6. Presentation

Presentation is about the appearance of the report and includes the colour and type of paper, types of headings, use of ‘white space’ (i.e. blank lines, margins etc.). Sometimes this will be a matter of organisational style; sometimes it is a matter of personal choice. For assignments, presentation is very much up to you, but note the following:

• it is helpful to differentiate headings, subheadings etc. by using bold, underlined or italic fonts, or different sized fonts. Which type you use is not important, but be consistent. You may find the document Writing a dissertation with Microsoft Word helpful.
• remember that tutors may well wish to make comments on the document itself. Help them by leaving adequate white space. Also, do not make it difficult for them by putting each sheet into a plastic folder.
• wordprocessed material is much easier to read than handwriting, but
• hand-produced diagrams are perfectly acceptable.