures. Depend-
ing on the substance and nature of the task follow the writing
traditions of the area. If there are many examples from the liter-
ature review part of the work, try to filter out the good ones. If
you want to start on the next page insert a “page break” (do not
add extra “enters”).

1.3.4 Figures
A figure must always be referred to in the text and put into a
context such as “see
Error: Reference source not found”. Try to put the figure as close
as possible to the text it belongs to.
Try to use the space allocated for a figure optimal, avoid
“empty white areas” if possible. Also, avoid low-resolution bit-
mapped files (e.g. BMP) since they might be hard to read. How-
ever, “super-high resolution” pictures will generate Word files
that are too big. So please use the “right” quality for the pur-
pose. Figures are treated in the same way as text, i.e., Avoid

4
 Project report for Industrial placement (INP660) course
- Introduction

Figure 1 Unfiltered (raw) measurement data from experiment

setup 1. The equation in the figure describes the trend line.
“cut and paste” of a figure from books/internet/lectures
into your report, this is plagiarism!
The required figure caption must be descriptive and help the
reader to understand the figure. Be aware that while you prob-
ably have spent hours or days to produce a figure, the reader will
interpret it in seconds or minutes. Common mistakes are lack of
information such as units, scale, coordinate systems and purpose
of the picture. Check the readability of all text in the figure.

1.3.5 The suggested method for including Figures

To add a figure make a new section by pressing enter (once
only), then paste the “picture” object in Word. The picture shall
now be anchored to the new section. Now select the picture and
change the style to “ReportFigureBottom” or “ReportFigureTop”
the figure will now be locked to a top/bottom position. A frame is
also added that surrounds the picture. Now select the picture
again but inside the frame and add a figure caption by “right-
clicking” on the picture and add figure caption and select style
“Figure”. A figure caption is now added within the frame and the
picture and caption are now grouped. However, the formatting
changes when you add a picture! Please select the picture and
then the caption and change back to the center. You can right-
click on the frame to adjust its position with respect to the “mar-
gins” and the “text”.
Now write your figure caption text, it is in bold and shall be
changed to non-bold but keep the caption Figure x. as bold, see
example
Error: Reference source not found. Optional, when the caption
is ready it is possible to group the picture and caption. In some
situations, it is safer to do so since the caption is then forced to

5
 Project report for Industrial placement (INP660) course
- Introduction

always follow the picture.

1.3.6 Language
Use British English or American English dictionary when you
write, but be consistent in your document after choosing one of
them. For most of us, including supervisors and examiners, Eng-
lish is a second language which indeed will generate a non-per-
fect English report. However, do not distribute reports with easy
to find errors. Use the built-in mechanisms to check for spelling
and grammatical errors and follow the template for formatting.
The task for the supervisor or examiner is not to correct
spelling and grammar errors, formats, bad figures, lack of
figure texts or missing reference lists. At the masters level,
this is considered as fundamental knowledge and should be
handled without any problem by the student. If such simple mis-
takes are found in the text it will be immediately returned to the
author without any further comments.
A passive voice is considered mandatory in technical/scientific
writing. Avoid writing:
“I developed an experiment for measuring the effect of the manu-
facturing process on samples.”
Instead, use the passive voice:
“An experiment was developed for measuring the effect of the
manufacturing process on samples.”

1.3.7 Equations
If you want to present some equations in the text use the word
equation system as far as possible (Insert/Equation), see Error:
Reference source not foundError: Reference source not found.
Do not try to make it by “formatting a normal text” to look like an
equation. Always introduce your variables used e.g., is the set of
all resources and a specific resource . In this example, the equa-
tions are part of the “text section” since they fit in a nice way.
Avoid subscripting (indexes) on more than one level since it does
not look nice. If the equation takes much space or is central to
for the understanding of the text use a separate line for the equa-
tion. But still treat an equation as a word in a sentence e.g. the
cutting speed () is related to the spindle speed () and tool dia-
meter () as follows:

(1)
When you use the equation editor do not change the font or
formatting but for a single row equation use the style “Re-
portEquationRow”.

6
 Project report for Industrial placement (INP660) course
- Introduction

Figure 2. Entering an equation

1.3.8 Program code

Some project aims at developing softwares. It is not unusual that
the author wish to discuss the contents of the code. However,
avoid too detailed code descriptions as far as possible in a re-
port. The reader might be unfamiliar with the specific language/
syntax used. It is better to write in more general terms such as
pseudo code or to show a flow diagram of the solution.
However, if it is necessary to show program code it must un-
derstandable for the reader. If it’s to extensive, more than half a
page, it is more suitable for an appendix. Note that extensive
program listings are usually not ok even for an appendix. Extens-
ive code sections are usually best distribute as files and cannot
be part of the degree report. For program listing use style “Re-
portCode” the numbering of lines will help you to refer to a spe-
cific line in the code. A program listing shall have a figure text as
a normal figure.

1.3.9 Tables
To add a table insert a new table from the menu ribbon. The
table shall be based on the table style “ReportTable” (default)
and the text inside the table on the style “ReportTableText”. A
table is handled almost in the same ways as a figure, i.e., a cap-
tion text must exist and the table must be referenced from the
text, see Table 1. However, the table caption must be placed be-
fore the actual table. Right-click on the table and add a caption
with the style “Table”. A table caption gets the wrong formatting
by default, so please change the style to “ReportTableDescrip-
tion”.
Table 1. Measurement of layer thickness values in from the three experi-
ments
Experiment Experiment Experiment
1 2 3
top 1.23 5.43 7.00
middle 8.32 11.23 -1.70
bottom - - 0.23
The text after a table is a problem in Word 2007/2010 and it
can’t be handled automatically. To solve this please manually ap-
ply the text style “ReportNormalTextAfterATable” to a section
after a table (never use extra enters).

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 Project report for Industrial placement (INP660) course
- Introduction

2 Methodology

The “Methodology” chapter includes the methods chosen, de-

veloped and used in your report. The alternative names for this
chapter are “The Study” or “Materials and Methods”. This
chapter should enable other researchers to repeat your work to
verify your results. The methods section will guide the reader in
how the degree work was carried out. It describes the method
step by step and usually in chronological order. As an example of
things to mention:
 Justify the choice and benefits of your method
 In what chronological order the operations conducted
 How data collection and experiments was carried out
 Development of models
 Specific tools, equipment or other resources used
 What are the sources of error and error margins
 How many experiments where made

A normal mistake is to write this section as a “diary”, avoid

this in a report. It is also possible to include the method as a sub-
section to the introduction. Talk to your supervisor about this.
Following sections or moves are expected at the methods
chapter [1]:
 Overview, summary of the research method (at the
begninig)
 Overview of the aims of the study
 Description of materials, equipment, and location of the
study
 Procedure, the process used to obtain the data
 Limitations, possible shortcoming of the method
 Data analysis, how data was analysed

2.1 Moves in the methodology section

Move 1: General introduction and overview of the materials/
methods:
 Restate the purpose of the work.
 Give the source of materials/equipment used.
 Supply essential background information.
Move 2: Specific and precise details about materials and meth-
ods (i.e. Quantities, temperatures, duration, sequence, condi-
tions, locations, sizes)
 Justify choices made.
 Indicate that appropriate care was taken.

8
 Project report for Industrial placement (INP660) course
- Introduction

Move 3: Relate materials/methods to other studies.

Move 4: Indicate where problems occurred.

2.2 Language in the methodology section

Tense: When describing the procedures, it is common to use
“past tense”.
Example: 40 samples were produced, but only 20 of them
were heat-treated.
Purpose statements usually come at the beginning of sentences:
Example: To measure the hardness after the heat treatment,
the samples were mounted and polished.

Use link phrases related to time, such as before, after, first,

then, prior to.:
Example: “….The exposed porcelain-metal interfaces were pol-
ished with successively finer sandpaper and polishing paste to a
final grit size of 0.05 pm. The samples were then rinsed with wa-
ter and mounted on SEM stubs. The effect of grit blasting the
surface of titanium with alumina particles was characterized
with SEM/EDS.” [extracted from: Gilbert, Jeremy L., David A.
Covey, and Eugene P. Lautenschlager. "Bond characteristics of
porcelain fused to milled titanium." Dental Materials10, no. 2
(1994): 134-140.]

9
 Project report for Industrial placement (INP660) course
- Introduction

3 Results

The results section presents a detailed and objective description

of the results. This can be done by showing tables, figures which
are numbered and given explanatory figure/table texts. Figure
numbering is below the figure while the tables get their number-
ing above. If tables or figures are too big or too many, the most
interesting ones are added in this section and the rest must be
placed in the appendix.
Don’t forget to state units in graphs and to use the figure area
optimally. Make sure that the numbers and axis titles are shown
with proper font size (not smaller than 10pt) in the final report.
Avoid strange/hard to read colours and symbols. It must be easy
for the reader to understand the graphs.
Remember that the what you present in the results section
should be related to your research questions that you have dis-
cussed in the introduction chapter. Revisit and align, if neces-
sary.

3.1 Moves in the results section [1]

Move 1: revisiting the research aim/existing research
 revisiting/expanding methodology
 general overview of results (Show the building first, then
discuss the bricks)
Move 2: invitation to view results
 specific/key results in detail, with or without explanations
 comparisons with results in other research
 comparison/s with model predictions
Move 3: problems with results
Move 4: possible implications of results

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 Project report for Industrial placement (INP660) course
- Introduction

4 Discussion of Results

This section must discuss the results and findings. The purpose is
to discuss and analyse the meaning of the results related to the
theoretical framework, related works and methodology. Sample
questions may be “what does the reading say and “how likely
are they”, “how can they be generalized”, “how significant are
the results”, “what are outliers”, etc. In this part personal reflec-
tions are allowed.
While in the results section you present facts and their inter-
pretations, in the discussion section you should discuss claims
that could be made, particularly, claims of new knowledge.
Rather than summarizing your work (that is done in another sec-
tion), you step back and present a big picture of your findings
and how it relates to the main field and the real world. Because
of this, the discussion section covers implications and applica-
tions.

11
 Project report for Industrial placement (INP660) course
- Introduction

5 Conclusions

The final aim of the study is to make conclusions from what is

implemented, tested or measured. Discuss and answer the aims
and research question formulated in the introduction. The con-
clusions drawn should refer to the initial aims, objectives, literat-
ure and problems and obtained results. The validity of the con-
clusions should also be discussed and evaluated.

5.1 Generalization of the result

Discuss how general the results are and if they can be useful in
other areas. How unique is this study?

5.2 Limitations of the study

Tell which limitations exist about the study.

5.3 Future work and research

It is common to conclude with a section on future work, either as
part of the conclusion section or as a new chapter. It is some-
times important to recognize how the project can move forward
in solving future problems.

5.4 Moves in the discussion section

Swales and Feak suggest following moves in a discussion section
[1]. Some of these moves are included in the headings for the
subsections in this chapter.
1. Background information such as research purpose, the-
ory, methodology… (optional). This is to present the re-
search space.
2. Summary of key results (obligatory)
3. Commenting on the key results (obligatory). This could
include answering the “Research question” and making
claims, explaining results, comparing your work with the
previous studies, or offering alternative explanations.
4. Discussing the limitations of the study (optional)
5. Making recommendations for future implementations or
future research (optional)
Moves 2 and 3 should make up most of the discussion section.
Creating separate headings for these moves are not necessary,
but they are best presented by separate paragraphs.

12
Project report for Industrial placement (INP660) course
- Introduction

13
 Project report for Industrial placement (INP660) course
- Introduction

References

[1 J. M. a. F. C. B. Swales, Academic writing for graduate stu-

] dents: Essential tasks and skills, Ann Arbor, MI: University of
Michigan Press , 2012.
[2 N. Xu, H. S. Huang and Y. K. Rong, “Automatic setup plan-
] ning: current state-of-the-art and future perspective,” Interna-
tional Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Managment,
vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 193-208, 2007.
[3 R. Stryczek, ”A Hybrid Approach for Manufacturablilty Analy-
] sis,” Advances in Manufacturing Science and Technology, vol.
35 , nr 3, pp. 55-70, 2011.
[4 International Standard, ”IEC 61131 Programmable controller
] - Part 3: Programming Languages,” IEC, nr 2nd ed., 2003.

14
Degree Project for Master of Science with specialization in manufac-
turing
Short descriptive title of the work - Appendix

A. Appendix

The appendices gather everything that is not necessary to be able to

follow and understand the main part of the report. An appendix
might include detailed information such as tables of measured data,
calculations, program codes etc. It can also include figures that are
too large to insert in the text. An appendix is an independent docu-
ment and pages are numbered separately from the rest of the docu-
ment or other appendices.
Extensive program listings or measurement sets are usually not ok
even for an appendix. It is impossible to read and interpret. These
are usually best distributed as files and cannot be part of the degree
report.

Appendix A:1
Degree Project for Master of Science with specialization in manufac-
turing
Short descriptive title of the work - Appendix

B. Appendix

Delete all appendixes if not needed.

Appendix A:1