Order Description
STRUCTURING YOUR PROJECT
The key to a good Single Research Project is clear structure and organisation. The following are only guidelines as to the most appropriate way of presenting your SRP. The marks allocated to each section can be found in Assessment Criteria (Appendix D).

Title page
The title page must contain the title of your project, your name, the full title of the degree programme for which the project is being presented, the month and year of submission, the name of your supervisor and the word count. The following declaration must be inserted at the bottom on the page and signed:
This Single Research Project is an original and authentic piece of work produced in fulfilment of my degree regulations. I have fully acknowledged and referenced all secondary sources. I have read and understood the Academic Regulations and I am fully aware of any breach of them.

Abstract
The abstract is a summary of the Single Research Project and should be no more than 200 words in length. It should include an outline of the topic, the themes emerging from the academic literature review, key issues emerging from the analysis and discussion and the conclusions. It is not an introduction but should provide a succinct view of what the study reveals rather that what it intends to find. Note that the abstract is not included in the word count.

Introduction
The introduction provides the relevant background and context for the study, in other words it ‘sets the scene’. You should start by outlining in two or three paragraphs the broad topic area and write a little about the aspect of it that interests you. You should state your motivation for doing the research – why it is worth doing and you should also state the purpose and aims of the study – what you are planning to do and how you intend to do it. Most importantly, you must also clearly state either your research question or your research hypothesis. The research question is the question that your research will answer, while the research hypothesis is the proposition that you aim to test.

Academic literature review
In this section, you need to review the academic literature relevant to the broad topic area. The review should highlight the relevant theories and concepts used in the current and previous research and assess the strengths, weaknesses and limitations of these studies. The weaknesses and limitations are particularly important as this provides justification for your own research.

You need to review the academic literature critically rather than simply describe who said what. Quotations may be useful here but keep these to a minimum and only include them when you have a clear rationale for doing so. The examiners are more interested in your arguments than in your ability to copy down what others have written.

Analysis and discussion
Here you must present the material you have collected in a logical sequence and analyse it in depth. You should identify core issues stemming from the analysis and discuss the key arguments arising, relating them all to the academic literature you have already reviewed. Where applicable, you may wish to comment on any practical and policy implications. If you wish to include any photos or diagrams, tables or graphs, they should be embedded near the text that makes reference to them, NOT put into the Appendix.

Conclusion
The principle aim of the conclusion is to draw all the threads of your study together. It should be based on what has been written earlier and nothing new should be introduced at this stage. You should summarize the arguments and issues emerging from your analysis and discussion, highlight the wider implications of your study, and relate your work back to the question you were trying to answer or the hypothesis that you were testing, indicating the extent to which you have been successful. Finally, if appropriate, you can make suggestions for future research.

References
A reference list is not a bibliography and should only include full references to sources cited within the text of the project. It should consist of one alphabetical list and should not be divided books, journals and websites. See Appendix F for referencing guidelines.

Appendices
Appendices should only be used in exceptional circumstances in a Single Research Project. It might very occasionally be necessary to provide additional information but full documents or whole web sites must not be placed here. Where possible you should either summarise the material in words or put in a reference to where the reader can find the information. Your supervisor will advise you if is appropriate to use an appendix in your case.