Writing reports

Writing Reports
By the end of this section you should be able to:
OBJECTIVES:
1. Understand the purposes of a report
2. Plan a report
3. Understand the structure of a report
4. Collect information for your report
5. Organize your information
6. Use an appropriate style of writing
7. Present data effectively
8. Understand how to lay out your information in an appropriate way
CONTENTS:
1. Writing reports
2. Different types of reports
3. Stages in report writing
4. Terms of reference
5. Planning your report
6. Collecting information
7. Organizing information
8. Structuring your report
9. Style of writing
10. Layout
11. Presentation
12. Redrafting and checking
13. Checklist
WritingReports
Reports are a highly structured form of writing often following conventions that have been laid
down to produce a common format. Structure and convention in written reports stress the process
by which the information was gathered as much as the information itself.
DIFFERENTS TYPES OF REPORTING WRITING
During your time at university you may be asked to write different types of reports, depending
upon the subject area which you have chosen. These could include laboratory reports, technical
reports, reports of a work placement or industrial visit, reports of a field trip or field work.
Reports vary in their purpose, but all of them will require a formal structure and careful
planning, presenting the material in a logical manner using clear and concise language.

The following section explores each stage in the development of your report, making
recommendations for structure and technique.
STAGES OF REPORT WRITING:
The following stages are involved in writing a report:
a. clarifying your terms of reference
b. planning your work
c. collecting your information
d. organizing and structuring your information
e. writing the first draft
f. checking and re-drafting.
WRITING REPORTSTAGES 2:
TERMS OF REFERENCE:
The terms of reference of a report are a guiding statement used to define the scope of your
investigation. You must be clear from the start what you are being asked to do. You will
probably have been given an assignment from your tutor but you may need to discuss this further
to find out the precise subject and purpose of the report. Why have you been asked to write it ?
Knowing your purpose will help you to communicate your information more clearly and will
help you to be more selective when collecting your information.
PLANNING YOUR REPOT:
Careful planning will help you to write a clear, concise and effective report, giving adequate time
to each of the developmental stages prior to submission.
o Consider the report as a whole
o Break down the task of writing the report into various parts.
o How much time do you have to write the report?
o How can this be divided up into the various planning stages?
o Set yourself deadlines for the various stages.
Draw up an outline structure for your report and set the work within a sensible time scale for
completion by the given deadline.
Some of the most time-consuming parts of the process are collecting and selecting your
information, and checking and revising your report.
COLLECTION INFORMATION:
There are a number of questions you need to ask yourself at this stage :-
o What is the information you need ?
o Where do you find it ?
o How much do you need ?
o How shall you collect it ?
o In what order will you arrange it ?
You may have much of the information you need already such as results from a laboratory
experiment or descriptions of your methods of data collection.

However, there may be other material which is needed such as background information on other
research studies, or literature surveys. You may need to carry out some interviews or make a visit
to the university library to collect all the information you need.
o Make a list of what information you need.
o Make an action plan stating how you are going to gather this.
The Information Technology Skills Guide contains much useful advice on the use of
electronic information sources. This guide is available from the University's Flexible Learning
Initiative.
ORGANISING INFORMATION:
One helpful way of organizing your information into topics is to brainstorm your ideas into a
‘spider diagram.’
o Write the main theme in the center of a piece of paper.
o Write down all the ideas and keywords related to your topic starting from the
center and branching out along lines of connecting ideas.
• Each idea can be circled or linked by lines as appropriate.
• When you have finished, highlight any related ideas and then sort topics.
• Some ideas will form main headings, and others will be sub-sections under these headings.
• You should then be able to see a pattern emerging and be able to arrange your main headings in
a logical order .
Further advice concerning the organizing of material can be found in another section of this
Study Guide,
Taking notes.
STRUCTURUNG YOUR REPORT:
We discussed earlier that there are different types of report such as laboratory reports or reports
on an industrial placement. Always check with the person commissioning the report (your tutor,
your placement supervisor) to find out precisely what your report should include and how it
should be presented.
The following common elements can be
found in many different reports:
o Title page
o Acknowledgements
o Contents
o Abstract or summary
o Introduction
o Methodology
o Results or findings
o Discussion
o Conclusion and recommendations
o References

o Appendices
We shall now look at each of these in turn.
Title page:
This should include the title of the report (which should give a precise indication of the subject
matter), the author’s name, module, course and the date.
Acknowledgements:
You should acknowledge any help you have received in collecting the information for the report.
This may be from librarians, technicians or computer center staff, for example.
Contents:
You should list all the main sections of the report in sequence with the page numbers they begin
on. If there are charts, diagrams or tables included in your report, these should be listed
separately under a title such as ‘List of Illustrations’ together with the page numbers on which
they appear.
Abstract or summary:
This should be a short paragraph summarizing the main contents of the report. It should include a
short statement of the main task, the methods used, conclusions reached and any
recommendations to be made. The abstract or summary should be concise,
informative and independent of the report.
Write this section after you have written the report.
Introduction:
This should give the context and scope of the report and should include your terms of reference.
State your objectives clearly, define the limits of the report, outline the method of enquiry, give a
brief general background to the subject of the report and indicate the proposed development.
Methodology:
In this section you should state how you carried out your enquiry. What form did your enquiry
take ? Did you carry out interviews or questionnaires, how did you collect your data ? What
measurements did you make ? How did you choose the subjects for your interviews ? Present
this information logically and concisely.
Results or findings:
Present your findings in as simple a way as possible.
The more complicated the information looks, the more difficult it will be to interpret. There are a
number of ways in which results can be presented.
Here are a few :
o Tables
o Graphs
o Pie charts
o Bar charts
o Diagrams
Illustration checklist

o Are all your diagrams / illustrations clearly labeled?
o Do they all have titles?
o Is the link between the text and the diagram clear?
o Are the headings precise?
o Are the axes of graphs clearly labeled?
o Can tables be easily interpreted?
o Have you abided by any copyright laws when including illustrations/tables from
published documents?

Writing reports

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Writing reports