A Qiuck Reminder

A Supervisor is required
You should know that a supervisor is required for your project work to be a successful one. Depending on your college/university or program of study you may be put into groups and be given one supervisor.

A supervisor is like a coach
Your supervisor is not the one to do your work for you but rather guide you through every step on the way, just like a coach cannot play in match but give direction to his/her players.

Contact your supervisor often
You should establish good relationship with your supervisor and give him/her all the respect required of you. Do not hesitate to contact your supervisor if you do not understand something. Sometimes it may be necessary for you to remind him/her of some important thing in person or through a phone call.

Prepare yourself emotionally
Sometimes it frustrating to see part of your work or the entire work being cancelled by your supervisor. Do not be too hard on yourself or your group members or supervisor. Take such instances as opportunities to learn from your mistakes and avoid them in the future.

Obey your supervisor's instructions
Try your best to meet all dead lines and honour your meetings with your supervisor. Go through the entire work and make all the corrections that your supervisor will point out before you resubmit the work to him/her.

Allocate your time properly
Make sure to allocate sufficient time for your project work as well as other courses you may be undertaking in the semester/trimester because every counts towards your academic qualification.

Prepare yourself financially
You should allocate some money for your project work. It will be a good idea to look for places with affordable printing prices.

Before you start your project work

Writing a thesis is a must 

Writing a thesis or project work is a requirement for the award of a diploma, undergraduate degree, post graduate degree or any higher academic qualification you are pursuing. Writing a thesis could sometime be hectic depending on the nature of the topic, information resources available, period allowed for the work and other technical know how’s.

When and where to start

Whiles you approach you final year, you should look for a topic that you are familiar with depending on your program of study. For example the topic “factors contributing to low case detection of tuberculosis in Sub-Saharan Africa” would be a good topic for a student studying health related programs because there will be familiarity of words and terms which an engineering student may find difficult. You can have a number of topics to write about and it is up to you to decide which one is the most convenient.

Organize yourself

Now take a pen and a piece of paper and organize your work before you even open a book or browse the Internet for information; ask yourself the following questions:

1. What kind of information do I need? The information should be related to your topic      of study

2. Where will I get such information from? You can get information from textbooks,          dictionaries, encyclopedias, journals, newspapers, public talks, TV programs, and          magazines and of course the internet

3. Do I know how to use the source? Know how to use Catalogues, indexes and the           computer. You should also know their advantages and disadvantages as well.

 Know the your faculties text format

Familiarize yourself with your faculty’s texting format. A typical APA format of the College of Health and Well-Being Kintampo would look like the following:                   

           

Chapter	Heading	Content
Cover Page	Name of college	Research topic, Award type
Front matters		Declaration, Abstract, Acknowledgement,  Dedication, Table of Content, List of Tables, List of Figures, List of Abbreviations
Chapter One	Introduction	Background to the Study , Problem Statement , Objectives, Significance of the Study, Limitations of the Study
Chapter Two	Literature Review	Depends on your objectives
Chapter Three	Methodology	Study Design, Study population Sample Size, Sampling Technique Variable Studied, Instrument for Data Collection, Pretesting, Data Collection Technique, Data Presentation and Analysis, Ethical Consideration
Chapter Four	Results And Discussion	Results, Discussion
Chapter Five	Summary, Conclusion And Recommendation	Summary, Conclusion Recommendation, References, Appendix

Follow the rules

Some students turn to copy other people’s works and present them as their own for an award. The reasons why they do this among other things are to maintain high grade point average; they don’t have time because they are busy with heavy class loads, multiple part-time jobs and social activities. Other students take topics that are not directly related to their program of study whilst others are ignorant of plagiarism.

Avoid plagiarism

You should know that taking other peoples work and presenting it as your own is stealing and lying. You are also cheating and this is against any college or university rules. Your work will be rejected and you won’t graduate. Avoid this at all cost.