The Most Widely Read Portions of a Report Are Generally the Sections Devoted to

Reports are a common academic genre at academy. Although the exact nature volition vary according to the discipline you lot are studying, the general construction is broadly like for all disciplines. The typical construction of a report, equally shown on this page, is ofttimes referred to as IMRAD, which is brusk for Introduction, Method, Results And Discussion. As reports frequently brainstorm with an Abstract, the structure may also be referred to equally AIMRAD.

Preliminaries

There are several parts which go at the starting time of the report, before the master content. These are the title page, abstract and contents page.

Championship page

Your report should have a title page. Information which could be included on this page are:

• the title of the report
• the name(s) of the author(due south)
• your student number(s)
• proper noun of the lecturer the report is for
• engagement of submission

Abstruse

Many longer reports will contain an abstract. This is like a summary of the whole report, and should contain details on the key areas, in other words the purpose, the methodology, the chief findings and the conclusions. An abstract is not normally needed for shorter reports such as science lab reports.

Contents folio

Many reports will contain a contents page. This should list all the headings and sub-headings in the report, together with the page numbers. Most word processing software can build a table of contents automatically.

Introduction

The first section of your report will be the introduction. This will ofttimes incorporate several sub-sections, as outlined below.

Background

There should exist some background data on the topic expanse. This could exist in the course of a literature review. Information technology is likely that this department will contain material from other sources, in which case appropriate citations will exist needed. You will as well need to summarise or paraphrase any information which comes from your text books or other sources.

Theory

Many reports, particularly scientific discipline reports, volition contain essential theory, such as equations which will be used later. You may need to give definitions of key terms and classify information. Equally with the groundwork department, correct in-text citations will be needed for whatsoever information which comes from your text books or other sources.

Aims

This function of the report explains why you are writing the study. The tense y'all use will depend on whether the subject of the sentence is the report (which however exists) or the experiment (which has finished). See the language for reports section for more information.

Method

Also called Methodology or Process, this section outlines how you gathered data, where from and how much. For example, if you used a survey:

• how was the survey carried out?
• how did yous determine on the target group?
• how many people were surveyed?
• were they surveyed by interview or questionnaire?

If information technology is a science lab report, yous will demand to answer these questions:

• what apparatus was used?
• how did y'all carry the experiment?
• how many times did you repeat the process?
• what precautions did you lot take to increase accurateness?

Results

This section, likewise called Findings, gives the information that has been collected (for example from the survey or experiment). This section volition frequently present data in tables and charts. This section is primarily concerned with clarification. In other words, it does non analyse or draw conclusions.

Give-and-take

The Discussion section, also called Assay, is the primary torso of the report, where yous develop your ideas. It draws together the background data or theory from the Introduction with the data from the Findings section. Sub-sections (with sub-headings) may be needed to ensure the readers can observe information quickly. Although the sub-headings help to clarify, you should still utilise well constructed paragraphs, with clear topic sentences. This section will often include graphs or other visual material, as this will assistance the readers to empathise the chief points. This section should fulfil the aims in the introduction, and should contain sufficient information to justify the conclusions and recommendations which come later in the report.

Conclusion

The conclusions come from the analysis in the Word section and should be clear and concise. The conclusions should relate directly to the aims of the report, and country whether these have been fulfilled. At this stage in the report, no new information should be included.

Recommendations

The report should conclude with recommendations. These should be specific. Equally with the conclusion, the recommendations should derive from the chief body of the report and over again, no new information should be included.

Reference department

Any sources cited in the text should be included in full in the reference section. For more information, see the reference section page of the writing section.

Appendices

Appendices are used to provide whatever detailed data which your readers may need for reference, only which exercise not contain key data and which you therefore do not want to include in the body of the report. Examples are a questionnaire used in a survey or a letter of consent for interview participants. Appendices must be relevant and should be numbered and so they tin can be referred to in the main body. They should be labelled Appendix ane, Appendix ii, etc. ('appendices' is the plural form of 'appendix').

The diagram below summarises the sections of a written report outlined above.

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Checklist

At that place is a downloadable checklist for reports (structure and language) in the writing resources section.

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Source: https://www.eapfoundation.com/writing/reports/structure/

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