Research Methodology Module-07
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This document discusses report writing and provides guidance on writing effective reports. It covers the need for documentation, the importance of report writing, common report structures, and guidelines for structuring a report. Documentation is important as it can help prove or defend claims and preserve a record of events when they are fresh. Reports should be written to be read by others and convey essential information through a clear structure, including sections like an introduction, background, methodology, results, and conclusion. The document provides examples of different types of reports and recommends following a top-down outline approach when writing a report.
Research Methodology Module-07
- 1. 1 Module 7 RM Report writing Report writing is used to develop your writing skills so you can prepare quality reports based on a good style, a clear format and an effective use of data. The types of report writing are technical and practical. 1) NEED OF EFFECTIVE DOCUMENTATION "The importance of documentation" is an axiomatic, and almost trite, battle cry that human resource professionals constantly beat into the psyches of their supervisors - quite often to no avail. But what, really, is "documentation?" When do you do it? How do you do it? And, what, exactly, are you supposed to document? More importantly, have you ever conveyed this information to your supervisors? Documentation serves many purposes. It can help prove an essential element of a claim such as "misconduct" in an unemployment claim, or a "legitimate business reason" in a discrimination claim. It can help defend a claim, confirming that certain action was taken, demonstrating that others were treated in the same manner, or preserving a record or history of prior events. Most importantly, it is the best evidence of events as they occurred - at a time when they are fresh in the individual's mind. This information generally constitutes the best evidence of what actually happened, and allows the individual to recall it in much greater detail several months, or even years later. What to document? The simple answer is "whatever might become an issue later." Examples include: Attendance - reasons given for absences and tardiness; performance - significant incidents of inadequate job performance, violations of work rules, repeated unacceptable behavior, etc.; attitude - manifestations of inappropriate comments, gestures or actions not otherwise apparent; discipline - a contemporaneous record of verbal or written warnings for violations of work rules, including the employee's response and agreed-upon corrective action; complaints from co-workers - the name of the individual complaining, the date of the complaint and the nature of the complaint; receipt of information - confirm receipt of policies, work rules, etc.; training - confirm participation, subject matter and materials distributed or relied upon; investigations - record response to complaint, including action taken, information received, etc., to name a few. How to document? Be specific - include date (with year), names and all relevant information. Do not assume anything is so obvious/easy that it will not be forgotten. Be detailed - use exact words, no matter how offensive or vulgar, and quotes whenever possible. Be accurate - do not omit relevant details, make assumptions or misrepresent
- 2. 2 what actually happened. Be smart - remember, what you write may someday constitute evidence in a legal proceeding. Your notes will thus help, or hurt, your case. Make it easy - prepare/use established forms, email, notes to self, or whatever it takes to be sure that the record is made. The more difficult or burdensome the requirement, the less likely it will happen. 2) IMPORTANCE OF REPORT WRITING Purpose of a report: writing to be read A key thing to keep in mind right through your report writing process is that a report is written to be read, by someone else. This is the central goal of report-writing. A report which is written for the sake of being written has very little value. Before you start writing your report, you need to have in mind the intended audience. In the narrowest of possibilities, your report is meant for reading by yourselves, and by your advisor/instructor, and perhaps by your evaluation committee. This has value, but only short-term. The next broader possibility is that your report is readable by your peers or your juniors down the line. This has greater value since someone else can continue on your work and improve it, or learn from your work. In the best case possibility, your report is of publishable quality. That is, readable and useful for the technical community in general. Overall approach: top-down Take a top-down approach to writing the report (also applies to problem solving in general). This can proceed in roughly three stages of continual refinement of details. 1. First write the section-level outline, 2. Then the subsection-level outline, and 3. Then a paragraph-level outline. The paragraph-level outline would more-or-less be like a presentation with bulleted points. It incorporates the flow of ideas. Once you have the paragraph-level flow of ideas, you can easily convert that into a full report, by writing out the flow of ideas in full sentences. While doing the paragraph-level outline, think also about (a) figures, (b) tables, and (c) graphs you will include as part of the report at various stages. You will find that many things can be better explained by using simple figures at appropriate places. Another thing to nail-down while doing the paragraph-level outline is the terminology you will be using. For instance, names of various protocols/algorithms/steps in your solution. Or names/symbols for mathematical notation.
- 3. 3 The overall approach also includes multiple stages of refinement, and taking feedback from others (peers/advisor/instructor). I will talk about these in more detail after talking about the overall report structure. 3) TYPES OF REPORTS Reports are written for different purposes. They therefore contain different information and structures, including headings and subheadings, and these form the outline of the report. The table below shows the sections commonly found in these types of reports . Common report structures Short report Title page Introduction Discussion Recommendations References Science report Title page Introduction Method & materials Results Discussion Conclusion Appendices References Business report Title page Executive summary Table of contents Introduction Discussion Conclusion Recommendations Appendices References Engineering report Title page Executive summary (optional) Introduction Objectives Analysis Discussion Recommendations & action plan Conclusion Appendices References Research report Title page Executive summary Introduction Method / methodology Results / findings Discussion Conclusions Recommendations Appendices Bibliography
- 4. 4 4) REPORT STRUCTURE Structure of a report The following should roughly be the structure of a report. Note that these are just guidelines, not rules. You have to use your intelligence in working out the details of your specific writing. Title and abstract: These are the most-read parts of a report. This is how you attract attention to your writing. The title should reflect what you have done and should bring out any eye-catching factor of your work, for good impact. The abstract should be short, generally within about 2 paragraphs (250 words or so total). The abstract should contain the essence of the report, based on which the reader decides whether to go ahead with reading the report or not. It can contain the following in varying amounts of detail as is appropriate: main motivation, main design point, essential difference from previous work, methodology, and some eye-catching results if any. Introduction: Most reports start with an introduction section. This section should answer the following questions (not necessarily in that order, but what is given below is a logical order). After title/abstract introduction and conclusions are the two mainly read parts of a report. o What is the setting of the problem? This is, in other words, the background. In some cases, this may be implicit, and in some cases, merged with the motivation below. o What exactly is the problem you are trying to solve? This is the problem statement. o Why is the problem important to solve? This is the motivation. In some cases, it may be implicit in the background, or the problem statement itself. o Is the problem still unsolved? The constitutes the statement of past/related work crisply. o Why is the problem difficult to solve? This is the statement of challenges. In some cases, it may be implicit in the problem statement. In others, you may have to say explicitly as to why the problem is worthy of a BTech/MTech/PhD, or a semester project, as the case may be. o How have you solved the problem? Here you state the essence of your approach. This is of course expanded upon later, but it must be stated explicitly here. o What are the conditions under which your solution is applicable? This is a statement of assumptions. o What are the main results? You have to present the main summary of the results here.
- 5. 5 o What is the summary of your contributions? This in some cases may be implicit in the rest of the introduction. Sometimes it helps to state contributions explicitly. o How is the rest of the report organized? Here you include a paragraph on the flow of ideas in the rest of the report. For any report beyond 4-5 pages, this is a must. The introduction is nothing but a shorter version of the rest of the report, and in many cases the rest of the report can also have the same flow. Think of the rest of the report as an expansion of some of the points in the introduction. Which of the above bullets are expanded into separate sections (perhaps even multiple sections) depends very much on the problem. Background: This is expanded upon into a separate section if there is sufficient background which the general reader must understand before knowing the details of your work. It is usual to state that "the reader who knows this background can skip this section" while writing this section. Past/related work: It is common to have this as a separate section, explaining why what you have done is something novel. Here, you must try to think of dimensions of comparison of your work with other work. For instance, you may compare in terms of functionality, in terms of performance, and/or in terms of approach. Even within these, you may have multiple lines of comparison -- functionality-1, functionality-2, metric-1, metric-2, etc. Although not mandatory, it is good presentation style to give the above comparison in terms of a table; where the rows are the various dimensions of comparison and the columns are various pieces of related work, with your own work being the first/last column. See the related work section of my PhD thesis for an example of such a table :-). While in general you try to play up your work with respect to others, it is also good to identify points where your solution is not so good compared to others. If you state these explicitly, the reader will feel better about them, than if you do not state and the reader figures out the flaws in your work anyway :-). Another point is with respect to the placement of related work. One possibility is to place it in the beginning of the report (after intro/background). Another is to place it in the end of the report (just before conclusions). This is a matter of judgment, and depends on the following aspect of your work. If there are lots of past work related very closely to your work, then it makes sense to state upfront as to what the difference in your approach is. On the other hand, if your work is substantially different from past work, then it is better to put the related work at the end. While this conveys a stronger message, it has the risk of the reader
- 6. 6 wondering all through the report as to how your work is different from some other specific related work. Technical sections: The main body of the report may be divided into multiple sections as the case may be. You may have different sections which delve into different aspects of the problem. The organization of the report here is problem specific. You may also have a separate section for statement of design methodology, or experimental methodology, or proving some lemmas in a theoretical paper. The technical section is the most work-specific, and hence is the least described here. However, it makes sense to mention the following main points: o Outlines/flow: For sections which may be huge, with many subsections, it is appropriate to have a rough outline of the section at the beginning of that section. Make sure that the flow is maintained as the reader goes from one section to another. There should be no abrupt jumps in ideas. o Use of figures: The cliché "a picture is worth a thousand words" is appropriate here. Spend time thinking about pictures. Wherever necessary, explain all aspects of a figure (ideally, this should be easy), and do not leave the reader wondering as to what the connection between the figure and the text is. o Terminology: Define each term/symbol before you use it, or right after its first use. Stick to a common terminology throughout the report. Results: This is part of the set of technical sections, and is usually a separate section for experimental/design papers. You have to answer the following questions in this section: o What aspects of your system or algorithm are you trying to evaluate? That is, what are the questions you will seek to answer through the evaluations? o Why are you trying to evaluate the above aspects? o What are the cases of comparison? If you have proposed an algorithm or a design, what do you compare it with? o What are the performance metrics? Why? o What are the parameters under study? o What is the experimental setup? Explain the choice of every parameter value (range) carefully. o What are the results? o Finally, why do the results look the way they do? The results are usually presented as tables and graphs. In explaining tables and graphs, you have to explain them as completely as possible. Identify trends in the data. Does the data prove what you want to establish? In what cases are the results explainable, and in what cases unexplainable if any?
- 7. 7 While describing a table, you have to describe every row/column. And similarly while describing a graph; you have to describe the x/y axes. If necessary, you have to consider the use of log-axes. If you are presenting a lot of results, it may be useful to summarize the main take- away points from all the data in a separate sub-section at the end (or sometimes even at the beginning) of the results section. Future work: This section in some cases is combined along with the "conclusions" section. Here you state aspects of the problem you have not considered and possibilities for further extensions. Conclusions: Readers usually read the title, abstract, introduction, and conclusions. In that sense, this section is quite important. You have to crisply state the main take-away points from your work. How has the reader become smarter, or how has the world become a better place because of your work? At the top level, a typical report is organized in the following way. 1. Abstract. (This is a couple of paragraphs - no more - which summarizes the content of the report. It must be comprehensible to someone who has not read the rest of the report.) 2. Introduction. (The scope of the project, setting the scene for the remainder of the report.) 3. Previous work. (One or more review chapters, describing the research you did at the beginning of the project period.) 4. Several chapters describing what you have done, focusing on the novel aspects of your own work. 5. Further work. (A chapter describing possible ways in which your work could be continued or developed. Be imaginative but realistic.) 6. Conclusions. (This is similar to the abstract. The difference is that you should assume here that the reader of the conclusions has read the rest of the report.) 7. References and appendices.
- 8. 8 5) REPORT FORMULATION 4. How to write well Many students appear not to realize how difficult it is to write well. Any type of writing (except perhaps advertising copy) is difficult, but technical writing is particularly hard. 4.1. Precision You must strive first to be absolutely precise. When you write, it is not sufficient that you know what you mean; neither is it sufficient that your writing admits of the meaning which you intend: it must admit of no other meaning. What you write must not be capable of misinterpretation. Take exceptional care to choose the right word for the occasion. Do not, for example, write ``optimum'' if you mean ``good''. ``Approximate'' means ``close'', so ``very approximate'' means ``very close'' - which is not what many people seem to think it means. 4.2. Vigour Precision in writing is mainly a matter of taking sufficient care. Good writing is not only precise, however, it is vigorous, and that is much harder to achieve. It helps if you have read widely, especially novels. Here are some hints which might help you to write forcefully and vigorously. Prefer short sentences to long sentences. Prefer short words to long words, provided that the short word has the meaning you need. Terseness is a great virtue in technical writing. (But don't go too far; remember Horace's observation: ``Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio''.) Avoid circumlocutions. ``In almost all sectors of the computing marketplace'' can be replaced in most contexts by ``almost everywhere''. The question of whether to use the passive voice in technical writing is a thorny one. Most older writers still write ``a program was written ...'' rather than ``I wrote a program ...''. Many of your examiners might share this preference for, or prejudice in favour of, the passive voice, but this style is passing out of favour in all technical writing, and I advise you not to use it. Whatever you do, do not use the ``royal we'' (``we wrote a program'' when you mean ``I wrote a program''). There is general agreement that Latin phrases are best avoided in technical writing (but the occasional Latin quotation might lend a spurious air of erudition!) Nevertheless, many careful writers have their own favourite Latin phrases which find occasional use. The best rule is that a Latin phrase is acceptable if it abbreviates a circumlocutionary English phrase. Mutatis mutandis, for example, one of my own favourites, is permissible in place of ``making the appropriate changes'', since any English gloss seems to be ugly and unwieldy. ``I.e.'' (note the roman font and punctuation) is often useful in place of ``in
- 9. 9 other words'' or ``that is'', and is widely understood. Quite often, however, ``X, i.e., Y'' can be replaced by ``Y'', because the writer realized while writing X that Y said the same, only better. ``E.g.'' is overused and best used sparingly; prefer ``for instance'' or ``for example''. 4.3. Spelling and grammar You must take exceptional care to spell correctly. Poor spelling is a distraction to the proficient reader. In most cases there is very little excuse nowadays for spelling errors; there are many excellent spell-checker programs which make a good job of finding the errors for you, and excellent (paper) dictionaries which will tell you what the correct spelling is. Be especially careful with words whose common misspelling is a correct spelling of a different word, in particular the following pairs: lead/led; loose/lose; affect/effect. It is dangerous to allow the spell-checker to ``correct'' a misspelling by itself; many such hilarious ``corrections'' have been reported, for example recently in New Scientist. Believe the spell-checker. If poor spelling is a distraction which impedes understanding, poor grammar is more so. Take care with apostrophes. Even if you yourself do not place a strong emphasis on good spelling and good grammar, most of your examiners do, some fanatically. Most examiners will be irritated by poor spelling and poor grammar. It is always worth doing whatever you can, short of bribery, to put your examiner in a good mood. Write well and spell well, for this reason if for no other! 4.4. Typography When I prepared my own final-year project report, I wrote it with pen and ink and handed the manuscript to the departmental secretary who typed it for me on an IBM typewriter. Modern practice is different, and now you yourself are responsible for producing a computer-typeset report. This means that you must be familiar both with the formal requirements set out in the Students' Handbook (restricting the number of pages, type size, width of margins, and so on) and with the rudiments of typography. You will not be penalized severely, if at all, if you violate typographical conventions, but good typography creates a subliminal impression akin to that of good proportion in a painting, and is desirable for that reason. Since it is a matter of simply learning and following the rules, you should try to do so. You should learn at least enough (for example) to know the
- 10. 10 difference between the hyphen, minus, en-dash and em-dash, and when to use each of them. 4.5. Illustrations Your report should generally contain illustrations (figures or diagrams), but they must be relevant. Ask yourself if the illustration helps the reader to understand the text. If the text is readily comprehensible without the illustration, delete the illustration. If it is not, it is usually better to make the text clearer than to add a diagram. All illustrations should be prepared by an appropriate program, such as pic, xfig or grap. They should not be hand-drawn. The only common exception to this rule is circuit diagrams: given the current state of the art in schematic-entry packages, a hand-drawn circuit diagram is usually preferable to a computer-drawn one. If possible, include figures close to the text which refers to them, rather than all together in an appendix. Circuit diagrams are, again, a possible exception to this rule. It is normal to list tables and figures at the beginning of the report, after the table of contents. 6) PLAGIARISM What is Plagiarism? Plagiarism is the act of taking another person's writing, conversation, song, or even idea and passing it off as your own. This includes information from web pages, books, songs, television shows, email messages, interviews, articles, artworks or any other medium. Whenever you paraphrase, summarize, or take words, phrases, or sentences from another person's work, it is necessary to indicate the source of the information within your paper using an internal citation. It is not enough to just list the source in a bibliography at the end of your paper. Failing to properly quote, cite or acknowledge someone else's words or ideas with an internal citation is plagiarism. The act of appropriating the literary composition of another author, or excerpts, ideas, or passages therefrom, and passing the material off as one's own creation. Plagiarism is theft of another person's writings or ideas. Generally, it occurs when someone steals expressions from another author's composition and makes them appear to be his own work. Plagiarism is not a legal term; however, it is often used in lawsuits. Courts recognize acts of plagiarism as violations of Copyright law, specifically as the theft of another person's Intellectual Property. Because copyright law allows a variety of creative works to be registered as the property of their owners, lawsuits alleging
- 11. 11 plagiarism can be based on the appropriation of any form of writing, music, and visual images. Plagiarism can take a broad range of forms. At its simplest and most extreme, plagiarism involves putting one's own name on someone else’s work; this is commonly seen in schools when a student submits a paper that someone else has written. Schools, colleges, and universities usually have explicit guidelines for reviewing and punishing plagiarism by students and faculty members. In copyright lawsuits, however, allegations of plagiarism are more often based on partial theft. It is not necessary to exactly duplicate another's work in order to infringe a copyright: it is sufficient to take a substantial portion of the copyrighted material. Thus, for example, plagiarism can include copying language or ideas from another novelist, basing a new song in large part on another's musical composition, or copying another artist's drawing or photograph. Courts and juries have a difficult time determining when unlawful copying has occurred. One thing the plaintiff must show is that the alleged plagiarist had access to the copyrighted work. Such evidence might include a showing that the plaintiff sent the work to the defendant in an attempt to sell it or that the work was publicly available and widely disseminated. Once access is proven, the plaintiff must show that the alleged plagiarism is based on a substantial similarity between the two works. Five Types of Plagiarism 1. "Copy & Paste Plagiarism" "Any time you lift a sentence or significant phrase intact from a source, you must use quotations marks and reference the source." 2. "Word Switch Plagiarism" "If you take a sentence from a source and change around a few words, it is still plagiarism. If you want to quote a sentence, then you need to put it in quotation marks and cite the author and article. But quoting Source articles should only be done if what the quote says is particularly useful in the point you are trying to make in what you are writing." In many cases, paraphrasing and then citing the original sources is a better option. 3. "Style Plagiarism" "When you follow a Source Article sentence-by-sentence or paragraph-by-paragraph, it is plagiarism, even though none of your sentences are exactly like those in the source article
- 12. 12 or even in the same order. What you are copying in this case is the author's reasoning style." 4. "Metaphor Plagiarism" "Metaphors are used either to make an idea clearer or give the reader an analogy that touches the senses or emotions better than a plain description of the object or process. Metaphors, then, are an important part of an author's creative style. If you cannot come up with your own metaphor to illustrate an important idea, then use the metaphor in the Source Article, but give the author credit for it." 5." Idea Plagiarism" "If the author of the source article expresses a creative idea or suggests a solution to a problem, the idea or solution must be clearly attributed to the author. Students seem to have a hard time distinguishing author's ideas and/or solutions from public domain information. Public domain information is any idea or solution about which people in the field accept as general knowledge. For example, what a black hole is and how it is defined is general knowledge. You do not need to reference a general description of a black hole. The escape velocity of earth is also general knowledge and needs no reference. The distance to the center of the Galaxy is also general knowledge. However, a new idea about how to look for black holes or a new solution to a physics problem needs to be attributed to the authors. If you don't know what is accepted as public domain in a particular field, ASK." Consequences of Plagiarism? The major consequence of plagiarism is that people who are involved in it can be disqualified from their course; it can result in ones work being shattered, it can result in removal from ones academic organization, or it can also result in legal action