PROJECT DISSERTATION GUIDELINES

Project Requirement: Students are required to take up project work for the successful completion of the
course. It should be an intensive study on a topic and explore the subject in depth and elucidate information
about the problem investigated, the methods used to solve the problem, the results of the investigation and
the conclusions inferred and a set of recommendations that can be implemented. Research can be
descriptive or explanatory. In a descriptive study the study should be on an existing systems/ prevailing
conditions of the topic under Research. In exploratory study the objective is to explore the area of study, by
introducing new augments to the existing system and draw inferences and projections. The project taken for
study can be related to a particular organisation, it can be comparison study of many organisations, or
related to many organisations. All projects must be related to the Area of Specialisation either directly or
indirectly. Before the Project study, the student should identify the problem he intends to study and know the
subject under study. He can facilitate this by reading material on the intended study. A review of the
literature i.e., the studies done so far, the topics studied, will give a comprehensive view to the student as to
which area of study is found wanting or there is a lacuna. This enables a student to select the area of study
that is most recent, and has most application value. This information can be acquired by reading periodicals
and recent publications in materials management. The institute will not provide any assistance in the
selection of guide or project supervisor or project topic

Scope of Project: The project should be valuable for an organization and be capable for implementation by
the organisation. The study should highlight in application in day to day functioning or in a specific area. The
data collected could be primary i.e., gathered by own observation, or it may be secondary i.e. taken from
other sources (proper reference should be mentioned of the source details). Students must ensure that the
project undertaken must be an original study.

Guide Selection: A project report must be conducted with the guidance of the Project Guide. A guide has to
be competent person possessing vast experience and knowledge in the project subject and adept and well
versed with the area of research undertaken. The student has to take the necessary permission from the
current employer if he intends to conduct the study in the organisation he is working. The guide can even
suggest to a student any relevant area for research. He/She should preferably be a senior member of the
organisation, where the student is employed. The Institute will not provide any assistance in the appointment
of a guide

Evaluation of project: The submitted project report will be sent for evaluation. The project report will be
evaluated on the following criteria.
1. Clarity of objectives scope and coverage. Study methodology for data collection
2. Analysis of data, tools, and techniques. Understanding of the subject and conceptualisation of
the Key areas.
3. Innovative techniques/approach to problem scheme. Conclusions drawn.
 4. Recommendations, usefulness implementation scheme. Linking of recommendations to the
objectives.
5. Report writing and presentation.

In case of a student fails in the project he/she has to complete / rewrite the project before being allowed to
appear for the next semester exam or awarded degree. The project can be disapproved on the basis of it not
being an original study.

Important guidelines for writing the project: Students should use simple and good English while writing
the report. Avoid grammatical errors. The problem and objectives should be specific and clearly stated.
Avoid ambiguity. No aspects of the structure of the report should be omitted. Important to include
Bibliography, List of tables, Certificate from guide and acknowledgments. The report should be, in about
100 - 150 pages. Acknowledgment - to all those who have helped the student complete the project.
Certificate from the guide on his letterhead.

Synopsis: Before starting the actual study, it is necessary to submit a synopsis of the intended work, for the

approval of the institute latest by the third month of the first semester. The s ynopsis should mention
the name and address of the guide. The synopsis should be brief- Not more than 2 to 3
pages. Synopsis must be submitted in a structured format indicated below:
ITEM PARTICULARS
1. Name of Student 6. Problem under study
2. Registration No. 7. Scope
3. Address for correspondence Telephone and 8. Brief background
E-mail 9. Methodology
4. Name of Guide , Designation , Address 10. Conclusion
5. Proposed title of project

Incase there are reason to believe that the work submitted by the student is not original and created
by the student then the same will have to be repeated by the student on the topic / subject area of
the institute’s choice. No representation or request in this regard will be accepted.

Style : Dates: ’16 January 1990’ not ‘January 16, 1990’. Numbers: numbers under 100 should be spelled
out in letters except for: people’s ages; where there is a great deal of numerical information; or where the
number is attached to a unit of quantity (e.g. 1mm, or 3 kg) or percentages (e.g. 3 per cent); numbers of 100
or more should be in digits except where the context makes this awkward (e.g. at the beginning of a
sentence). Write numbers as 1-3, 113-14, 1003-14, 1003-4; write 0.5, 0.67, not .5, .67. Use commas in
numbers with four or more digits: 1,000. Capitalisation: avoid excessive capitalisation.
Quotation marks: use single quotation marks, reserving double ones for quotes within quotes, e.g. ‘The
noun "guerrilla" is variously spelt . If the quotation forms a complete sentence it should have its closing full
stop inside the closing quotation mark; otherwise, the full stop should be outside the closing quotation mark.
For points of omission within a quotation use three spaced dots, with a space either side of the set.
Quotations extending over four or more lines of text should be indented, with single spacing and no
quotation marks.
Abbreviations : An alphabetical list of abbreviations is generally useful in the preliminary pages of a
dissertation, unless only completely familiar abbreviations are used. Structure the list in two columns,
abbreviation on the left and expansion on the right. Align all of the expansions on the same Tab stop. You
can also shorten your references considerably if you use abbreviations for titles which occur frequently, but
you should include these in this list, e.g. EHR Economic History Review HJ Historical Journal SHM Social
History of Medicine Explain all but the most familiar abbreviations used in the text on the first mention in the
text, i.e. use the expanded version followed by the abbreviation in brackets: College of Physicians and
Surgeons (CPS). Per cent is usually spelt out in the text (15 per cent) but the symbol % may be used in
notes and tables, and in the text itself if it occurs very frequently.
Tables, Figures and other Illustrations: There should be separate sequences of Tables, Figures and
Illustrations, e.g. Table 1, Table 2, etc.; Figure 1, Figure 2, etc; Illustration 1, Illustration 2, etc. Each table,
figure and illustration should be numbered and have clear titles, with a note of their source. For example:
Table 1. Number of Unsuccessful Attempts to Revive the Indian Film Industry 1965-1985 [Table] (Source:
McGoldwyn, p. 6.) This would be a numerical table. Be sure McGoldwyn is included in your bibliography.
Figure 1. Incidence of Crime in Indian states 1911-1931 [graph, bar chart, map, or other form of graphic
representation] (Source: Parliamentary Papers, annual criminal statistics.) Locate tables, figures and
illustrations as closely as possible to the relevant text, unless they are so bulky that they require a separate
appendix. The text should call attention to the table, figure or illustration, e.g. (Table 1) or (Figure 2). 7.
References: Footnotes should be numbered in a continuous sequence for each chapter and the number
should appear both in the text in superscript and either at the bottom of the page or at the end of the text.
Either position is acceptable, though footnotes at the bottom of the page are usually preferable from the
reader’s point of view. Footnotes have three main uses: to cite the authority for statements in the text
(specific facts or opinions as well as exact quotations). They enable a reader to find out exactly where you
acquired your information; they should show the exact source of your information. to make cross-
references; to comment upon, to amplify or to qualify textual discussion – to provide a place for material
which the writer thinks it worthwhile to include but which would disrupt the flow of argument if introduced into
the text. These should be kept to a minimum: if the information is important it should be in the text, if not, it
probably can be left out. Reference footnotes (type ‘a’ above) should be given as follows: i.e.
Unpublished material: References should be detailed, especially if you are referring to a long document, or
to a file which contains many documents. Use page numbers, if there are any, or dates, to give a precise
location. For example, a reference to material in the Bombay City Archives or National Archives of India
might appear like this: BCA D/HEW 16/12/1 Index and list of applicants for relief, Bombay 1900. NAS AD
24/17. C. Cook to the Editor of the IBR, 3 Jan 1934. Here BCA or NAS is your abbreviation of the location,
which should appear in a list of abbreviations at the front of the dissertation. The numbers which follow are
the archive number of the record, as listed in the archives, and the rest helps to identify it. Unpublished
Theses Example: Dey, sunil, ‘The Puritan Classical Movement in the Reign of Aurangazeb’, PhD thesis,
(University of Chennai, 1957), pp. 45-6.ii.
Published material : It is conventional to give the source in full the first time it is cited in the footnotes. If it is
cited more than once, then the reference can be shortened with the author’s surname and a condensed
version of the title.
Book: Author [first name or initials followed by surname], Title (place of publication: publisher, date), volume
number, if any, in roman capital numerals, page reference e.g. I. McCalman, Radical Underworld: Prophets,
Revolutionaries and Pornographers in London, 1795-1840 (Cam: CUP, 1988), pp. 40-3. subsequently:
McCalman, Radical Underworld, p. 10.
Article in a book edited by someone else: K. Lindley, ‘The Part Played by the Catholics’ in Brian Manning
(ed.), Politics, Religion and the English Civil War (London: Edward Arnold, 1973), p. 145. subsequently:
Lindley ‘Catholics’, p. 145.
Journal Articles: note the title of the article appears in single quotation marks, the name of the journal is in
italics or underlined, and there are no ‘p.’ or ‘pp.’ before the page numbers. L. D. Smith, ‘Industrial
Organization in the Indian Carpet Trade, 1780-1850’ Textile History 15 (1984), 75-100. subsequently: Smith,
‘Industrial Organization’, p. 79.
Newspapers: references to newspapers should include the full date and page number and the title should
be in italics or underlined, as follows: Indian Herald, 19 Sept 1943, p. 16. If you use such references
frequently, you can abbreviate to IH, 23 Oct 1945, p. 2. But remember to put IH in your list of
abbreviations.iii
Website material : Any website material quoted or otherwise used in the dissertation should be cited in the
same way as any other published material, including its URL address, e.g. University of Brighton School of
Design, 'Representations of anatomy: life, death and skeletons,' URL
http://www.adh.brighton.ac.uk/schoolofdesign/MA.COURSE/LInfDes17.html
Appendices : Bulky material, such as information about your methodology (e.g. the structure of a
questionnaire, or a detailed description of how you constructed a database) or a lengthy series of tables,
should be placed in appendices at the end of the dissertation. Each appendix should be numbered and
given a concise title. Make sure that the text of the dissertation gives a cross-reference to the appendix,
whenever the material from it is being used.
Bibliography: Start thinking about your bibliography when you begin your research, because it shows how
your work was put together, and it is the basis of your reference system. Your dissertation must include a full
bibliography at the end, to show the sources you used. This should include both unpublished, or manuscript
(‘primary’) sources and printed (‘secondary’) sources. The simplest way to keep a record of all the sources
you have consulted is to enter each one on a card as you use it. You thus compile a card index, in
alphabetical order, which is then easy to type out as a bibliography when your dissertation is finished. It is
even better to keep compiling a bibliography file on disk as you go. This might be used instead of a card
index, but the old-fashioned cards have the advantage of being easily taken into libraries and archives. They
also provide a back-up! i.
Headings in the Bibliography :The bibliography should be divided into sections describing the kind of
material that has been used. An elaborate bibliography might include the following, in this order: a)
Unpublished sources (company records, manuscripts, local government reports) b) Official printed sources
(Parliamentary papers, reports of committees, etc) c) Contemporary newspapers and periodicals. This
should be included if you have consulted a run of newspapers or contemporary periodicals for a specific
period, e.g.Indian Herald 1880-1890 Chennai University Calendar 1850-1890 d) Printed contemporary
sources. This should include books and articles which are themselves historical sources, e.g. Keynes, John
Maynard, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (London: Macmillan, 1936). e)
Secondary sources. This includes the works of historians or other commentators, e.g. Hillard, J. (ed.), J. M.
Keynes in Retrospet: the Legacy of the Keynesian Revolution (Aldershot: Elgar, 1988). Your headings
should reflect only the types of source you have used.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY : It is the policy of the SAU that the intellectual property rights to any original
work created by Students as part of their Programme will automatically pass to SAU. SAU undertakes to
acknowledge appropriately the authorship and inventorship of such works created by Students. SAU may
share the net income derived from the exploitation of such intellectual property rights with inventors,
designers and/or authors who are Students at the time of the work’s creation. In line with our policy at the
relevant time, these arrangements will normally continue after the end of the Student’s Programme. The
procedure for calculating and distributing the sums payable to individual creators is solely set out by SAU
entirely at it’s discretion. The provisions of this clause shall survive the expiry or termination of the contract
between the student and SAU however caused.
PRESENTATION OF DISSERTATIONS Supplementary pages which may be useful
PAGE NOTES
Title page (compulsory) (see Appendix 1)
Contents (compulsory) 1 Details of Sections and Chapters with pages numbers.
Up to 350 words on purpose, methods, results and
Abstract (compulsory)
conclusions.
If any part of the work has already been published, and
Acknowledgements (optional)
assistance given should be acknowledged.
Normally a dissertation is made available to anyone who
knows of its existence and who wished to consult it.
Permission to consult (compulsory)
Confidentiality of material may require some statement of
restriction.
List or index of special terminology, jargon or
Abbreviations (compulsory) abbreviations, only if extensive use of this is required by
the subject matter.
Text (compulsory)  
Material such as questionnaires, technical explanations of
methods or leaflets should be put in the appendix. The
Appendices (dependent on text)
criteria for inclusion must be that it helps the reader’s
understanding of the topic.
Footnotes/Endnotes Compulsory  
Bibliography (compulsory)  
Index (optional)