SMP429 Research Project Assessment Task Description 2026 | Sheffield

SMP429 Assessment Task Description

General Information

A scientific dissertation/thesis is generally considered to be an expanded paper. This is mainly because it follows a similar format of Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion and References, but the size also permits additional reference sections including Table of Contents, List of Figures/Tables and Appendices.

Like any research paper, a dissertation reflects an overall study; however, the main differences being that
a)it primarily represents your own work and not that of co-authors*
b)was carried out over a relatively contracted length of time, and
c)recognises the fact that this is often the first real experience at research for you, and as such
d)allows ‘some’ scope for speculative reasoning in the discussion

Therefore, unlike peer-reviewed published papers, where all included work should be optimised and high quality, work presented in your thesis may include data that is not ‘publication quality’. It also allows flexibility to include extra information such as optimisation experiments, various extra controls, or even experiments that failed or were inconclusive.

Importantly, preparation of your thesis will encourage you to plan carefully what to include so you can present information in a logical format and communicate effectively what you have achieved.

The guidance provided in this document outlines the specific instructions required for thesis preparation. It is essential that you adhere to these instructions carefully to avoid unnecessary loss of marks.

Draft Versions and Feedback

You should meet with your supervisor early to discuss the different chapters of your thesis and expectations of reviewing draft versions. Note that each supervisor and the needs of the student will be different; however, all supervisors have been advised to provide feedback on one draft. Your supervisor will need to be given sufficient time to provide this feedback during the writing-up period (and consider some may take their summer holiday around this time). As a guide, we suggest you begin by providing a full ‘draft’ of your methods section in June, and an overall ‘draft’ of your dissertation towards the end of July.

General guidance

Formatting

You should produce your thesis using word processing software such as Microsoft Word, Google Docs etc. This allows for spell checking amongst other things:

• The font size should be a minimum of 11pt throughout and double (2.0) spaced (not 1.5 spaced).
• We recommend using a sans serif typeface such as Arial, Calibri or Helvetica.
• Pages should be numbered.

Structure

We recommend that your thesis contain the following sections in the following order; however, please speak with your supervisor if an alternative structure would be more appropriate or contact the module leads for advice:

Title page (see example) Acknowledgements Abstract
Table of Contents List of Tables
List of Figures Abbreviations Introduction (Chapter 1)
Materials and Methods (Chapter 2) Results (Chapter 3)
Discussion (Chapter 4) References
Appendices (if applicable)

Word Count

You should aim for approximately 10,000 words; however, you will not be penalised if you are up to 10% (1,000) words over this limit. If your thesis is more than 11,000 words you will be penalised by 10% (e.g. if your final grade is 71%, this will then be adjusted to 61%).
The word count includes all text from the beginning of the Introduction to the end of the Discussion (excluding text in Figure legends and Table footnotes). This also includes embedded citations (e.g.”in the ovary (Smith and Jones, 1999)” is counted as 7 words).

The word count does not include text from any other sections i.e. Title page, Abstract, Acknowledgements, List of Figures/Tables, Abbreviations, Reference list, Appendices, and as mentioned above, Figure and Table legends.

Remember to include your word count on the title page.

Additional: Note that the Abstract is limited to a maximum of 300 words (see below), and the Discussion should be a minimum of 1500 words (see below).

Nomenclature and Abbreviations

Abbreviations: should always be spelled out in full the first time, and then abbreviated subsequently e.g. “Protein y is induced by maturation promoting factor (MPF). By comparison, protein x is inhibited by MPF”. All abbreviations should also be included in your list of abbreviations.

Latin words: should be italicised, e.g. in vitro, in vivo, in silico, Mus musculus, Rattus norvegicus, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. For species naming, the first time mentioned should be spelled in full whereas subsequently can be abbreviated e.g. S. cerevisiae.

Genes and gene products: It is important that you adopt the correct formatting when referring to symbols for genes, mRNA and proteins. In addition, different conventions are applicable to different species. For example, human genes and mRNA should be capitalised and italicised e.g. GAPDH, whereas most other species, such as mouse, begin with a leading capital and all other letters are lower case and italicised e.g. Gapdh. For human and mouse proteins, symbols are not usually italicised; e.g. GAPDH. Note that these conventions will vary by species and for more details please consult the following

http://www.biosciencewriters.com/Guidelines-for-Formatting-Gene-and-Protein-Names.aspx

Preliminary pages

Title Page

The title page must contain the following information:

• Project title
• Full name
• Name of supervisor
• University statement
• Date
• Word count

An example title page is shown on the next page.

Acknowledgements

This section is optional but is a good opportunity to formally thank anyone who has helped you in any way with your project. This section is not marked.

Abstract

The abstract is limited to 300 words and should be a complete summary of your work. You can structure this under distinct sub-headings if you wish, or you can write it as a narrative. Either way, it should include a brief background and purpose of the study, the principle methods used and a summary of main findings with an overall conclusion.

Table of Contents

Lists all major sections and sub-sections aligned to a page number.

List of Figures

Provide a list if figure titles alongside respective page numbers e.g.
Figure 1.1    Molecular mechanisms of dorso-ventral patterning    15
Figure 1.2    Regulation of bone morphogenetic protein signalling    16

List of Tables

Provide a list of table titles alongside respective page numbers (as per List of Figures).

List of Abbreviations

Provide an alphabetical list of all abbreviations used in the thesis (note – you still need to write any acronyms or abbreviations in full the first time they are used in the text).

Introduction (Chapter 1)

The introduction is an important part as it sets the scene for the remainder of your thesis. In general, it should provide all the necessary background information required to justify the project. The bulk of this section will consist of the literature review.

The chapter should be organised into relevant sub-sections, which, along with the overall structure, should be discussed with your supervisor. It is often useful to consider starting with a very general overview, placing the problem in context. The introduction should progress with a logical sequence of sub-sections building to a clear rationale for your study.

A separate sub-section stating your over-arching hypothesis and your aims should be clearly presented at the end of the introduction. It is often also helpful to the reader to bullet point out the objectives – in other words, what specifically will you measure in order to achieve the aim.

Points to consider:

• Information should be supported with citations where relevant.
• Include diagrams to supplement your text (Label these as Fig 1.1, 1.2 etc),
• Avoid irrelevant information – remember overall word count,
• Consider summarising information in a table where relevant e.g. papers included in systematic review etc.

Tip: This chapter should stand alone as a coherent and convincing narrative that leaves the reader wanting to know more about the study. Even though you should state your aims and hypothesis towards the end, they should be implicit if the introduction is well written. Try giving your chapter to someone not involved with your project and ask them if they understand why the study is being carried out and how you intend to go about it.

Materials and Methods (Chapter 2)

This section should describe how the project was carried out in sufficient detail to allow the study to be repeated. Each technique or approach should be structured into distinct sub-sections, and these should be discussed with your supervisor to ensure all the relevant areas are covered. If comparing two tests that use different equipment you need to explain both sets of equipment. Or if the main approach to your work involves a key piece of equipment, or use of a specific programme, it may be worth including a sub-section describing the general capabilities and limitations of the overall approaches used.

Points to consider:

• Remember always to include details of controls and repeats/replicates,
• Details of chemicals and reagents should be provided. For the first time used they should be written in full
  e.g. (Qiagen, Crawley, West Sussex, UK), then afterwards can be abbreviated (Qiagen),
• Use diagrams (e.g. for illustrating a pipeline of techniques for processing samples, or for your experimental design) and tables if relevant,
• Include any ethics and governance approvals – if unsure, ask your supervisor.
• Methods should be written in past tense.
• Avoid using personal pronouns.

The methods section should be carefully considered and as with other sections, should be written succinctly. It should NEVER be written in the style of a recipe or straight from your lab book – e.g. “…next we added 2µl antibody, then mixed the sample before placing it in the centrifuge. I then programmed the centrifuge for 5,000g for 3min at RT. In the mean time I switched on the oven. Next we removed 20µl of the supernatant…” as this suggests that you simply followed a prescribed set of instructions with limited understanding.

Tip: It is important that the information you provide demonstrates that you clearly understand what was done. For instance, it is acceptable to include statements such as “was carried out in accordance with manufacturers’ guidelines” but you need to briefly elaborate on this to demonstrate you understand the steps involved. Sometimes this simply means prefacing a statement with a few words; for example, “A commercial ELISA kit was used to measure TNF levels in serum samples. Briefly, this involved…” or “Total RNA was extracted from HEK293T cells using …”

Results (Chapter 3)

In this section you should present your findings in a clear and logical manner. A text narrative should be used to facilitate this, supported by figures and tables. It is important to think about the most appropriate way to present your data – whether it be a graph, table, image, etc. If presenting quantitative data, have the appropriate statistics been applied? Do you understand what they mean?

Remember it is absolutely imperative that controls are presented. These should have been described carefully in the methods section, so the reader is expecting to see them.

Tip: Be careful about including interpretations and conclusions in the results section. It is acceptable to provide a brief interpretation of an experiment if it justifies the following one, but more general conclusions should be reserved for the discussion section. Similarly, avoid using subjective terms like “interestingly” or “rather surprisingly” – these are best kept for the discussion.

Figures

All figures and tables should be referred to in the text and these should be in numerical order i.e. do not mention Fig
3.4 before 3.3 etc. In addition, they should:

• be constructed carefully and consistently
• be clearly annotated, where necessary
• always be accompanied by a legend – see below
• be presented as close as possible to where there are referred in the text (not several pages away)

Figure legends

Figure legends should focus on describing the figure rather than restating results already described in the narrative. If the figure presents quantitative data in the form of a graph, state what the points/bars are; e.g. mean +/- SEM. It is also essential to state the subject (n) number used for analyses and the p-values for statistics. Annotated elements of images should be clearly explained e.g. scale bar represents 100µm, arrows indicate apoptotic cells etc.

Supplemental Data

Excessive raw data or experiments that detract from the flow of your results can be included as an appendix. If you are unsure, discuss with your supervisor. As a general rule, routine procedures or those not specific to your aims could be included as an appendix; for example, buffer recipes, preparing dilution standards for an assay, raw data, instructions for programming the equipment.

Discussion (Chapter 4)

This should be a minimum of 1500 words and should provide your interpretation of the results with support from the literature. There are no set rules for structuring a discussion section, but it is often useful to begin by briefly re-iterating the study aim and summarising the key findings. From this point, sub-headings can be useful to help organise information, which can be presented as a series of questions or statements.

A number of things to consider when writing your discussion:

• Have you managed to disprove your hypothesis?
• Are there similar studies and how do your findings compare with these?
• What are the wider implications of this study?
• Are you able to tie everything together (your results and what is already known) to propose a new theory?

The discussion section should also contain the following sub-sections:

• Limitations
  Describe any reasons or barriers that may explain why things may not have turned out as expected. How could these problems be overcome?
• Future Work
  Describe how you would take the project forward, if given the opportunity.
• Conclusion
  Provide a summary paragraph of your project and how this relates back to your initial aims and hypotheses.

Tip: The discussion section is a synthesis of your findings, although you may have carried out a number of independent experiments or analyses, avoid the temptation of sequentially discussing these parts in isolation. For example, if you analysed samples using PCR, then western blotting, then immunohistochemistry, consider discussing general gene/protein expression changes in relation to the experimental condition rather than discussing results of each technique in isolation. A diagram is an excellent way to synthesise your results and discussion with a truly unique perspective.

References

References and citations should be formatted according to the standard Harvard convention. General guidance based on the Harvard system of citing references is shown below:

For one author – “… was stated as fact (Johnson, 2019)”
For two authors – “… was believed to be true (May and Gove, 2018)”
For more than two authors “… was found to be false (Farage et al. 2014)”
For more than one reference, separate with a semi-colon “… was a blatant lie (Johnson, 2019; May and Gove, 2018; Farage et al. 2014)
For more than one reference by the same author in the same year, use a lowercase letter “… was preposterous (Trump et al. 2018a; Trump et al. 2018b)

As a narrative – “Starmer et al. (2025) has shown that…” or “… as claimed by Starmer et al. (2025)”. Additional guidance on referencing is available in the Course Handbook.
The final reference list should be compiled in alphabetical order.

Tip: It is recommended that a reference manager such as EndNote, Mendeley or RefWorks is used to format references and citations. For an appropriate output style we recommend using Journal of Cell Biology. Avoid simply trusting that the reference list will be correct and free from error. It is your responsibility to check there are no mistakes in the formatting or composition of your reference list.

EndNote is freely available to download from the IT Services website
https://students.sheffield.ac.uk/it-services/software

Appendices

Appendices are useful for providing further information to supplement your work. There is no limit on the amount of material included in this section, but please avoid adding unnecessary/irrelevant information.

Different appendices are normally listed in Roman lettering e.g. Appendix I: Primer design information
Appendix II: Buffer recipes

Submission

You will need to submit the SMPH Assessment Coversheet and complete the Assessment Fair Means declaration form available on Blackboard.

A thesis coversheet (available to download from Blackboard) should also be included with your document (i.e. before the title page). The cover sheet will need to be filled out and signed by you and your supervisor and indicates
(i) attribution of work, (ii) statement of probity and (iii) supervisor approval to submit thesis.
The final version of your thesis should be converted to a portable document file (pdf) to ensure the formatting is faithfully maintained. It is your responsibility to check and double-check that the content is correct. No changes to the document will be permissible after the deadline. The pdf file should then be submitted through Turnitin on Blackboard by the stated deadline.

Unfair Means and Late Submission

As with other written coursework your thesis will be analysed for text alignment by a web application (Turnitin). As all previous MSc theses have been submitted through Turnitin, the content of these will be held in Turnitin’s database. Evidence of any copying, plagiarism or collusion will result in disciplinary action.
**You will have the opportunity to submit your thesis through Turnitin and view the originality report on one occasion. It is very important to check that there are no blocks of text that could be construed as copied from an external source. If you are unsure, please ask your supervisor to go through it with you (or the Module Lead). You will only have one chance to do this, as the originality report will not be available for you to view when you do the final submission.

The date and time of the online submission of your pdf file is absolute unless there are personal circumstances that prevent you from meeting this deadline. If you are unable to meet this deadline you will need to fill out an Extension / Extenuating Circumstances form in accordance with the guidance on Blackboard and submit this along with the relevant documentary evidence.

Late submissions will be penalised by a 5% grade reduction per day, for up to 5 days as outlined in the Course Handbook. Any thesis submitted more than 5 days after the deadline will receive a mark of 0. Resubmission may then be possible at the discretion of the course team, but the final mark for the module will be capped at 50%.

Marking

Your dissertation will be marked by an independent examiner (ie a staff member who has no role in your project) in accordance with the schedule below. A second independent examiner will review and moderate the marking to agree a final mark. If markers are unable to agree, the External Examiner will assist with the moderation.

Further Guidance

• Your supervisor
• Module leads: Dr Mark Fenwick, Dr Gareth Richards, Dr Ian Wilkinson
• Other postgraduate students and staff
• Previous students’ theses – ask your supervisor or see the Module leads. Some previous examples will also be available on Blackboard.