Beginners’ Guide to Report Writing 
     This guide is a structural way of producing a social sciences report. It describes what occurs in academia and business, and asks you to follow 
     these guidelines, knowing that real-world reports do not always follow them. 
     A research report may take any one of a number of formats depending on the precise field of research and proposed audience. We 
     recommend using what is loosely known as the scientific report format, which is found in academic journals in the physical and social 
     sciences and is widely imitated by government and private business-report writers. It usually reports on the investigation of a researcher who 
     uses empirical methods of research (i.e. interviews, experiments, surveys, observation). This research report reports on primary research, not 
     the results of other researchers, nor the opinions of the author. It has a logical structure that is widely practised and recognised. Once you start 
     using the scientific report format you need to follow the style exactly, because departures will be seen as unprofessional mistakes. 
     We believe the report format should consist of the following sections and decimal numbering: 
     Abstract (no decimal) 
     1.0  Introduction (including a literature review)  
     2.0  Method (including samples, variables, materials, etc.)  
     3.0  Results (including tables)  
     4.0  Conclusions or Discussion (or Recommendations in business reports) 
     5.0  References (often omitted in business reports) 
     6.0  Appendices.  
     We recommend using either a Discussion or a Conclusions section, not both. Appendices are optional and are not included in most academic 
     journals. Sometimes sections are combined together, such as ‘Results and Discussion’. Business and professional reports often use 
     Recommendations instead of Conclusions. Each of the different sections has a separate and distinct purpose and requires careful attention to 
     detail.  
            Abstract  
            The abstract (usually written last) is simply a summary of what the question was, what the researcher did, what results were found and what 
            was concluded. We believe that the abstract should consist of one or two sentences that summarise all sections of the report. Abstracts should 
            be written so that they can be used almost by themselves. Ho    wever, in practice you should not trust the abstract alone, it is often the case that 
            academic authors leave out important details due to space limitations. In business, an Executive Summary is substituted. 
             
            Introduction 
            The introduction consists of a number of stages. These stages are: background, literature review, need for investigation, purpose of the study 
            and justification. The model below provides an example of an introduction. In order to better understand the distinct functions within an 
            introduction, we have broken up the example introduction into five stages (labeled within the model). Do not use these labels in writing up 
            your own report. 
            Stage I (background) consists of general statements about the field of research, providing the reader with a context for the problem to be 
            reported.  
            In Stage II (literature review), the writer offers more-specific statements about the aspects of the problem already studied by other 
            researchers. Try not to use only the “Smith (2010) found ...”, or “Jones (2011) found ...” format; you want your own voice to be prominent in 
            the review. So always add the citation in brackets at the end of a sentence, and do not use quotes as you did in high school. 
            In Stage III, you will include statements that indicate the need for some more investigation of the topic area.  
            This leads into Stage IV, in which you give the purpose and objectives of your study. Hypotheses may also be given at this particular stage.  
            Stage V (justification) is an optional stage; here, statements may be made that explain the value of the study. 
            Here is an example: 
             
     Model: Chat versus Forums study  
     1. 0  Introduction 
     Use of the Internet for the purpose of online teaching has become a burgeoning enterprise over the last decade. While the educational outcomes of 
     this e-learning enterprise are yet to be fully understood, a major tenet of e-learning pedagogy is the necessity for online interactivity to be an 
     integral part of the learning process. (Stage I: general statements about the field of research.) 
     The benefits of interactivity are almost universally accepted in the study of educational human– computer interaction in communication literature 
     (Barker, 1994; Mesher, 1999). However, exactly what sorts of interactivity are most beneficial for particular contexts is not so obvious. Interactivity 
     via a computer can mean personal interaction, group interaction, or person–machine interaction. Interactivity can include visualisations, 
     simulations, concept-mapping, problem-solving labs, real-time chat seminars and asynchronous bulletin boards (Lander, 2009). In many ways, 
     online interactivity is only limited by the technological developments of the time. Specifically, in the early days of the Web, interactivity was 
     categorised into three dimensions: navigational, functional and adaptive e.g. bulletin boards (Guay, 2005). Identified problems in e-learning include 
     student isolation, keyboarding errors, network limitations and time shifts and incompetence with multimedia software (Yeo et al., 1998). Given this 
     pressure for communicative interaction, what often occured was a technically feasible solution that was based more on technology limits than 
     educational soundness. (Stage II: specific statements about the aspects of the problem already studied by other researchers.) 
     Given the confusion between asynchronous and real-time interaction, there is a need to investigate Web- based interaction in current e-learning 
     contexts. (Stage III: statements that indicate the need for investigation.)  
     The purpose of this study was to compare chat and bulletin-board interaction modalities. Chat groups should be better at discussing issues and 
     making decisions, because of the immediate feedback; bulletin-board discussions should resemble a kind of interactive writing, with the delay in 
     response leading to less-successful decision-making. (Stage IV: purpose and objectives.)  
     This topic was identified as being of importance to teachers in providing them with the necessary background to manage e-learning courses using 
     the Web. (Stage V: statements that explain the value of the study.) 
      
      
      
      
      
      Method 
      The method section is simply where you tell a lay reader what was done, with whom, and how data was obtained. Anyone reading this section 
      should be able to replicate a particular piece of research from the information contained in this section. Sub-headings are useful here and 
      could include: overview, participants, sampling methods, instrument(s) and procedures. An example is provided below. 
      Model: Analysis of Tourist Brochure 
      2.0  Method 
      Overview 
      One hundred participants from the general Dutch population who had responded on leaflets they found at their supermarket participated in this 
      study. The participants were asked to scan and respond to 4 different versions of a brochure. 
      Participants 
      They were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: the original (8 men, 17 women, mean age: 36.16 years), the tabs black-white (8 men, 17 
      women, mean age: 38.96 years), the tabs-arrows black-white (8 men, 17 women, mean age: 37.49 years) and the tabs-arrows colour (9 men, 16 
      women, mean age: 36 years) brochure group. Participants were rewarded with 25 euro gift vouchers. 
      Materials 
      To distinguish the individual effects of each design feature in the analyses, a total of four versions of the brochures were designed, which were 
      identical in their general features. All brochures were A4 size, 32 pages long, of which 25 contained textual contents and pictures in different sizes, 
      in colour and black-and-white. The remaining seven pages were either blank or contained a page-size picture of healthy foods. There were three 
      main sections, called ‘Fat’ (11 pages), ‘Fruit and vegetables’ (6 pages) and ‘To maintain’ (8 pages). 
      Procedure 
      Participants were tested individually while seated at a table with the experimenter, in sessions of approximately 50 minutes. The sessions were 
      videotaped to enable analysis of participants’ search behaviours afterwards. All participants signed an informed consent agreeing with the proposed 
      procedures and the presence of the video camera. Participants were asked to find ten pieces of information in the brochure that was on the table in