The final report on the masters project must show professional competence through organization, quality of analysis, and ability to communicate findings. The student is responsible for technical content and careful proofreading is required. Consult an appropriate writer’s style manual, and obtain the agreement of your adviser on the appropriate style to follow (from a style manual or journal in your field). The adviser will approve the masters project after a critical assessment of content, format, style of writing, and technical quality. All revisions must be made before the project is completed, the abstract signed, and the official document uploaded to DukeSpace.

The Cover Sheet

The cover sheet must give the title, author, MP adviser’s name, date and degree, and allow space for the MP adviser’s signature of approval.

The cover sheet is not numbered (click here for sample).

The Executive Summary

All masters projects contain an executive summary. The executive summary is an overall summary of the master’s project, clearly stating the problem (that instigated/inspired/necessitated the MP), and a description of all parts of the master’s project significance, objectives, methods, findings/results, broader ramifications of the work, and conclusions. The summary should stand alone (i.e., be intelligible to those who may not have the opportunity to read the entire work). It may not exceed 2 typewritten pages. The recommended length is 650-900 words (1000 words maximum). It may be typed 1.5 or single-spaced. Normally, the summary follows the cover sheet and precedes the table of contents in the bound report. It is titled “EXECUTIVE SUMMARY” and may be numbered with a small Roman numeral or left unnumbered. Formatting can include bullets if desired.

The Separate Executive Summary (printed out)

Executive Summaries of all student research are bound into a notebook available to persons who are interested in a quick reference to work being done in the School. For this purpose, students must submit a separate executive summary. The content of the summary is the same as in the final report, but the format differs. The title of the project, the author’s name, and the date of submission are essential parts of the heading. It may be typed 1.5 or single spaced and must be printed out, double-sided. There must be a place for the adviser to sign and date the executive summary as approval of completion of the project. The separate abstract must be submitted by hand to the Academic and Enrollment Services office by the deadline.

Executive Summary +

We highly encourage (though to not require) students doing individual MPs to create a 2-4 page .pdf document from text of their executive summary plus graphics/results of their analysis (or a “brief”). If designed well, this can be an essential device for job interviews and other arenas where you’d like to communicate the main points of your MP, but realize the client won’t have time to read through your entire document.

General Typing Instructions

Use sharp, black type. If/when you print your document out, use white, 8½” by 11″ paper of good quality. Allow margins of approximately one inch on both sides, top, and bottom. All type, including titles of sections and page numbers, should fall within these margins. All material in the body of the report should be 1.5 spaced or double spaced. Footnotes and references, charts, diagrams, etc., may follow any generally accepted format for your field and be single spaced.

General Content

Generally, project reports or research papers contain the following five sections:

• Introduction (including statement of hypothesis or objective),
• Materials and methods,
• Results or observations,
• Discussion (click here for outline of what a discussion should cover) and conclusion, and
• References (literature cited).

Students are referred to the Council of Biology Editors Style Manual, available in the library, or the style manual recommended by your adviser, for a discussion of content of these main sections. Project reports may, however, be divided into other sections and subsections as needed.

Students interested in using internships as the basis for their MPs should work closely with their advisers to ensure that reports expected of them under their internships are compatible with the requirements of the masters project.  Sometimes the product required by the internship supervisor is different from that required by the Nicholas School, resulting in the student having to prepare two versions of the report. Communicate closely with both the internship supervisor and your MP adviser to determine if this will be the case. PLEASE NOTE: because final MPs will be publicly available via search engines to persons outside of the Nicholas School and Duke, students must anticipate and address in advance any potential difficulties regarding proprietary or confidential information with both their internship adviser and their MP adviser. For information about Non-Disclosure Agreements click here.

Copying and Binding the Report

Since paper copies of the MP are no longer required, students are not required by the school to submit paper bound copies of their Master’s Projects. However, if you or your adviser wish to have a paper copy, you may purchase covers (front and back) for $1 per set from the Office of Academic & Enrollment Services. Check with your MP adviser to determine if s/he wants to receive a bound copy.

Submission

When the final report has been approved by the MP adviser, the “official copy” is to be uploaded to DukeSpace following specific instructions. The separate abstract with adviser’s signature must be submitted at the same time. The separate abstract must be submitted to the Academic and Enrollment Services office by the deadline. When you add your abstract to your upload, if you would like to leave a post-Duke contact email address for people accessing your MP, we encourage you to add a line at the end of the abstract: For more information contact YourName@emailaddress.com [not your Duke email address]. This addition is not a requirement but will facilitate interested people contacting you for further information.

Deadlines for submission are as follows:

• For May graduation: Friday of Reading Week for the spring semester
• For September graduation: last Friday in August
• For December graduation: Friday of Reading Week for the fall semester