Writing the Research Report

The Introduction

❖ Purpose

❖ Scope

❖ Background

Purpose❖ What did your research discover

or prove?

❖ What kind of problem did you work on?

❖ Why did you work on this problem?

❖ Why are you writing this report?

❖ What should the reader know or understand at the end?

Scope

❖ How did you work on the research problem?

❖ Why did you work on the problem the way you did?

❖ Where there other obvious approaches that you didn’t take?

❖ What factors contributed to the way you worked on this problem?

Background❖ What facts does the reader need to

know to follow the discussion?

❖ Why was the project assigned or authorized?

❖ Who has done previous work on this problem?

❖ What will the reader already know? What will you need to tell them so they understand the significance?

Methods

❖ How was research designed?

❖ On what subjects was research performed?

❖ How were the subjects selected?

❖ How did you record the data?

Results: Presenting Data

❖ Present what you discovered

❖ Clear & logical

❖ Use figures or tables (if appropriate)

Results: Interpretation of Data❖ Begin with a discussion

of the data

❖ Generalize about or analyze the data

❖ Consider how the data addresses the research problem (identified in introduction)

❖ Discuss what can be inferred... what does the data mean?

Recommendations

❖ What needs to be done?

❖ No new info - rely on what you presented in results section.

Conclusions❖ Keep it short.

❖ No new ideas

❖ Convey significance and meaning one more time.

❖ Could raise unanswered questions or point to additional information needed.