The objective is to assess the student’s ability to make concise and strictly meaningful reports of their work in a style and scale appropriate to company internal reports or professional engineering publications. The Report will be expected to show evidence of analysis and reflection, rather than simply reportage. The student will be expected to demonstrate engineering judgement in selecting and arranging the content and in drawing relevant conclusions from the raw material in the Logbook. The content of the report will be expected to be directly relevant to the Project objectives and conclusions.

The bound Final Report must be submitted together with the Project Logbook (and the Poster for MEng) to the School Office not later than the end of the 1^st Week of Term 3 (after the Easter Vacation).

The Final Report will be assessed independently by the Supervisor and a 2^nd Examiner who contribute equally to the overall mark for this element. In the event that:

• either the Examiners have concerns that the contents of the Report (and Poster) are not supported by records in the Project Logbook,
• or the two Examiners differ considerably in their assessment of the Report,

then the student may be required to attend an additional Viva Voce Interview before marks are given. Assessment will be of the Report alone, but any information or conclusions in the Report (equations, results, calculated values, reports of previous work, etc) must be traceable from the Logbook which must therefore be submitted at the same time for verification of this.

In addition, each year a randomised sample of students will be asked to attend a compulsory Viva Interview with either a Panel of Moderators or the External Examiners where they will be asked questions about their Report and Logbook. This will not normally form part of their individual assessment, but the Board of Examiners may be advised to adjust Project marks in the light of these investigations.

Students should note that the Report format now differs considerably from the "mini-PhD" dissertations of the past. This change is intended to focus greater attention on the skill of presentation and on the student’s judgement in selecting what is appropriate for inclusion. It is intended to reflect more closely the needs of professional engineering or business careers. It is intended to encourage students to review their work and its implications critically, rather than wasting time on "padding" and routine description, and is likely to provide Examiners with better discrimination of quality.

The requirements for the Final Report are that:

• The Final Report will conform in both style and length to the Instructions To Authors for technical papers in the Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, except as noted below, ie a maximum of 3000 words in total and 10 figures.
• Excessive length is a failure to observe the assessment objectives for the Report and will be penalised. In exceptional circumstances, and only with the agreement of the Supervisor to a specified limit set before submission, these length limits may be relaxed, but not to an extent which affects the objectives for the Report set out above.
• The Report shall have a title page (giving title, author, date of submission, module number and title) and a page with a signed Declaration and Acknowledgements (as set out below) which do not count towards the word limit. In addition, the List of References does not count towards the word limit. All other parts of the Report (ie Abstract, List of Notation, main body starting with Introduction and ending with Conclusions, any Appendices) do count towards the word limit.
• Students should study the style of current IMechE Proceedings papers before starting to write their Report. Guidelines to the correct style and conventions for technical report writing are given in the Student Handbook on the M&SE School website and failure to conform to these will be penalised.
• The Report shall be bound in standard School report covers.

Immediately following the Report title page the student must include in full and sign the following Declaration:

This Report is submitted as part of the requirements for the Degree of [Title of Degree] at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne [or other University for Exchange Students] and has not been submitted for any other degree at this or any other University. It is solely the work of [Student’s Full Name] except where acknowledged in the text or the Acknowledgements below. It describes work carried out at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne which is entirely recorded in a Project Logbook which has been made available for examination. I am aware of the penalties for plagiarism, fabrication and unacknowledged syndication and declare that this Report is free of these.
[signed and dated by Student]

All assistance, information, etc received from other people (eg industrial mentors, Supervisor or other academic staff, research or support staff, other students, etc) during the Project must be listed in Acknowledgements immediately following this Declaration.