Presenting your Research:

Writing your Report

Robert Croker

Fieldwork Research Methods

for Japan

Nanzan University

Sections of your Report

Opening illustrative story

Overview of your topic – a brief introduction to the

topic and your study

Readings – link your research to others’

Who you are – your introduction

Middle sections – present your claims and your

evidence together

Discussion – pull your claims together and state

them again clearly

References – list of references

Opening

Illustrative

Story

Opening Illustrative Story

Tell a brief story from your research which

captures the essence of your study.

Such stories involve the reader early on, ground

them in a concrete way into the subject matter,

convey some of the emotion of the setting, and

provide a feel for what it might have been like to be

there. Tie these stories directly to the study to

make it effective – tell readers why you are telling

it and how it is tied to your research topic.

Opening Illustrative Story

Place the reader in the story

Make it vivid – use visual and sound cues

Include your participants’ voices – this also

introduces the participants to the reader

Introduce the main theme

Opening Story - Example

The park was softly lit in the afternoon spring light. It was cool

in this little valley, much cooler than out on the bustling, busy

street only 50 feet away. The curtain of thick trees and

swaying bamboo lining the road kept the sounds of urbanity

out of this oasis, and I was startled to hear the incessant pitch

of cicadas mix with the cheerful singing of birds and the deep

love calls of frogs. “I come here every morning, and I stay all

day if I can,” remarked Toru, the volunteer leader. “It refreshes

me. And over one hundred people come here every day.”

Looking up at the bright green hues of the spring leaves at the

tops of the camphor trees on the ridge, I immediately realized

how important this park was for the local people fighting to

protect it from development.

Overview

of your

Topic

Overview of Your Topic

On the first page, directly and succinctly tell the reader

what your study is about.

Provide some background information, to help readers

place your topic in their knowledge of Japan.

State the research methods – who your participants

were, how you created your data, and how you

analyzed it.

Summarize your main argument(s) – what you plan to

illustrate in your study.

Briefly explain the organization of your paper.

Readings

Readings

For larger research projects, readings are a central

part of your study.

For this project, as it is shorter and focused on

fieldwork, they are less central.

In your report, briefly summarize what other

researchers have written about your topic. You can

discuss theory or other studies – including both

what they found and how they found it (substantive

and methodological issues).

Readings - Formatting

Please use APA: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/02/

short quote:

According to Jones (1998), “Japan is a feudal

society” (p. 200).

longer quote:

Jones’s (1998) study found the following:

Japan is a feudal society. This is clear from the

relationships that people develop with each

other, and the feelings of hierarchy that are

evident in almost all interactions. (p. 200)

Your

Introduction

Your Introduction

Explain who you are:

ie your own identity, particularly with regard to

this topic

why you are interested in this topic

your own relationship and experience with

this topic and with your participants (ie if you

already knew them, or whether you had to get

to know them to do your fieldwork)

Your Introduction

Why do this?

to reveal who you are and so alert readers to

potential bias

to separate yourself from your topic

to show that you are aware of your own

subjectivity, and warns the reader to take that

into account

Your Voice in the Text

‘the researcher’ + passive voice:

The researcher interviewed three subjects.

Subjects were selected by random sampling.

‘I’ + active voice:

I interviewed three participants.

I selected the participants because of their

interest in _________.

Your Voice in the Text

‘the researcher’

suggests an objectivity that doesn’t really exist

ie the researcher is an individual with particular

points of view, who designed and carried out

the research, and this should be reflected in the

writing up

Your Voice in the Text

‘I’

Less pretentious than ‘the researcher’, which is

also often used to give the author a sense of

authority …

.. and more honest and direct.

So ‘I’ is more commonly used.

Your Participants

Unless your participants gave you permission

to do otherwise, change their names and any

identifying features about them.

If you have many participants, you could list

up your participants in a table, giving their

pseudonyms and other relevant information

about them.

Their Voice in the Text

Quoting in English + include when and where

interview was conducted:

As Taku noted, “I live in Nagoya” (interview,

2014/10/16, Nagoya).

Quoting in Japanese, with translation + include

when and where interview was conducted:

As Taku noted, 「私は名古屋に住んでいます。」(“I live in Nagoya.”) (interview, 2014/10/16,

Nagoya).

Middle

Sections

Middle Sections

This is the core of your report. Here, present your

claims and the evidence you have to support them,

using logical arguments.

A claim is a statement of what is true about the world.

Evidence is data that you use to illustrate and support that

claim.

Arguments are statements of logic which connect your

evidence to your claims, and one claim to another.

Two Types of Claims

a description of something

an explanation of something

with different levels of abstraction, from –

a statement only about a particular situation

…a more universal statement about a group

of people (eg Takarazuka fans, Japanese people)

…to a universal statement about all humans

Each Section

Introduction:

explain what this section is about

+ link it to your main argument

+ link this section to what came earlier

Middle:

the core – deliver what you promised

End:

summarize what you said in this section

+ link it again to your main argument

+ provide a transition to the next section(s)

Writing – two parts

“Here is what I’ve found”

= your claim

“and here are the data to support these claims”

= your evidence

Balance

You need to balance the general and the

specific ie your claims and your evidence

Your claims need to be:

clear, logical, consistent, reasonable

Your evidence needs to be:

relevant, illustrative, compelling, documented

Your task!

To convince readers of the plausibility of

your claims.

Quantitative research: formal conventions of

organization and presentation

Qualitative research: conventions differ depending

upon the approach, but generally fewer formal

conventions

Strategy One

Make a statement, then illustrate it with

several examples. At the end of such a

paragraph, add a final sentence to restate

your argument or to add another twist.

i.e. separate your claims from your evidence

Strategy One - Example

For most fans of Takarazuka, going to a performance is one of

the highlights of their social calendar, particularly for women

living in regional cities who only have the opportunity to see a

Takarazuka performance two or three times a year. Women from

Aichi explain their feelings about these performances:

“I can hardly sleep the night before, I am so excited!” noted

Mayumi, a slim woman in her mid-forties.

“My friend and I always get dressed up in our best clothes,

and go out to dinner afterwards to a nice cafe. It is almost the

only time I go out,” reflected Tamami, a housewife from Toyota.

“I love the performances! I live for them!” said Ai, smiling.

For these women, Takarazuka is a splash of color in their

otherwise quiet and rather repetitive lives.

Strategy Two

Make a statement, then illustrate it with one

longer example, using a colon:

i.e. again, separate your claims from your evidence

Strategy Two - Example

Further evidence of volunteers’ passion for the park and its

environment were clear in their questionnaire responses.

Toru, one of the older volunteers, wrote:

“I began coming to this park when I was a child. I can

remember fishing with my friends in the pond in the

northern part of the park. Then, the water was clean

and there were many fish and frogs. But after the

expressway was built upstream, the water became

dirty and the fish and frogs were no longer there. I want

my grandsons and their sons to be able to fish in this

pond. I feel that is my responsibility, my contribution to the

future. I will come here every day to help.”

Strategy Three

Intertwine claims, evidence, and your

interpretations of that evidence to form a

flowing paragraph.

i.e. claims and evidence are mixed together.

Strategy Three - Example

For children who have learned to respect school

and to take their academic responsibilities

seriously, the experience of total immersion in a

foreign language environment can be devastating.

“I felt like a piece of wood,” says a fifteen-year-old

boy. Even the simplest question was torture. “The

teacher would ask me my name and I was afraid to

say it because I would say my family name but she

wanted me to say my first name.” This from a 12-

year-old girl from China.

Strategy Four

Combine your claims, evidence, and your

interpretations of that evidence into a

narrative, as though you are telling a story.

i.e. claims and evidence are mixed together. You are much

less distanced from the material that you’re presenting. You

put together the descriptions you gained from observations

and interviews together.

Strategy Four - Example

Bobbie Dijon was always the tallest girl in her class; only a

few boys were taller. Some of the children laughed at her in

elementary school, but by the time she was twelve she was

so strong and so big that nobody ever teased her, for they

feared that Bobbie would haul them off and pound them

with her fists, which she had been known to do. It was not,

her teachers said, that she was a tough girl, a bad girl.

There was a tough part of her, they all agreed, but it was a

small part that lived inside her, preferring not to show itself

unless it was seriously provoked. And then it terrorized

whoever had the audacity to have brought it out.

(adapted from Cottle, 1997, p. 1)

Middle Sections - Suggestions

You could use all four strategies, to make

your writing more interesting.

Do not include large sections of raw data

with no discussion or explanation for

including them. Data is not usually self-

evident – just presenting raw data or quotes

is really a cop out.

Discussion

Discussion

Incisively restate your main claims, and

explain the linkages and connections

between them.

Explain the significance of your research.

Remind readers that this is just a small-

scale research project, and explain other

limitations.

Suggested directions for future research.

You could finish with a final story.

References

References

Please use APA: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

Example - Book:

Robson, C., & Bernard, H. R. (2002). Real World

Research (5th ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.Example - Book Chapter:

Knox, B., & O’Neil, J. M. (2010). The art of fandom.

In B. B. Wyte (Ed.), Fandom in Japan (pp. 101-

123). New York: Springer.Example - Journal Article:

James, P. (2012). Fundamentals for preparing

reports. Journal of Comparative Writing, 55(1), 3-

15.