THE FEDERAL POLYTECHNIC, NASARAWA

DEPARTMENT OF APPLIED BIOLOGY/

GUIDELINES FOR PROJECT WRITING

By
PROJECT COMMITTEE

2023

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COMPONENTS OF THE PROJECT
Preliminary pages
Fly leaf (No page number)
Cover page (No page number)
Title page
Declaration
 Certification
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Table of contents
 List of Tables
List of Figures (if available)
List of Plates (if available)
Glossary (if available)
List of Appendices (if applicable)
Abstract

Main Body
The main body of the project should comprise of the following chapters:
 Chapter One (Introduction, Statement of the research problem, justification of the
research, aim and objectives, research hypothesis (if applicable) and any other
relevant information)
 Chapter Two (Literature Review)
 Chapter Three (Materials and Methods)
 Chapter Four (Results)
 Chapter Five (Discussion, Conclusion and Recommendations)
Terminal part
 References
 Glossary – if available
 Appendices- if available
Paper quality and size
The paper should be A4 size, white and of good quality
Typing format
The project should be typed in double line spacing, Times New Roman, font size 12.
Pages in the main body should be numbered in Arabic numerals, while preliminary
pages should be in Roman figures. The headings of the first line of each chapter shall
appear capitalized as “CHAPTER” and centralized, followed by the chapter number
in words e.g “CHAPTER TWO”. The Chapter title shall appear on the second line
and directly below the first. Example:
CHAPTER TWO
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW

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Fly leaf: This shall be the front page and shall be blank.
Cover page: This shall bear the approved title of the project and all shall be
capitalized, at the top of the page. Full name of the student shall all be capitalized
followed by the Department of Applied Biology/Microbiology, School of Applied
Sciences, Federal Polytechnic, Nasarawa. This page should also contain the month
and year the project work was carried out. All should be written in uppercase, bold
and centered.
NB: Title alone should be 14 font size.
Title page: This shall bear the approved title of the project and all shall be capitalized,
at the top of the page. Full name of the student shall all be capitalized followed by the
Diploma for which the project is submitted in the following words: “Being a project
submitted to the Department of Applied Biology/Microbiology, Federal Polytechnic,
Nasarawa, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Higher National
Diploma (HND) in Microbiology. Then followed by the month and year of
submission at the bottom of the page. The month and year of submission should be
written in uppercase, bold, and centered.
NB: Title alone should be 14 font size.
Declaration: This page shall contain the following statement of declaration by the
candidate: “I hereby declare that this work is the product of my own research efforts
and has not been presented and will not be presented elsewhere for the award of any
diploma, degree, or certificate. All sources have been duly acknowledged.”
Immediately below the declaration and to the centre of the page, the candidate shall
append his/her signature, and the date. The candidate’s full name and registration
number, as it appears on the cover of the project, shall be typed under the signature.
Certification: This page shall bear a signed statement by the authorities’ concern.
The format shall be: “This is to certify that this research has met the requirement by
the undersigned on behalf of the Department of Applied Biology/Microbiology,
Federal Polytechnic, Nasarawa for the award of Higher National Diploma (HND) in
Microbiology. The statement shall be signed (with their names and dates clearly
given) by the following, namely: the Supervisor, Head of Department and External
Examiner,
Dedication (This is optional): The author may, if he/she deems it fit, dedicate his/her
work to any person(s) or corporate bodies.
Acknowledgements: The author shall acknowledge in his/her own words, the
assistance given by others during the research work and the preparation of thesis.
Abstract: The purpose of this section is to provide a brief and comprehensive
summary of the study. It should be accurate, self-contained, concise and specific not
more than 250 words. Avoid citing references in the abstract, use past tense for
methodology and present tense for results. This section should be typed as a single
paragraph in block format (i.e., do not use indentation). The following components
should be part of the abstract (brief information required here include:
 Brief outline of the statement of the problem
 Purpose of the study (aim and objective(s))
 Methods used
 Results: summary of the findings
 Conclusion and recommendation(s)
NB: There should be no citation of references in the Abstract

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Table of Content: This shall contain a list of all the major component parts of the
project listed in Section A and the respective pages on which they begin, starting with
report. The headings of the major component parts of the thesis shall have all letters
capitalized as in the thesis. Only the first letter of all words in the major section
headings shall be capitalized. For subsection heading, only the first letter of the first
word shall be capitalized.
Presentation of Tables, Figures and Plates
 Table: Tables shall be numbered consecutively in Arabic numbers in the order in
which they are mentioned in the text. A table shall have a descriptive heading
typed above it, starting from the left hand side. Only the first letters of the major
words of the heading shall be capitalized. E.g. Table 4.1: Variation of Magnetic
Field with Latitude. A table heading shall not be underlined. The layout of a table
should be simple with no vertical lines.
 Figures: Graphs, charts, maps histograms and other line diagrams shall be drawn
neatly. Charts and maps shall be clearly labeled. Keys and scales should be
included in the figures where appropriate. The axes of graphs, charts and
histograms must be clearly calibrated and labeled with the units of measurements
given. Figures in each chapter shall be numbered consecutively in Arabic
numerals in the order in which they are cited in the text. Each figure shall have a
descriptive title, which shall be typed immediately below the figure. Only the first
letter of the major words shall be capitalized, e.g. Figure 2.1: Calibration Curve
for Protein Determination.
 Plates: Plates, as a rule are photoprints, but herein also include scanned images.
They may be direct photographs of living organisms or inanimate object or
photographs of tissue or objects as seen by use of a special equipment, e.g.
electron 14microscope. Plate shall be used only where they best describe or
illustrate a novel observation. They are numbered with Roman Numerals below
the plate. Example Plate II
Terminal part
References
The following should be noted;
 Any citations made in the project must be presented in this section and vice versa.
 Authors/ date system should be used in this section as recommended by APA
style and not numbering system
 For each author, write the last name/surname followed by comma and initials
followed by full stop (there should be a space between each initial)
 Multiple authors should be separated with comma and the last author with
 List of authors must be arranged alphabetically.
 Numbering or use of bullets is not recommended in APA style of referencing.
 For journal articles: Names and initials of all authors, year of publication,
title of the article, title of the journal (to be written in italics), volume (issue
number), and numbers of first and last pages should be clearly written eg.
Muhammad, A. S., Ibrahim, B. S. and Aminu, S. A. (2014). A novel biosynthesis,
characterization, and microbial activity of silver nanoparticles using aqueous
leaves extract of aloe vera plant. International Journal of Scientific Research
3(6): 319-326.

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 For text books: Names and initials of the book (in italics), publisher, town or
country of publication and number of pages in the whole book should be
clearly written e.g.
Norman, T. J. (2004). Statistical methods in Biology. Cambridge University Press,
United Kingdom. pp.255.
 For internet sources: state Names and initials of all authors, year of
publication , title of the article of the journal (in italics), volume number,
pages website and date retrieved e.g.
Magashi, A. M. and Bukar, A. (2016). Phytochemical Analysis and Antibacterial
Activity of Stem and Leave Extract of Abrus precatorius (Rose Pea).
International Journal of Pure and Applied Sciences. 2 (1): 47-54. Retrieved
from www. ijpas.com on 20th February, 2016.
*If it is an article written by an organization, then state name of the organization, year
of publication, title of the article, website and the date retrieved e.g.
WHO (2007). Guidelines on standard operating procedures for the laboratory
diagnosis of HIV opportunistic infections. Retrieved from
http://www.who.int/en.htm on 20th June, 2007
Glossary
The glossary, in any case, shall contain a list and explanations of foreign, indigenous,
obsolete or technical words used in the text. For science based disciplines,
internationally accepted standard abbreviations of scientific names not spelt out in the
text may be explained here. All other abbreviations of scientific names must be spelt
out in the text at the point of first mention.
Appendices
Appendix is optional and if provided may contain the following:
(i). Matters related to data collection e.g. sample of questionnaires and other test
instruments.
(ii). Raw data for project based on questionnaires.
(iii). Copies of author’s publication(s) from the research work.
(iv). Computer program, especially if it was written or modified by the candidate, and
the output.