FYP Writing Tips

Writing the Proposal is the first step towards your FYP. While the proposal is a part of something bigger, it should read as a stand-alone document with a beginning, middle and an end.

Logic + Coherence = Smooth Flow

If you jump between subjects with no explanation, the reader is going to be distracted and confused. Before writing the proposal, it's a good idea to sit down and put together an outline. This helps writers to stand back and scrutinize the logical flow. The following relationships help to support the inner logic of a piece of writing:

cause and effect - The files are large; as a result, the program runs slowly.
sequence - First, we implemented ... then, we tested...
analogy - System A is similar to system B; the latter, however, has the added advantage of greater compatibility.

Sentence Length and Clarity

Sentence length and clarity have an indirect relationship: the longer your sentences, the lower your clarity. Vary your sentence length - short/long/short/short/long - but make sure that your sentences are no longer than 15-17 words.

Why are you telling me this?

Often students make the mistake of including EVERYTHING in their writing. When asked why, most students can't answer because they don't know. Try to quiz yourself. Why are we including so much description? Why are we including so much detail about this algorithm when, in the end, we didn't use it?

Avoid Redundancy

Repeating ideas, stating the obvious or excessive qualification makes for very boring and tedious writing. Look at the example below. The text was cut in half by removing redundancies and excessive qualification. Explaining how to import images to a document is not only boring but also insulting to the reader. In addition, in this paper, it was an unnecessary detail.

~~Many~~ Computer users like to insert images into their documents ~~because images can explain~~ to enhance ~~document~~ content and to enrich the document; ~~, so image and text are impartible in a document~~. H however, most ~~of the~~ word processors ~~in the market does~~ do not provide a simple method to search and insert relevant images. ~~by keyword, for example, Microsoft Word.~~ When users require an image ~~to give~~ ~~explanations to the document content~~, they need to conduct an exhaustive search to find the relevant images. ~~from the search engine and download it. After that, they should~~ before select the image and inserting it into their document. It This is inconvenientce and time-consuming.

Active vs. Passive Voice

Until recently, business and science reports were written in the passive voice, which rid the text of references to 'I' or 'we'. But, using the passive voice has several drawbacks:

it can be prosaic [dull]
it can create monster sentences: long, fat and clumsy
it requires many 'empty' words-- It was decided that...vs. We decided that...

Today, most professional journals are using the active voice because:

it makes for livelier sentences
it's clearer and more concise
it's reader-friendly

If you are in doubt about which to use, ask your professor.