REPORT WRITING

Structuring your report

We discussed earlier that there are different types of report such as laboratory reports or reports on an industrial placement.

The following common elements can be found in many different reports:

   Title page

·         This should include the title of the report.

·         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 centre 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.

• Abstract or summary

This should be a short paragraph summarising the main contents of the report.

• Introduction

State your objectives clearly, define the limits of the report, outline the method of enquirer, give a brief general background to the subject of the report and indicate the proposed development.

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 ?