Writing Up Your Project

How to record your relationships!

This is not a discussion about your friendships but how the data can be described.

The best terminology to use for graphs that have

a trend which is a straight line is ‘a linear relationship’.

That avoids issues around whether something is directly proportional or proportional.

Directly proportional only applies when the graph is a straight line through the origin (or close to the origin within the uncertainty in the y-intercept). It is best to avoid ‘proportional’ altogether.

A curve, such as that produced when plotting irradiance against distance, can never be described as showing an ‘inversely proportional’ relationship, since it does not show the actual relationship (it could potentially be any number of different relationships).

Inverse proportionality can only be claimed when the correct graph of, for example, irradiance against 1/d² is drawn, and it produces a straight line through the origin.

The type of graph produced for an internal resistance experiment is covered by the term ‘linear relationship’, as it follows the equation y=mx+c format.

Setting up a Word Document

In this section I’ll add information about how to write up your AH Project. Here is the first installment. Nothing great, but just to set up your document so that you gain the Structure mark

https://www.youtube.com/embed/aEXKJ66v5ck?si=E-YuybM5bz28aTgQ

Producing Graphs for your project

Being edited!

Adding Your Graphs into your project

Referencing

If you’ve time this is a great little document from Queen’s University Belfast,

Filetoupload,1560644,en.pdf (qub.ac.uk)

Before handing in your project please check

• Do you have a title?
• Do you have a contents page with each section marked and the page numbers given in the contents page?
• Do you have an abstract directly before or after your contents page?
• Does your abstract give your overall aim (and does it fit ALL of your experiments)? If yu said you were going to compare your results (best not too) then have you done that comparison?
• Does your abstract name the three experiments, so that it is clear what you did?
• Does your abstract have the conclusion for each of your experiments and do the numbers match what is in your project (check you’ve not transposed the answers incorrectly)?
• Does your U.P. have any history?- if it does remove it!
• Does your U.P. have equations and derivations? Are the quantities defined in each of your equations with their corresponding SI unit?
• Is your U.P. at AH level and relevant to what you actually did?
• Is your procedure in the past tense impersonal i.e no I did this or the apparatus is! having the present tense will automatically lose you a mark or stop you accessing the second one.
• Does your procedure give the range of your measurements, the number of repeats and the intervals of measurements? If not go back and add them in.
• Are your diagrams at least 1/2 page and labelled with no clutter in the background? You can always hand draw your diagrams, with a ruler and label them then either scan them in or add in the pages, but don’t forget to add a blank page in your project so the numbers match up
• Do all of your table have the correct measurements, units and are these actually what you measured? Don’t only put radius in your table if you measured the diameter, add in the diameter and then show you halving it to find R. Remember the units of T² are s² . Missing headings, not showing raw data, not showing what you measured rather than what you derived will cause you to lose this mark.
• Do you have at least 2 graphs which are over half a page (better still make them a whole page), use crosses not dots and have the minor gridlines added in. What looks good on the screen doesn’t print out clearly so change the gridlines to slightly darker. It is nice to have the tickmarks from the axis outside to make them clear. If using google sheets (try not to), then check the number of minor gridlines to major gridlines, google likes 3 and 6 (worst scale ever).
• Do your graphs have the data up the right way with the correct axes labels with units?
• Have you made your trendline 0.5-0.75pt thick and have you changed the dash line for a solid line
• Are your crosses 0.4 or 0.5 pt only? (no fill and solid border)
• Do you have a sample calculation to show how you calculate, mean, approximate random uncertainties, linest, derived measurements?
  • To get linest you write
    • =LINEST(then type in the range for the y axis (comma) then type in the range for the y axis (comma) 1,1) eg =LINEST(A3:A7,L3:L7,1,1)
  • To find the approximate random uncertainty type in
    • =(max(range)-min(range))/counta(range)
  • To find the mean type in
    • =average(range)
  • To combine uncertainties type in
    • =sqrt((cell name^2)+(cell name^2)+(cell name^2)) etc
  • Make sure your averages have the same sig fig as your data
    • eg 1 means somewhere between 0.5- 1.4
    • 1.0 means somewhere between 0.95-1.04
    • 1.00 means somewhere between 0.995-1.004 (so what did YOU mean?)
• Have you got a box with at least 4 of the LINEST functions in? Does it match your gradient on the graph?
• Have you added in your scale reading uncertainty, your approximate random uncertainty and your calibration uncertainty for every one of your measurements? If you can’t find a calibration uncertainty use the appendix in Normal Fancey and Gemmell Millars booklet in the Uncertainties section. If your equipment is old it is likely to have a larger calibration uncertainty. A good rule of thumb is 0.5% of the reading + the smallest digit it can measure.
• Have you worked through your readings and checked that everything was in standard units and that you got the expected value?
• Does your evaluation start with your measured value or trend and that expected. Have you commented on the size of the uncertainties and if the uncertainty includes the expected value?
• Does the evaluation for each of your experiments cover
  • accuracy and precision of experimental measurements
  • adequacy of repeated readings
  • adequacy of range over which variables are altered
  • adequacy of control of variables
  • limitations of equipment
  • reliability of methods
  • sources of uncertainties?
• Do you have an overall evaluation covering the following points?
  • comment on:
  • selection of procedures
  • problems encountered during planning
  • modifications to planned procedures
  • interpretation and significance of findings
  • suggestions for further improvements to procedures
  • suggestions for further work
• Do you have at least three references and have you used a reference generator to ensure that they are in Harvard or Vancouver style? Do you have a number box in your report where you use this reference (Vancouver) or author and year (Harvard)?
• Does your references have
  • author
  • title of the webpage,
  • full url
  • date of access
  • book pages, edition, where printed etc?
• To be acceptable:
  • — Internet sources must be referenced by as many of the following as possible: author(s) (year), article title, website title, full URL, date of access.
  • — Book sources must be referenced by as many of the following as possible: author(s) or editor(s), title of book, edition number (if other than first edition), place (city) of publication, publisher’s name, year of publication, page numbers.
  • — Journal sources must be referenced by as many of the following as possible: author(s), year of publication, title of journal article, title of journal, volume number, issue number, page numbers of the article.
• Are all of your pages numbered (even by hand)? It is useful to choose a page numbering system that has page X of Y, so that the marker can check they are all there.
• If your project has taken 10-15 hours of practical work and you’ve gone through and followed this plan you shouldn’t get less than about 11 marks, you’d be surprised how many don’t!
• PS Don’t generate your data by AI, this is cheating.
• Is your word count under 4900 words for everything except calculations, tables, references? If you don’t know what your word count is COPY YOUR PROJECT AND NAME THE COPY WORD COUNT– THIS IS IMPORTANT SO YOU DON’T LOSE YOUR WRITE UP. REMOVE ALL THE SECTIONS THAT DON’T COUNT AND THEN DO A WORD COUNT. IF YOU DON’T SAVE IT BETWEEN RENAMING IT AND DOING THE COUNT AFTER REMOVING ALL THE IRRELEVANT STUFF YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO RECOVER IT. IT MIGHT BE AN IDEA TO EMAIL YOU AND YOUR TEACHER A COPY OF YOUR FINAL PROJECT BEFORE DOING THIS STAGE.
  • BEST OF LUCK

May 2026