Food Process Engineering Department

Food
Process Project/Proposal
Engineering Writing Template
Department

Prepared By: Asres Mengistu (MSc in Food Science & Technology)

[Lecturer in Food Process Engineering Department]

November, 2017
 Food Process Engineering Department

Project Effect of Blending Ratio on Nutritional And Sensory

Title: Quality Flat Bread Prepared from Kocho and Haricot Bean

Submitted to Department of Food Process Engineering in Partial Fulfilment of

Project Course.

Group Members

№ Name of Students ID.№

1
2
3
4
5
6

Major Advisor: ____________________________

Co-Advisor: _______________________________
Submission Date: _________________
Wolkite University, 2017/18

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A project proposal is a detailed description of a series of activities aimed at solving a certain
problem with specified timeframe. The proposal should contain a detailed explanation of the:
 Justification of the project;
 Activities and implementation timeline;
 Methodology; and
 Human, material and financial resources required.
Good project is: -
 CLEAR - One and only one meaning to what is written
- Can be easily understood by the reader
 ACCURATE - Facts written exactly as they are
 OBJECTIVE - Facts presented fully and fairly
 ACCESSIBLE - Easy to find needed information and resources
 CONCISE – Brief and direct to the point
 CORRECT - in grammar, punctuation and usage
Important steps to be followed in writing project proposal
TITLE/COVER PAGE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (OPTIONAL)
ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES (IF ANY)
LIST OF FIGURES (IF ANY)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
CHAPTER .1 INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER .2 LITERATURE REVIEW
CHAPTER .3 MATERIALS AND METHODS
CHAPTER .4 PLAN OF ACTIVITIES
CHAPTER .5 ANTICIPATED OUTCOME
CHAPTER .6 BUDGET
REFERENCES
APPENDIX (IF ANY)

TITLE/COVER PAGE

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The title of the project is very significant. The title must be clear, appropriate for the topic and
less than 45 characters, including spaces and punctuation. (Refer Sample Page)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS PAGE
The acknowledgements section recognizes the persons and/or institutions the student is grateful
to for guidance or assistance received and those to whom the student extends thanks for special
aid or support in the preparation of the proposal.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Many readers lack the time needed to read the whole project proposal. It is therefore useful to
insert a short project executive summary “an abstract”. The abstract should include:
 the problem statement;
 the project’s objectives;
 implementing organizations
 key project activities; and the total project budget.
Theoretically, the abstract should be compiled after the relevant items already exist in
their long form. For a small project, the abstract may not be longer than one paragraph. Bigger
projects often provide abstracts as long as two pages.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
All of the headings and entries in the Table of Contents should correspond exactly in wording,
font and case with the headings or entries as they appear in the text of the proposal. Do not use
“title” and “page” at the top of the page in the Table of Contents. Also, there should be dotted
lines connecting headings and respective pages. Subdivisions of headings should not exceed four
levels.

You may wish to use the built-in style of Microsoft Word or other word processing program to
create the Table of Contents.

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION (proposed number of pages:2-3)

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The introduction of the research proposal provides pertinent background information on
the research project and should be as brief as possible. Ideally, it should not exceed four
pages in length. The Introduction to the project provides a general introduction to the phenomena
or issue of interest, and is usually contained in 2-3 pages. The issue or problem under
investigation is described, and background and/or context for understanding the nature of the
issue is provided. In writing this section, students should provide answers to two main questions:
 What is the project all about?
 Why is the project important or worthwhile?
Using the future tense as appropriate, the introduction includes:

a) Clear statement of the problem, nature, symptoms, and extent of the problem and
variables influencing the problem, thus leading to a clear set of research objectives.
b) Objectives that specify the goals of the research, research information to be gathered,
research questions to be answered or research hypotheses developed and to be tested.
Writing the introduction without dividing it into sub-headings is preferred. However, it may
include subheadings in the following sequence.
1.1 Background
1.2 Statement of the Problem
1.3 Significance of the Study
1.4 Objectives of the Study (General Objective and Specific Objectives)
CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF LITERATURE (proposed number of pages: 2.5-
5)
The literature review is chapter two. It should be a critical analysis of the relevant existing
knowledge on the proposed research topic. It includes the strengths, the limitations and
gaps of previous studies. The literature review should be relevant with recent citations on
the topic.
CHAPTER 3: MATERIAL AND METHODS/PROJECT DESIGN (proposed
number of pages:2-3) [HOW? WHO? WHERE?]

It describes precisely what will be done and how it will be done, what data will be recorded, the
proposed tools or instruments to be used in data collection and the methods of analyzing the data.
In this section, the student should give clear, specific, appropriate and credible procedures that

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will be followed to attain the proposed objectives of the study. The research design planned for
use should be clearly stated. The research methods should be appropriate to the problem area,
i.e., the statement of the problem, the objectives and the hypotheses. In selecting appropriate
research methods and techniques, the student should be able to answer the question: "Precisely
how will I conduct the proposed research.”

The student should consider affordability, time issues, feasibility of the study and availability of
equipment and supplies. The student should also address the methods of data collection, data
quality control and methods of data analysis. Materials and Methods also called Methods should
also include:

i. Definition of Variables (dependent and dependent)

ii. Description of the Study Area or Experimental Site
iii. Study Period when Data Will Be Collected
iv. Study Design or Experimental Design
v. Sampling Methods. This includes sample size calculation and sampling methods (optional).
vi. Data Collection. This includes questionnaires, use of observation, focus group discussions,
in-depth interviews, laboratory analysis and similar methods. The description should outline
the data to be collected in the study, the methods of measurement and the units of
measurement.
vii. Data Analysis. The student should decide how the data generated will be analyzed.
Descriptions of the data analytical methods, techniques, tools and statistical tests that will be
used in analyzing the data should be provided. Software planned for use in statistical
analysis may also be mentioned.
viii. Data Quality Control. Where required, discuss how to check the data collection instruments,
the plans for ensuring confidentiality of data when appropriate, and describe the reliability
and validity of instruments used in the research.
CHAPTER 4: ANTICIPATED OUTCOME (proposed number of pages:1-1.5)
Anticipated results/Final Products and Dissemination. Describe possible forms of the final
product, e.g., publishable manuscript, conference paper, invention, software, exhibit,
performance, etc. Be specific about how you intend to share your results or project with others.
This section may also include an interpretation and explanation of results as related to your
question; a discussion on or suggestions for further work that may help address the problem you
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are trying to solve; an analysis of the expected impact of the scholarly or creative work on the
audience; or a discussion on any problems that could hinder your creative endeavor.

CHAPTER 5: PLAN OF ACTIVITIES (proposed number of pages:1)

Project timeline/Project Activity Plan – Give an overview of when you are going to do specific
steps of your project. This does not need to be a day to day list but depending on the length of
your project it may give an overview biweekly or monthly. Be sure to include time to
review/synthesize your data or to reflect on the experience. You should include time to write the
final report/paper.

The plan of activities can be presented in the form of a table. Only major activities for
accomplishing the research activities and corresponding time frames should be included in the
table.
CHAPTER 6: REQUIRED BUDGET (proposed number of pages:1-1.5)
Your list of budget items and the calculations you have done to arrive at a Birr figure for each
item should be summarized on the Budget form. You should keep these to remind yourself how
the numbers were developed. A narrative portion of the budget is used to explain the line items
in the budget. Projects that include travel should be specific about benefit/reasons and locations.

Units, quantity per period and estimated unit costs are the three elements that are needed to
calculate costs associated with any of these categories.

REFERENCES
Use the standard convention of your discipline including the author, title of article, journal title,
volume, pages, and date.

These are very important. Your report should be sufficient to indicate to the reader what you
have done, what you found out and provide enough information for them to repeat the work if
they so wished. You will have made us of information from a variety of sources, e.g. moisture
content analysis from a book.

In these cases, you must include reference to such sources. It may be that your project showed no
evidence for cold fusion, but this might be because the value of the specific heat of water you
used was incorrect. By including a reference to the source others can check your work and
reduce the time taken to make further advances.

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There are generally three types of reference according to the source, journal article, book, and
web site.

Book – you need to cite title, authors, date published, edition (if not first), City of publication
and publisher. e.g. “Fellows, P. (2000). Food processing technology: principles and practice (2 nd
ed.). New York: Woodhead Publishing; CRC Press.”

A journal Article, “Dwyer, J.T., 1994. Vegetarian eating patterns: science, values, and
food choices where do we go from here? American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 59, 1255S–
1265S.

A web page, http://www.gobbeldygook.co.uk

A word of caution on web based information. Journal articles and most books are peer
reviewed. This means that other workers in the field have checked them for accuracy etc. This is
not true of web sites. Be careful in taking information from such sources and if at all possible
verify the information by checking in books etc. You should also read the web information
critically to see that it makes sense to you. You are an engineer and should take pride in not
being duped into making easy mistakes by faulty information.

Aspect Description
Font for headings Boldface serif or sans serif: size in accordance with hierarchy (14 font size for
first title and 12 font sizes for other titles. Note that second title states with the first letter in the
word and more titles should be written like sentence but they should be bold.
Font for text portion 12-point serif such as Times New Roman or Book Antiqua
Margins Standard, at least 1 inch
Layout One column, single-sided
Paragraphing Indented paragraphs, no line skip between paragraphs in a section
Page number Bottom centered
Figure names Numbered: Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3, and so forth
Figure captions Below figure in 12-point type
Table names Numbered: Table 1, Table 2, Table 3, and so forth
Table headings Above table in 12-point type

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 Project Reports Format Template
TITLE PAGE/COVER PAGE
APPROVAL SHEET
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES
LIST OF FIGURES
LIST OF TABLES IN THE APPENDIX (IF ANY)
LIST OF FIGURES IN THE APPENDIX (IF ANY)
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
LITERATURE REVIEW
MATERIALS AND METHODS
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
REFERENCES
APPENDIX

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