William Pickton Anthropology - 1495 Words

After reading the article in assignment one, complete the following questions. 1. Analyse the behaviour of William Pickton using the three different social science perspectives. Choose one theory from psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Using each perspective, write a one page analysis of the behaviour of William Pickton. Write a perspective for each social theory (three pages in total). 2. Write a hypothesis to research a serial murderer using the following social science theories: Psychoanalysis, Functionalism, and Feminism. For example, a Marxist could look at the economic inequalities as a means of promoting a feeling of helplessness. This helpless feeling could promote feelings of anger against anyone who possesses any†¦show more content†¦The RCMP became involved in 2001. The families also say police neglected the cases because many of the women were prostitutes and drug addicts. It wasnt until August of 2001 that Vancouver police began hinting that a serial killer could be responsible for the disappearance of the missing women. At the time 31 women had vanished, but four had been accounted for and two of those were confirmed dead. Dr. Elliott Leyton, an anthropology professor at Memorial University in St. Johns, Newfoundland, who wrote a book on serial killers called Hunting Humans, says that police are rightly reluctant to identify serial murders because public panic often follows. Responsible people have to be careful about making wild pronouncements about possible serial killers, Leyton says. And when we are not sure if it is true, then it is inappropriate to throw people into a state of panic. Prostitution is a very dangerous profession and many of the people in it are wanderers and not well-connected to any conventional system of government controls or social services. So they can drift away from the system without being noticed for a very long time, even when nothing may have actually happened to them. 5. Leyton argues that it may be irresponsible to assume that a serial killer may be at work in Vancouver. The RCMP task force has repeatedly said that it cannot speak about the ongoing investigation and only concedes that a serial killer may be

Modern US history Free Essays

As an intellectual enterprise, contemporary social sciences are replete with claims of social collapse. Over the last 20 years, scholars have proclaimed â€Å"the end of history,† â€Å"the end of politics,† â€Å"the end of work,† â€Å"the end of the family,† â€Å"the end of liberalism,† â€Å"the end of medicine,† â€Å"the end of ideology,† â€Å"the end of individualism.† There is little doubt that we are experiencing massive social change. We will write a custom essay sample on Modern US history or any similar topic only for you Order Now As we are approaching the year’s end, something new is emerging, helter-skelter, in our midst that bears little resemblance to any existing political, theological, or sociological model of how the world is supposed to work. The social shifts are sufficiently different in character to have produced a new social form, one suitably widespread and anchored to become visible. This claim of a new social form lies at the heart of the postmodern contention that we have entered an era of ambiguity, and we argue that postmodernists advance this claim in a way that sociologist cannot ignore. While they are right on target in capturing the spirit of rapid social change that characterizes the present era, their embrace of the resulting â€Å"chaos† as a new social form is misguided: they mistake an era of societal transition for a new enduring social structure or even a hybrid of modern society. In historical perspective, what we are now experiencing bears a striking similarity to the place on the cultural and historical map that created sociology at the end of the last century. Rising suicide rates, the growing prominence of Protestant countries and the subsequent demise of Catholicism’s hold on the Western world, and the movement from agricultural to industrial production all have their parallels in the current social era. Rather than embracing the change and ambiguity they surveyed, and mistaking it for what â€Å"modern† society would be. One of the major tasks of sociology at the turn of this year is to struggle to understand the new institutional and personal structures that characterize contemporary social forms and not abdicate to other disciplines the task of making sense of emergent societal transitions and structures. A widespread belief seems to be emerging that the U.S. economy is in the throes of a fundamental transformation. The true enthusiasts treat the new economy as a fundamental industrial revolution as great or greater in importance than the concurrence of inventions, particularly electricity and the internal combustion engine, which transformed the world at the turn of the year. There is no dispute that the U.S. economy is awash in computer investment that productivity has revived. Economists have long been ambivalent about what social interactions constitute the proper domain of the discipline. The narrower view has been that economics is primarily the study of markets, a circumscribed class of institutions in which persons interact through an anonymous process of price formation. Throughout much of the twentieth century, mainstream economics traded breadth for rigor. In the first half of the century, institutional economics, which thought broadly but loosely about social interactions, gradually gave way to the neoclassical theory of general competitive markets. A pivotal development was the transformation of labor economics from a field narrowly concerned with work for pay into one broadly concerned with the production and distributional decisions of families and households. The important development was the emergence in macroeconomics of endogenous growth theory. Whereas classical growth theory assumed that the production technology available to an economy is exogenous, endogenous growth theory supposes that today’s technology may depend have been influenced by the past output of the economy. The broadening of economic theory has coincided with new empirical research by economists on social interactions. Unfortunately, the empirical literature has not shown much progress. Economics has sufficed with a remarkably small set of basic concepts: preferences, expectations, constraints and equilibrium. Widespread literacy is alleged to be indispensable to popular government. Dramatic changes in communication technologies which are said to affect exposure to traditional print media-we need to look afresh at reading’s political impact. Learning to read is a political act. Inability to read limits an individual’s participation in community life. It was probably for this reason that slaves in the antebellum South were kept illiterate. Even today, a connection between literacy and citizenship exists in evidence showing that persons who read are more likely than those who do not identify with larger political communities. American people are haunted by Old World hegemonies and hence are committed to individualism and modernism for philosophical and practical reasons. American people are a restless and contentious lot producing a kaleidoscope of attitudes about most social issues. The American people can be found in the election turnout figures and in gross economic indicators, to e sure, but they are more than that; they are also the meanings of their behaviors. Raised on a diet of political supremacy and technocratic invincibility, the American people were shaken to the core by 9/11. Shortly thereafter, a number of bromides caught the national ear: â€Å"America has lost its innocence forever,† â€Å"this is the first war of the twenty-first century,† â€Å"the U.S. just joined the world of nations.† At some point, history may prove these claims true. But 9/111 has already shown something more heartening: the functionality of a longstanding communal discourse. Admittedly, that discourse is shot through with contradictions and impossible overstatements. That contradictions and overstatements can prove sustaining to a people is a curious fact-an American fact. Reference: Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States. Available on-line: http://www.historyisaweapon.com/zinnapeopleshistory.html. How to cite Modern US history, Essay examples

Auditing Luxury Travel Holidays Ltd

Question: Discuss about theAuditingfor Luxury Travel Holidays Ltd. Answer: In relation to the first scenario, the CEO of Luxury Travel Holidays Ltd (LTH) had directly stated that they would consider a path of the reappointment of Clarke and Johnson as an auditor, only on the condition if CL would assist in procuring more businesses by offering a lecture in the upcoming seminar about the companys effective performance. Furthermore, in the given situation, CL being the companys independent auditor is not being permitted to express their judgment or opinion upon the companys financial statements. Besides, they are under an immense pressure to conduct such activity because of fear of losing their reappointment. In relation to the second scenario, the companys CEO is providing a gift in kind together with specified audit fees to the auditors with an intention of attaining smooth audit processes (Blay et. al, 2011). However, it is shocking to observe that by a smooth audit process, the CEO referred to an unfair audit opinion to the stakeholders. Hence, this impli es a situation of familiarity threat that means the CEO is willing to alter the judgment of the auditors, as they have been working like a family with the company since a long time (Mock et. al, 2013). In relation to the third situation, another case of familiarity threat can be witnessed, as an auditor will be a part of an audit process, whose father is already working in the company as a financial controller. In this case, Michael as an auditor would have to review the work performed by his own father. This implies that Michael would not report any fraudulent activities performed by his own father or by the company as a whole, as it would result in his fathers termination of the job together with that of other employees. Nevertheless, in the current phase, an auditors fair judgment is not anticipated, and would ultimately result in an unfair audit process. In relation to the fourth scenario, it can be observed that CL had been appointed as an auditor of the LTH, wherein Annette was on assignment for conducting computations of tax and preparing entries in order to accommodate these in the financial statements of 30 June 2015. In the current case, Annette has been opted to work wit h the audit team, and therefore, she must review her own undertaken activities. Hence, in relation to this case, the biggest threat prevailing is self-review threat. This is because an individual whether being an auditor or not, cannot analyze or assess his or her own doings. In other words, effectiveness can be achieved if another individual evaluates the doings of a specific individual (Coram et. al, 2011). In relation to the above situations, an auditor can implement various safeguards. Firstly, in the first situation, the safeguard is that the auditors conducting the process of an audit of the company must be appropriately selected because any individual possessing an interest (financial or personal) in the company cannot conduct an unbiased audit. Secondly, in the second situation, the best available safeguard is the rotation process of the senior members of the audit team. In addition, an efficient communication to the senior authority of the organization or the CEO must be offered in relation to non-acceptance of gifts in kind (Church et. al, 2008). Thirdly, in the third situation, the most appropriate safeguard is the consideration of rules and regulations mentioned in the SOX Act, wherein it is stated that an auditor cannot perform their role as the management. Moreover, the auditor must also conduct personal touch with the independent committee of the audit, and thereafter, repo rt the advocacy risk of promoting clients. Lastly, in the fourth situation, the job performed by Annette must be taken into due consideration by any other chartered accountant in order to establish an independent judgment. Besides, Annette being an accountant must not be a member of the audit team, thereby avoid performing the audit for LTH. In relation to the given situation wherein product demand could not be determined in association with the offering of maintenance services to the customers for two consecutive years since the product purchase, the first key business risk can be attributed to overstatement or understatement of the requirement of spare parts. In relation to such risk, as every product comprises of a two-year warranty, Mining Supplies Ltd (MSL) must have to efficiently evaluate the quantity for the purchase of spare parts because it comes from faraway sources that might have immense lead time. Therefore, it is the sole duty of the management to evaluate the adequate quantity of spare parts because if not, it can result in fund blockage, thereby resulting in a decline of purchased quantities of the equipment. Furthermore, the company would also disrupt the free spaces of its warehouses due to the spare parts that in reality would have been utilized after two years. In addition, the company might also los e its interest income that could have been procured if fund blockage would not have arisen in relation to spare parts. Due to such inappropriate expectation of demand for spare parts, the financial statements of the company including its profit and loss and balance sheet would also be influenced. Moreover, the company would also lose its efficient position to encounter its competitors in the market, as it was not able to provide an adequate quantity of equipment to its customers. The second business risk relates to the risk of theft and fraud that can arise when the company will procure its goods from international markets, and when it directs its workforce to distant areas for maintenance services after customers purchase its products. Besides, such maintenance services will occur until the completion of two years from the purchase of equipment. Therefore, the quantum of fraud and theft in association with the equipment must be duly taken into account for the past three years in order to determine whether the company is agreeing to any affairs to trim such scenario (Hoffelder, 2012). Moreover, experiences of past years can be considered to ascertain whether the company has agreed to any insurance policies in opposition to such thefts and frauds. Further, such policies entered must be viewed in relation to purchasing of quantities and if, it was truly vital to agree on such insurance policies. In lieu of the business risks identified above, the audit risk that plays an important part in the scenario relates to misstatements of the companys financials. Being an auditor, since such risk directly relates to the conditions incorporated with the sale, he must be able to recognize whether the sale price of the product is required to be declined by the expenses of spare parts, or it must be highlighted as an expense in the companys profit and loss account (Bedard, 2014). Furthermore, such spare parts could not collaborate under stock-in-trade because a portion of such spare parts that has been procured free warranty will be clubbed under liquid assets. Moreover, there are spare parts that are not covered by the company under maintenance of equipment. The company would depict these under the sale of spare parts. Furthermore, prior care must be provided in relation to maintenance contracts because an auditor can procure immense knowledge regarding the kind of spare parts that are c hargeable as an expense and those which can assist in generating income for the company. Therefore, as the spare parts that could have otherwise been charged as an expense, if unintentionally or intentionally depicted as revenues, it would result in overstating the companys revenues, thereby offering falsified information to the stakeholders (Carcello, 2012). Similarly, if such spare parts that could have otherwise been charged as revenues, if shown as an expense, it would result in overstating the companys expenses or understating the companys profits, thereby again resulting in decline of stakeholders earned dividends, manipulation of taxes being paid to the government, etc (Wright Charles, 2012). In association with the second risk regarding the risk of fraud of theft, as the company mechanics or engineers does not exist on its payroll, appropriate scrutiny of them is not done effectively (Holland Lane, 2012). These engineers take the spare parts with them that could be utilized by the customers in relation to warranty services, but there is always a possibility of theft regarding such spare parts. Therefore, the auditor must not only observe whether such spare parts and the equipment are incorporated in the insurance policy but also the time when these are sold to the final customers. The auditor must also take the cost effect of such insurance into consideration. Besides, one crucial perspective that must be duly considered is that whether the company is endeavoring into making fraudulent agreements with its contractors for destroying or stealing its products, thereby procuring insurance claims out of such. Furthermore, because mobile contractors travel to distant location s, it consumes immense time that could lead towards manipulation of facts and inappropriate financials, thereby hampering the faith and trust in the companys auditors (Tepalagul Lin, 2015). Therefore, it is the duty of auditors to travel to such distant locations themselves in order to evaluate the expenses as provided by the mobile contractors. References Bedard, J. N, Gonthier, B, Schatt, A. (2014). Costs and Benefits of Reporting Key, Harvard Press Blay, A. D Geiger, M. A. North, D. S. ( 2011). The Auditor's Going-Concern Opinion as a Communication of Risk. Auditing: A Journal of Practice Theory, 30 (2): 77- 102. Carcello, J. (2012). What do investors want from the standard audit report? CPA Journal 82 (1),7. Church, B., Davis, S. McCracken, S. (2008). The auditors reporting model: A literature overview and research synthesis. Accounting Horizons, 22(1), 69-90. Coram, P, Mock, T. J, Turner, J. Gray, G. (2011). The communicative value of the auditors report. Australian Accounting Review 21(3), 235-252. Holland, K. Lane, J. (2012). Perceived auditor independence and audit firm fees, Accounting and Business Research. 42(2), 115-141. Hoffelder, K. (2012). New Audit Standard Encourages More Talking. Harvard Press. Mock, T. J, Bdard, J, Coram, P, Davis, S, Espahbodi, R. Warne, R. (2013). The audit reporting model: Current research synthesis and implications. Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory, 32, 323-351. Tepalagul, N. Lin, L. (2015). Auditor Independence and Audit Quality A Literature Review, Journal of Accounting, Auditing Finance, 30(1), 101-121. Wright, M.K. Charles, J. (2012). Auditor independence and internal information systems audit quality, Business Studies Journal. 4(2), 63-84.

Prepare a Report Essay Example

Prepare a Report Essay How to Write a Project Report 1. Why is the report important? If you wish to secure a good mark for your project, it is absolutely essential that you write a good report. It is the report which is marked, not the program or anything else you might have constructed during the project period. No matter how significant your achievements, if you do not write up your work, and write it up well, you will obtain a poor mark. It is essential to understand that the report will be read and marked by a number of examiners (normally 2 4), only one of whom your supervisor will have any familiarity with the work which the report describes. Examiners are not mind-readers, and cannot give credit for work which you have done but not included in the report. 2. What are the examiners looking for? Each project report is marked initially by two examiners, one of whom is the supervisor. Each examiner fills in an online  mark form, giving marks for various aspects of the report and an overall mark. Studying the mark sheet will give you a good idea of what aspects of the report are important. The notes to examiners which accompany the mark sheet use the terms perfect, quite good, abysmal and so on to describe the attributes of a particular numerical mark (e. . 5 is satisfactory). There is a separate document which goes into great detail about what precisely satisfactory means in particular contexts, but Im not sure that these definitions are widely used: most examiners believe that they have an accurate and objective understanding of what is satisfactory. Note that supervisors might specify on the mark sheet that a particular aspect of the project is to be assessed for example, a review of the project area even if that area is not covered in the project report. We will write a custom essay sample on Prepare a Report specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Prepare a Report specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Prepare a Report specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Decisions on what is to be assessed are the supervisors responsibility, but you should be aware of the standard headings, think carefully about what you present (or do not present) under each, and discuss and agree it with your supervisor. Remember that your report is an academic dissertation, not a popular article or commercial proposal. For example, rather than describing only a series of events and a final product, try to establish criteria, present arguments, derive principles, pose and answer questions, measure success, analyse alternatives nd so on. Where a project has been undertaken with industrial support, the significance of that support for the project, and the relevance of the project to the supporting industry, should be discussed. 3. The mechanics of writing The problem you have to solve is this: 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. There are several ways of achieving this. Different authors have different techniques. My own method, which I think is quite common among technical authors, is to write as quickly as I can, without regard for coherency, structure or order, until I have written down (or rather, typed in) all the points I can think of. If my brain is running faster than my fingers and a thought pops into my head which belongs in another part of the document, I skip to the end of the page and insert a few words there to remind me to expand that point later, then resume where I was. The aim is to transfer as much relevant material from brain to paper as quickly as possible. This method has been called the brain dump. It is practised, I think, by some writers of fiction as well as by technical authors. After three hours of brain dumping I might have four or five pages of disorganized text. I then spend perhaps six hours putting the text into order and tightening up the prose, after which I might have three pages of good-quality prose. This method of writing is an iterative process, with periods of brain dumping alternating with periods of tidying-up. At the rate of three pages of polished text every nine hours, a typical 60-page PR3 project report will take you about four weeks to complete, working full-time. You must allow time to prepare the appendices (e. g. program listings) and illustrations. Good-quality illustrations, in particular, take a long time to prepare. You should therefore allow at least  six weeks  to write the report. If you kept a note-book during the project period, you will find the writing-up process much easier. 4. How to write well Many students appear not to realize how difficult it is to write well. Any type of writing (except perhaps advertising copy) is difficult, but technical writing is particularly hard. There are many books which address the subject of good technical writing. By far the best among those which I have seen is  Scientists Must Write  by Robert Barrass (1982). Though published over twenty years ago, this superb little book is still in print. There are several copies in the J. B. Morrell library, but since it costs only ? 11. 19 (from the  Internet Bookshop), you would be well advised to buy a copy and to read it from cover to cover. 4. 1. Precision You must strive first to be absolutely precise. When you write, it is not sufficient that  you  know what you mean; neither is it sufficient that your writing admits of the meaning which you intend: it must admit of no other meaning. What you write must not be capable of misinterpretation. Take exceptional care to choose the right word for the occasion. Do not, for example, write optimum if you mean good. Approximate means close, so very approximate means very close which is not what many people seem to think it means. 4. 2. Vigour Precision in writing is mainly a matter of taking sufficient care. Good writing is not only precise, however, it is  vigorous, and that is much harder to achieve. It helps if you have read widely, especially novels. Here are some hints which might help you to write forcefully and vigorously. Prefer short sentences to long sentences. Prefer short words to long words, provided that the short word has the meaning you need. Terseness is a great virtue in technical writing. (But dont go too far; remember Horaces observation: Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio. ) Avoid circumlocutions. In almost all sectors of the computing marketplace can be replaced in most contexts by almost everywhere. The question of whether to use the passive voice in technical writing is a thorny one. Most older writers still write a program was written rather than I wrote a program . Many of your examiners might share this preference for, or prejudice in favour of, the passive voice, but this style is passing out of favour in all technical writing, and I advise you not to use it. Whatever you do, do not use the royal we (we wrote a program when you mean I wrote a program). There is general agreement that Latin phrases are best avoided in technical writing (but the occasional Latin quotation might lend a spurious air of erudition! ) Nevertheless, many careful writers have their own favourite Latin phrases which find occasional use. The best rule is that a Latin phrase is acceptable if it abbreviates a circumlocutionary English phrase. Mutatis mutandis, for example, one of my own favourites, is permissible in place of making the appropriate changes, since any English gloss seems to be ugly and unwieldy. I. e. (note the roman font and punctuation) is often useful in place of in other words or that is, and is widely understood. Quite often, however, X, i. e. ,  Y can be replaced by Y, because the writer realized while writing  X  that  Y  said the same, only better. E. g. is overused and best used sparingly; prefer for instance or for example. 4. 3. Spelling and grammar You must take exceptional care to spell correctly. Poor spelling is a distraction to the proficient reader. In most cases there is very little excuse nowadays for spelling errors; there are many excellent spell-checker programs which make a good job of finding the errors for you, and excellent (paper) dictionaries which will tell you wh at the correct spelling is. Be especially careful with words whose common misspelling is a correct spelling of a different word, in particular the following pairs: lead/led; loose/lose; affect/effect. It is dangerous to allow the spell-checker to correct a misspelling by itself; many such hilarious corrections have been reported, for example recently in  New Scientist. Believe the spell-checker. Very many people, for example, on finding that the spell-checker questions idiosyncracy [sic], say to themselves it must be missing from the dictionary file, and leave the word alone. It is for a good reason. If you have a medical condition which makes it difficult for you to spell correctly, make sure that your supervisor knows about it, so that it can be taken into account by the examiners. If poor spelling is a distraction which impedes understanding, poor grammar is more so. There are so many potential grammatical solecisms that it would be inappropriate to attempt to list them here. Read Fowlers  Modern English Usage  for guidance. This book has been revised several times since its first publication in 1926. The most recent (1998) edition is probably the best to use, not because its recommendations are more permissive or up-to-date, but because it draws attention to traps which it would not have occurred to Fowler in 1926 that anyone could fall into. The original 1926 edition is famous for its vigorous, fiery language, which has been successively watered down in later revisions. Take care with apostrophes. Historically, the apostrophe denoted the omission of one or more letters: dont = do not, Johns book = John his book. For this reason, careful writers of British English restrict the possessive use of the apostrophe to animate possessors. You may write Johns book but not the programs function, since (so the argument goes) one cannot write the program his function: you must write the function of the program instead. This rule is being steadily eroded under American influence, and will probably soon be obsolete. I mention the animate possessor rule in order to illustrate and to explain a very common blunder. Never  use an apostrophe with a possessive pronoun. Its means it is (the letter thats omitted is an i),  not  it his, which is plain silly. One never sees spurious apostrophes in his, hers, ours, yours, theirs; so why does one so often see its in place of its, which is the correct possessive pronoun? The brain of the experienced reader, on seeing its, performs a lexical-level macro-expansion, replacing its by it is. This then fails to make syntactic sense in the context, necessitating a backtracking and re-parsing operation, and conscious expenditure of effort. It really does slow down, and consequently annoy, the reader. This crass and ignorant blunder probably does more to distract and to impede the reader of students reports than any other grammatical solecism. Summary: its = it is (needed rarely, if at all, in formal writing). Its is the pronoun (This is my program. Its purpose is to .) You almost certainly mean its. Even if you yourself do not place a strong emphasis on good spelling and good grammar, most of your examiners do, some fanatically. Most examiners will be irritated by poor spelling and poor grammar. It is always worth doing whatever you can, short of bribery, to put your examiner in a good mood. Write well and spell well, for this reason if for no other! 4. 4. Typography When I prepared my own final-year project report, I wrote it with pen and ink and handed the manuscript to the departmental secretary who typed it for me on an IBM typewriter. Modern practice is different, and now you yourself are responsible for producing a computer-typeset report. This means that you must be familiar both with the formal requirements set out in the Students Handbook (restricting the number of pages, type size, width of margins, and so on) and with the rudiments of typography. You will not be penalized severely, if at all, if you violate typographical conventions, but good typography creates a subliminal impression akin to that of good proportion in a painting, and is desirable for that reason. Since it is a matter of simply learning and following the rules, you should try to do so. You should learn at least enough (for example) to know the difference between the hyphen, minus, en-dash and em-dash, and when to use each of them. The best and most famous typographical reference book is  Rules for compositors and readers at the University Press, Oxford  by Horace Hart, known colloquially and universally as Harts Rules. It is a small book which you should probably read from cover to cover, but you may skip the section on Russian orthography if your report contains no Russian words. This book, like Fowler, has been revised continually since its first publication (in 1904, though it was in use within the O. U. P. ince 1893). The latest edition is dated 1983. It is still in print, almost a century after its first publication, and at ? 8. 79 (from the  Internet Bookshop), well worth buying. 4. 5. Illustrations Your report should generally contain illustrations (figures or diagrams), but they must be relevant. Ask yourself if the illustration helps the reader to un derstand the text. If the text is readily comprehensible without the illustration, delete the illustration. If it is not, it is usually better to make the text clearer than to add a diagram. All illustrations should be prepared by an appropriate program, such as  pic,  xfig  or  grap. They should not be hand-drawn. The only common exception to this rule is circuit diagrams: given the current state of the art in schematic-entry packages, a hand-drawn circuit diagram is usually preferable to a computer-drawn one. If possible, include figures close to the text which refers to them, rather than all together in an appendix. Circuit diagrams are, again, a possible exception to this rule. It is normal to list tables and figures at the beginning of the report, after the table of contents. 5. Structure Saepe stilum vertas. Horace 5. 1. Top-level structure At the top level, a typical report is organized in the following way. 1. Abstract. (This is a couple of paragraphs no more which summarizes the content of the report. It must be comprehensible to someone who has not read the rest of the report. ) 2. Introduction. (The scope of the project, setting the scene for the remainder of the report. ) 3. Previous work. (One or more review chapters, describing the research you did at the beginning of the project period. ) 4. Several chapters describing what you have done, focusing on the novel aspects of your own work. 5. Further work. (A chapter describing possible ways in which your work could be continued or developed. Be imaginative but realistic. ) 6. Conclusions. (This is similar to the abstract. The difference is that you should assume here that the reader of the conclusions has read the rest of the report. ) 7. References and appendices. 5. 2. References References must be relevant. A typical PR3 project report might contain about one page of pertinent references, if the initial research period was well spent. Do not include references which you have not read, no matter how relevant you think they might be. If you refer to standard material which is covered by a large number of text-books, choose one or two really good ones and cite those, rather than a long list of mediocre texts. There are many styles for citing references. Although strict standards (e. g. British Standards) for citing references exist, my advice is not to bother with them; instead, find a reputable journal in the library and copy its style. Alternatively, copy the example below. Its important to be consistent, complete and unambiguous; beyond that, it doesnt matter much what you do. Example citation style: Citations in text:Mander, in Notes on a system specification method [Mander 1983], gives the following as described by Briggs [1983a] Thimblebys guidelines [Thimbleby 1983] suggest that Different methodologies have been examined [Tully 1983]. Several recent publications in this field [Wand 1980d, ACM 1971] have been very influential. List of references at end of report: References| ACM 1971. | Association for Computing Machinery,  Second symposium on problems in the optimisation of data communication systems, ACM (1971). | Briggs 1983a. | J. S. Briggs, The design of AIR and its use in Ada separate compilation, in  SERC workshop on Ada software tools interfaces, ed. P. J. Wallis, University of Bath (1983). Downes 1982. | V. A. Downes, S. J. Goldsack,  Programming embedded systems with Ada, Prentice-Hall (1982). | Mander 1983. | K. C. Mander,  Notes on a system specification method, York Computer Science report no. 61, University of York (1983). | Thimbleby 1983. | H. W. Thimbleby, Guidelines for `manipulative text editing,  Behaviour and Information Technology,  2, 127 161 (1983). | | If you adopt this style, when you cite a reference, you need not repeat the authors name or authors names (Jones and Sanderson [Jones Sanderson 1999] have shown ). Write instead: Jones and Sanderson [1999] have shown , and list the reference as Jones Sanderson 1999. Alternatively, a system of numbered references, such as the default format produced by the Unix  refer  tool in conjunction with  troff, is acceptable. I myself much prefer numbered citation styles, which I find much less obtrusive and easier on the eye; e. g. Jones and Sanderson? have shown or Jones and Sanderson [1] have shown . These forms, which are allowed by the regulations in the Handbook, seem to be the two dominant citation styles in academic journals. You may wish to refer to electronic sources, particularly material found on the World-Wide Web. It is not enough to put found on WWW in place of a citation. The web page Bibliographic Formats for Citing Electronic Information gives advice on citing on-line sources. If possible, avoid citing unpublished literature. It is however acceptable to cite university reports, such as this Departments YCS series, and PhD theses (although getting hold of the latter can be almost impossible). References are always cited in the text. Other works youve made use of but not cited should be listed in a section called Bibliography. Note that et al. requires a period after the abbreviation al. (for alia). It means and others, and may be used only to refer to people, typically in lists of references. It is the animate form of etc. , which also requires a period. 5. 3. Lower-level structure Structure is a recursive concept. A well-structured report has its top-level sections well ordered, and it is easy to get this right; but each section must in itself be well ordered, and that is more difficult. Most paper documents, and many on-line documents, are read linearly from beginning to end. This is certainly true of an examiner reading a project report. Consequently, the writer of a well-structured document avoids forward references wherever possible. Try to avoid writing as we shall see in chapter 10, , especially if the material in chapter 10 is essential to an understanding of the text at the point where the reference occurs. Occasionally such references are unavoidable, but more often than not they are a sign that the text needs to be re-ordered. In the old days, re-ordering text entailed cutting and pasting with real scissors and real paste. Nowadays, the word-processor has made these operations so easy that there is no excuse for slovenly structure. Take your time, and keep rearranging words or phrases within sentences, sentences within paragraphs, paragraphs within sections and sections within the whole report until you have got it right. Aim for a logical progression from beginning to end, with each sentence building on the previous ones. If the chapters are numbered 1, 2, 3, , then the sections within (say) chapter 1 will be numbered 1. 1, 1. 2, . It is permissible to sub-divide a section: the sub-sections within section 1. 1 will be numbered 1. . 1, 1. 1. 2, . Do not however nest sub-sections to more than four levels: sub-sub-section 1. 2. 3. 4 is acceptable, but 1. 2. 3. 4. 5 is not. It is quite possible, with care, to write even a large and complex book without using more than three levels. Footnotes are a nuisance to the reader. They interrupt the linear flow of text and necessitate a mental stack-pushing and stack-popping which demand conscious effort. There are rare occasions when footnotes are acceptable, but they are so rare that it is best to avoid them altogether. To remove a footnote, first try putting it in-line, surrounded by parentheses. It is likely that the poor structure which was disguised by the footnote apparatus will then become apparent, and can be improved by cutting and pasting. 6. The role of artefacts in projects Deep down, all students seem to believe that their project is to write a program (or, to build a circuit). They believe that they will be judged by how much their program does. They are amazed when their supervisor is unconcerned about the inclusion or non-inclusion of a listing in the report. They fear that they will be penalized if their program is small-scale or if they do not make grandiose claims for its power and functionality. This leads to reports heavy with code and assertions about code, but light on reasoning. Students omit the reasoning because they are short of time and think the code more important, and thereby they lose credit they could have had. It leads also to the omission of testing. Hence there are assertions about the extent of implementation, but no evidence (in the form of records of testing) to back them up. In summary, credit for the implementation is not the whole story; you should not feel under pressure to make claims that you cannot support. Your reports should clearly separate specification, design, implementation and testing. The program does  X should more honestly be I wanted the program to do  X; I designed it to do nearly-X; I implemented it to do most-of-X; my testing shows that it did some-of-X  (and here is the evidence of that). Taking this advice into account can much improve your mark. 7. You and your supervisor Writing is a solitary pursuit. Whereas your supervisor will guide you through the early stages of your project work, you must write the report on your own. It is a University assessment, and the rules on plagiarism and collusion (do consult the Students Handbook! ), and the conventions which restrict the amount of help a supervisor can give, apply. Nevertheless, most supervisors will be happy to read and to comment on drafts of sections of your project report before you hand it in, if you give them enough time to do so. Its also a good idea to ask your supervisor to suggest some high-quality past projects in a similar field to yours, and to look them up in the departmental library. This will give you an idea of what is required. 8. Summary 1. Good writing is difficult, but it is worth taking the trouble to write well. 2. Leonard was trying to form his style on Ruskin: he understood him to be the greatest master of English prose. He read forward steadily, occasionally making a few notes. Let us consider a little each of these characters in succession, and first (for of the shafts enough has been said already), what is very peculiar to this church its luminousness. Was there anything to be learnt from this fine sentence? Could he adapt it to the needs of daily life? Could he introduce it, with modifications, when he next wrote a letter to his brother, the lay reader? For example: Let us consider a little each of these characters in succession, and first (for of the absence of ventilation enough has been said already), what is very peculiar to this flat its obscurity. Something told him that the modifications would not do; and that something, had he known it, was the spirit of English Prose. My flat is dark as well as stuffy. Those were the words for him.