The length of the project report

The length of the project report

The University has set fixed page limits to semester projects. These serve a specific purpose: no one – and this includes you and your supervisor – benefits from you writing 500 pages when you could instead have written 100 pages. The purpose of setting a page limit is for you to learn to master the art of restriction. The page limit is as follows:

  • Individual projects: 30 standard pages
  • Group projects: 20 standard pages per student

A group must not consist of more than six students; thus, a semester project cannot exceed 120 standard pages.

Throughout the course of your study programme, you may be asked to complete individual assignments to which these rules do not apply. The requirements of each assignment is stipulated in the curriculum and regulations.

In addition, the following guidelines apply to semester projects:

One standard page is equivalent to 2,400 characters including spaces. The stipulated number of pages only includes the actual body text of the report; title page, preface, table of contents, bibliography, abstract and appendices will not be calculated. However, notes will be included in the calculation of total pages, whereas illustrations will not be calculated. Texts, such as quotes, may not be inserted as illustrations, but must be inserted as text.

Although a group may not have exceeded the stipulated number of pages, the project may well consist of a larger number of actual pages, and the project may then appear to exceed the stipulated number of pages. To avoid any confusion, the group must always specify the total number of characters including spaces and the total number of standard pages equivalent on the project’s front page and title page. You can find guidelines for formatting your front page and title page on Moodle.

If a group wishes to depart from the rules stipulated in the curriculum regarding the length of assignments or projects, the group must apply for exemption with the Study Board. Please note, the Study Board is not inclined to grant exemptions for the stipulated number of pages of semester projects – especially not to groups of two students asking to exceed the number of pages.