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Traditional written reports tend to be produced in the following
format.
Title Page
This contains the title of the report, the name of the researcher
and the date of publication. If the report is a dissertation
or thesis, the title page will include details about
the purpose of the report, for example ‘A thesis submitted
in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Sheffield Hallam
University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy’. If
the research has been funded by a particular organisation,
details of this may be included on the title page.
Contents Page
In this section is listed the contents of the report, either in
chapter or section headings with sub-headings, if relevant
and their page numbers.
List of Illustrations
This section includes title and page number of all graphs,
tables, illustrations, charts, etc.
Acknowledgements
Some researchers may wish to acknowledge the help of
their research participants, tutors, employers and/or
funding body.
Abstract/Summary
This tends to be a one page summary of the research, its
purpose, methods, main findings and conclusion.
Introduction
This section introduces the research, setting out the aims
and objectives, terms and definitions. It includes a rationale
for the research and a summary of the report structure.
Background
In this section is included all your background research,
which may be obtained from the literature, from personal
experience or both. You must indicate from where all the
information to which you refer has come, so remember to
keep a complete record of everything you read. If you do
not do this, you could be accused of plagiarism which is a
form of intellectual theft. When you are referring to a particular
book or journal article, find out the accepted standard
for referencing from your institution.
Methodology and Methods
In this section is set out a description of, and justification
for, the chosen methodology and research methods. The
length and depth of this section will depend upon whether
you are a student or employee. If you are an undergraduate
student you will need to raise some of the methodological
and theoretical issues pertinent to your work, but
if you are a postgraduate student you will need also to be
aware of the epistemological and ontological issues involved.
If you are an employee you may only need to provide
a description of the methods you used for your
research, in which case this section can be titled ‘Research
Methods’. Remember to include all the practical information
people will need to evaluate your work, for example,
how many people took part, how they were chosen, your
time scale and data recording and analysis methods.
Findings/Analysis
In this section are included your main findings. The content
of this section will depend on your chosen methodology
and methods. If you have conducted a large
quantitative survey, this section may contain tables,
graphs, pie charts and associated statistics. If you have
conducted a qualitative piece of research this section
may be descriptive prose containing lengthy quotations.
Conclusion
In this section you sum up your findings and draw conclusions
from them, perhaps in relation to other research or
literature.
Recommendations
Some academic reports will not need this section. However,
if you are an employee who has conducted a piece
of research for your company, this section could be the
most important part of the report. It is for this reason
that some written reports contain the recommendation
section at the beginning of the report. In this section is
set out a list of clear recommendations which have been
developed from your research.
Further Research
It is useful in both academic reports and work-related reports
to include a section which shows how the research
can be continued. Perhaps some results are inconclusive,
or perhaps the research has thrown up many more research
questions which need to be addressed. It is useful to include
this section because it shows that you are aware of the wider
picture and that you are not trying to cover up something
which you feel may be lacking from your own work.
References
Small research projects will need only a reference section.
This includes all the literature to which you have referred
in your report. Find out which referencing system your
college or university uses. A popular method is the Harvard
system which lists the authors’ surnames alphabetically,
followed by their initials, date of publication, title of
book in italics, place of publication and publisher. If the
reference is a journal article, the title of the article appears
in inverted commas and the name of the journal appears
in italics, followed by the volume number and pages of the
article.
Bibliography
Larger dissertations or theses will require both a reference
section and a bibliography. As discussed above, the reference
section will include all those publications to which
you have referred to in your report. If, however, you have
read other work in relation to your research but not actually
referred to them when writing up your report, you
might wish to include them in a bibliography. However,
make sure they are still relevant to your work – including
books to make your bibliography look longer and more
impressive is a tactic which won’t impress examiners.
Appendices
If you have constructed a questionnaire for your research,
or produced an interview schedule or a code of ethics, it
may be useful to include them in your report as an appendix. In general, appendices do not count towards your total
amount of words so it is a useful way of including material
without taking up space that can be used for other
information. However, do not try filling up your report
with irrelevant appendices as this will not impress examiners.
When including material you must make sure that it
is relevant – ask yourself whether the examiner will gain a
deeper understanding of your work by reading the appendix.
If not, leave it out. Other information which could be
included as an appendix are recruitment leaflets or letters;
practical details about each research participant; sample
transcripts (if permission has been sought); list of interview
dates; relevant tables and graphs or charts which
are too bulky for the main report.
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