Every student who writes a research report for presentation ought to endeavor to make sure that, at the very least in the typographical sense, the report is good. It is not impractical to assume that at least 98 per cent of pages should be error free and therefore if this figure lowers to 95 percent, students should expect unfavorable remarks from their supervisors.
The process of proofreading should be the very last phase of writing just before the research report is bound into its covers. In publishing, a 'proof' is the initial written text that has been typeset and ready for review. Proofreading is the process of looking at your text thoroughly to find and fix typographical errors and blunders in sentence structure, style, and spelling; the proof reader makes use of different symbols to point out the nature of an error.
Two kinds of errors are usually identified; firstly, 'author's error': which is when the writer needs to modify material already typeset; and, secondly, 'literals error' which are mistakes which may have occurred in typesetting. The most common publishing practice is for the proofreader to make use of various inks to differentiate between the two types of errors.
Guidelines for Proof reading
1. Read every line in turn.
2. An intensive focus is required; discontinue once your attention begins to fade.
3. Read out loud.
4. Take a small sample (say 6 percent) of the pages in which no mistakes have been discovered and re-read them.
Project presentation best practices
1. Specific attention needs to be paid to spelling mistakes; errors in sentence structure; inconsistencies, such as where similar reference is cited with different dates; and omissions.
2. Put your audience first. Don't use words, concept, and terminologies your audience/readers might not understand.
3. If your audience finds an important concept difficult to understand, break down the concept and use an example(which they can relate with) to explain your idea.
4. Show concepts in an organized and structured way; from the beginning of the report to the end.
5. Do provide a formula if the mathematical expression/concept is new, uncommon or important to the research report.
6. When reporting inferential data (e.g t tests, F test, chi-square tests), include adequate details to enable your reader fully grasp the analyses carried out and possible alternative explanation for the outcomes of these analyses.
7. Stay consistent in the use of verb tenses: past tense or present perfect tense is suitable for the literature review as well as in talking about procedure carried out in the past; past tense is suitable for explaining the outcome of your discoveries; present tense is suitable for talking about the outcomes as well as in showing your conclusions
8. Ask your friends to read your work before you submit; usually, others see issues that you ignored
For science students
9. Use the metric symbol to show a metric unit if it appears with a numeric value. Whenever a metric unit doesn't appear with a numeric value (e,g., 7m), show the unit in text (e.g., measured in metres), and make use of the metric symbol in column and sub headings of tables to save space (e.g., lag in ms).
10. Make the full name of units plural when proper. For example, write metres instead of metre.
Avoid these common mistakes:
1. Do not copy the text of a project material (meant to be used as a guide) in its entirety (word for word).
2. Do not bore your supervisor/audience with excessive calculations. Your supervisor simply wants to view your final results. In case your final results appear irrational, he'll examine the computations.
3. Don't bore your audience with unnecessary obstacles you encountered during the research. Instead, choose the most direct route to the idea. Explain your final outcome to your audience.
4. Do not give a formula for a statistical expression that is common
For science students
5. Don't make symbols of unit plurals. Example: 7cm, not 7cms.
6. Don't use period after the symbol, except at the conclusion of a sentence.
7. Never start a sentence in your research report with a lower case acronym or statistical symbol.