Journal of Geography in Higher Education, Vol. 23, No. 1, 1999, pp.

125± 135

Writing Research Reports in Geography and

the Environmental Sciences

IAIN HAY, The Flinders University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia

This issue of Directions provides a guide to writing research reports in geography and
the environmental sciences. It outlines some of the reasons for writing reports and then
goes on to discuss general layout and content. The guidance concludes with some
comments on matters of presentation and written expression [1].

W hy Write a Report?
There are at least four good reasons why your instructor (or tutor) might require you to
write a research report. These range from the practical to the principled.
First, there is a pedagogic objective. The ® nal written research report provides your
instructor with a valuable means of assessing your overall development as a researcher,
for through the report you must demonstrate your comprehension of relevant literature,
your understanding of different and competing research methods, and your capacity to
communicate the results of research in written and graphic forms. You should not,
however, regard this objective as constituting a `one-way’ educational street. By
preparing a research report you will ® nd that you are obliged to re¯ ect on your own
development as a researcher. Learn to regard report writing as an opportunity to evaluate
critically the depth of your understanding of the entire research process. If you identify
any shortcomings, consider discussing them with your peers and instructor.
Second, there are vocational reasons for asking you to practice this form of presen-
tation. Academic and professional writing often involves the communication of research
® ndings. Urban planners, market researchers, academics, environmental scientists, and
intelligence analysts can all expect to undertake research and communicate their ® ndings
in report form during the course of their employment. Reports are usually presented to
an audience which anticipates answers to a certain set of questions that must nearly

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always be answered, irrespective of the character of the project. In consequence, it is
important to be familiar with the ways in which research results are usually conveyed
from one person to another (i.e. the conventions of research communication).
Third, research reports and papers are a fundamental building block of knowledge.
Each report is usually the ® nal product of a process of inquiry. Through the communi-
cation of research ® ndings we contribute to the development of `practically adequate’
understandings of the ways in which the world works. By practically adequate, we mean
those understandings are not necessarily absolutely and forever `right’ , but they do make
sense here and now. Some future research or discovery may see them change.
Finally, there is a moral responsibility to present research ® ndings honestly and
accurately. Through our research writing we help to forge understandings about the ways
in which the world works. Representing the world to other people in ways that we
understand it to be is an enormously powerful role. To a degree, people entrust us with
the creation of particular kinds of knowledge(s). In part acknowledgement of that trust
we are obliged to provide peers, colleagues and other interested readers with accurate
representations of our research ® ndings.

W hat are Report Readers Looking For?

Reports answer ® ve classic investigative questions (Eisenberg, 1992, p. 276).

· What did you do?

· Why did you do it?
· How did you do it?
· What did you ® nd out?
· What do the ® ndings mean?
The person reading or marking your report seeks clear, concise and accurate answers to
these questions. Having noted this, it is worth recalling that the emphasis different types
of readers give to your answers will depend, in part, on the purpose for which the report
is written. For example, is the report being written primarily for educational reasons or
is it being prepared for academic journal publication (see recent issues of Professional
Geographer for examples of papers written in `research report’ style) or is it a
`consultancy’ document produced as part of a role play exercise? In a consultancy setting
the real or hypothetical client will probably give greatest emphasis to your approach to
the `how did you do it?’ question. An honours thesis examiner will be looking for
expertise across the full range of questions. And in a consultancy setting a real or
hypothetical client will probably be most interested in answers to the last two questions:
`what did you ® nd out?’ and `what do the ® ndings mean?’ . As a result of these different
expectations, the relative balance of content within research reports on identical topics
may differ. The signi® cance of this is that as the author of a research report, you should
give some consideration to the various expectations of your audience(s) when consider-
ing matters such as balance of content, writing style, and level of detail.
Although most research reports will address the ® ve investigative questions set out
above, report length and complexity mean that the reader will appreciate some help in
`navigating’ their way through the document (Windschuttle & Elliot, 1994, p. 261).
Make the report comprehensible and easy to follow through clear language, a well-writ-
ten introduction, suitable headings and subheadings and, if appropriate, a comprehensive
table of contents.
Some types of reportÐ especially laboratory reportsÐ will answer investigative ques-

126
tions through a `formal’ , highly structured progression (e.g. introduction, methods,
results, discussion) which is written in a way which would allow another researcher to
repeat the work. For example, an environmental scientist reviewing present-day salinity
levels in Australia’ s River Murray or a demographer conducting a statistical study on the
use of contraceptive measures in Zimbabwe is likely to conduct the study as impartially
as possible and to record her/his research procedures in suf® cient detail to allow
someone else to reproduce the study. For some forms of inquiry, repetition is an
important means of verifying results.
Other reports, such as those on studies involving qualitative research m ethods (e.g.
interviews, participant observation, textual analysis), will answer the ® ve questions
identi® ed above, but in a rather m ore literary and less rigidly structured form . Because
a good deal of qualitativ e research cannot be repeated exactly (e.g. interviewees and
texts may not be available to all researchers) the m ost appropriate form of veri® cation
is corroboration or, in other words, substantiation or con® rmation. Other researchers
sim ply cannot repeat the study exactly as you conducted it and so there is less
emphasis placed on those parts of the report which might allow the study to be
repeated. In addition, the boundaries between `results’ and `discussion’ may become
blurred. This is not intended to im ply any research sloppiness! In a report drawn from
qualitative research, it is still necessary to outline accurately the means by which
information was collected and from whom or what, and the processes involved in its
interpretation.
To make the points about corroboration and writing a little clearer, consider the way
a trial for murder works. We cannot expect the murder to be repeated in order to
establish who the murderer really was. Instead, lawyers and police assemble all manner
of evidence to support or refute a claim that some particular individual committed the
crime. Evidence is gathered and admitted to the case according to established rules of
evidence. Police and lawyers then tell a story (or con¯ icting stories!) about an
irreproducible event and base their narrative(s) on a variety of interlinked, mutually
supporting evidence.
Geographers reporting on the social `construction’ of an Australian city or about gay
men’ s perceptions of everyday places will use different procedures and will write their
research in different ways from a coastal geomorphologist studying sand grain size and
longshore drift or an economic geographer writing about industrial location. Neverthe-
less, they will still answer the ® ve basic investigative questions identi® ed above, even
though style and emphases may make it dif® cult to recognise the reports as cousins in
communication!
The great diversity of research topics found within geography means that you are
likely to be asked to write research reports of different types throughout your degree.
This Direction provides an introduction to report writing in general, although some
speci® c references are made to laboratory writing.

Report W ritingÐ general layout

It should be clear from the paragraphs above that although research reports will usually
answer Eisenberg’ s ® ve investigative questions, there is no single correct report style.
The best way to organise a report is determined by the type of research being carried out,
the character and aims of the author, and the audience to which the report is directed
(discussed in more detail in Mohan et al. (1992, pp. 220±222)). Accordingly, the
following guidelines for report writing cannot offer you a `recipe’ for the perfect report.

127
The key to good report writing is well-executed research and the will to communicate
effectively your results.
Having acknowledged that there is no single `correct’ report writing style, a fairly
common pattern of report presentation does exist. That pattern re¯ ects a strategy for
answering the ® ve investigative questions identi® ed above. Through common use, it is
also a pattern that many of your tutors and other readers will expect to see in a report.
If you are new to report writing, and unless you have been advised otherwise, it may be
useful to follow the general pattern outlined below. With experience you will develop
your own style, one which suits you and your readership. Remember that you must guide
the reader through the work and you must always let your audience know if you are
doing anything they might not expect.
Research reports and laboratory reports generally comprise seven key sections:

· title page;
· abstract/executive summary;
· introduction (what you did and why);
· methods and materials (how you did it);
· results (what you found out);
· discussion and conclusion (what the results mean);
· references.

Longer, more detailed reports might include:

· a separate title page;

· acknowledgements;
· table of contents;
· recommendations;
· appendices.

Although the headings point to an order of report presentation, there is no need to write
the sections in any particular sequence. Indeed, you may ® nd it useful to follow
Woodford’ s (in Booth 1993, p.2) advice to label several sheets of paper headed Title,
Summary, Introduction, Methods, Results¼ and use these to jot down notes as you work
through the project. Then `warm-up’ by writing the easiest section (for example, the
methods section or site description) ® rst. The following section outlines the form and
function of the common components of research reports.

Report Structure
Title
The best titles are usually short, accurate and attractiv e to potential readers. Use a
subtitle if a fuller description is required. The title should provide instant identi® cation
of the content. When you have ® nished writing your report, check that the title matches
the results and discussion. This is im portant as the title should provide the readers with
a strong sense of the purpose of your work. You need to ensure that the impression
gained matches the content of the report.
An example of a good title is: `Social consequences of homelessness for men in
Adelaide, South Australia (1996±1998)’ . This title lets the reader know the topic, place,
and the time period. An example of a bad title on the same subject matter is: `Men and
homelessness’ .

128
 Gray (1970) observes that the title page of a technical report should also include:

· the author’ s name, position and organisational af® liation (you might be required, for
example, to state your degree programme and department);
· the name of the person or organisation to whom the report is being submitted (you
may need to name the tutor assessing your work);
· the date of issuance of the report.
Modify these recommendations to suit the academic setting in which you ® nd yourself.
For example, `date of issuance’ might be the due date or the date you submitted the
assignment for assessment.

Abstract or Executive Summary

Although you should expect your instructor to read all of your report carefully, it is the
abstract that is likely to contribute signi® cantly to the vital ® rst impression. Abstracts are
usually limited in length (typically 100±200 words) and are designed to be read by
people who may not have time to read the whole report. It is im portant, therefore, to
make it easy to read and understand. An abstract should be coherent and a concise
statement, intelligible on its own, which provides answers to each of the ® ve investiga-
tive questions outlined at the beginning of this chapter: what did you do?; why did you
do it?; how did you do it?; what did you ® nd out; and what do the ® ndings mean? The
abstract should be written in `introduction±body±conclusion’ style, not in the form of
notes. It is also worth remembering that a tutor may read the abstracts of a student group,
to get an idea of the range of the work, before marking each individual’ s report in detail.
All information contained in the abstract must be discussed in the main part of the report
(Behrendorff, 1995). Abstracts are located at the beginning of reports, although they are
often the last section written.

Acknowledgements
It is courteous to acknowledge people or organisations that have provided you with valuable
assistance and support during your research. As a general rule, thank only those people who
genuinely helped with aspects of the work, such as proof reading, preparing ® gures and
tables, helping solve statistical or computing problems or taking photographs. However,
when writing acknowledgements, be aware of the possible need for con® dentiality. Your
report may be read beyond the con® nes of your university, so take care if you closely
identify individuals with particular views, sources of information or commentsÐ this may
negatively affect their relationship with another reader or their employer.

Table of Contents
A table of contents is required in longer works to assist the reader in following the structure
of the report. It should accurately list all headings and subheadings used in the report with
their associated page numbers. The table of contents occupies its own page in the report and
must be organised with appropriate spacing. Make sure that the numbering system used in
the table of contents is the same as that used in the body of the report.
Included after the table of contents, and on a separate page, are a list of ® gures and
a list of tables. Each of these lists contains, for each ® gure or table, its number, title and
the page on which it is located.

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Introduction: why did you do this study?
The introduction of a report typically answers the following questions:

· What do you hope to learn from this research?

· What question is being asked?
· Why is this research important? (social, personal, and/or disciplinary signi® cance).

When you write your introduction im agine that readers are unfamiliar with what you
have to sayÐ `sell’ your work! Let your audience know why this report is interestin g and
what exactly it is about. When the reader knows these things they will be better able to
grasp the signi® cance of the material you present in the remainder of the document.
Commonly, the discussion of the signi® cance of the problem will require that a
literatur e review be written. (The literatur e review is sometimes presented as a separate
part of the report, after the introduction and before the discussion of materials and
methods.) As its name suggests, a literature review is a comprehensive summary of
publications and reports related to your research. It should consist of a critical analysis
of previous work with the aim of leading the reader to the point where it becomes clear
why the current project has been undertaken (Behrendorff, 1995, p. 4). The review is
intended to provide the reader with an understanding of the (conceptual and disciplinary)
origins of your study. It also provides you with an opportunity to discuss the ways in
which your study may contribute to, ® t in with, or differ from available work on the
subject.
A good literatur e review will normally discuss the most signi® cant books written in
the ® eld (e.g. if you are writing about the spatial hierarchy of settlements, you would
probably refer to the landmark works of Christaller and LoÈsch on central place theory),
notable books and articles on the broad subject in the past 4 or 5 years and all available
material on your speci® c topic. When your reader has ® nished reading your introduction,
they should know exactly what the study is about, what you hope to achieve from it, and
why it is important.

Materials and Methods: how did you do this study?

Once you have told your reader something about the background to the study, you
should then let them know how you carried out your research. Many readers will be
trying to con® rm that you have chosen the methods most appropriate to the topic.
Provide a precise and concise account of the materials and methods used to conduct the
study and why you chose them. Let your reader know exactly how you did the study and
from where you obtained your data. Try not to leave out essential details. Do not forget
the value of diagrams and maps.
The methods section of a report usually comprises up to three parts depending on the
speci® c character of the research. The parts may be written and presented as a single
section or under separate subheadings.

Sampling and Case Selection. An important part of the materials and methods section of
a report is a statement of how and why you chose some particular place, group of people
or objects (e.g. landforms) to be the focus of your study. For example, if your research
concerns people’ s fears and the im plications those fears have for their use of urban
space, you should explain why you have chosen to con® ne your study to a speci® c
suburb of a speci® c city? Having limited the study to that suburb, why and how did you

130
choose a sample of people to speak to from the much larger local population?
Alternatively, in an examination of avalanche hazards, why and on what bases did you
limit your study to the risks associated with one popular ski resort?
In the sampling section of your report, your reader will appreciate answers to the
following questions:

What speci® c group, place or object have you chosen to study? You may have already
stated in the introduction that you were exploring the attitudes of Papua New Guinean
women to birth control, but you now need to identify the speci® c group and number of
women interviewed or to whom you administered questionnaires (e.g. 200 urban
dwelling women of child-bearing age). Or, in your study about `supernatural’ explana-
tions of unusual landscape features, you might have determined that the study was to be
limite d to Inca constructions in Peru within a 100 km radius of the historically important
town of Cuzco.

Why did you make that choice? Why did you limit the study to 200 women of
child-bearing age? Or in the other example, why Cuzco and not Lim a or Aguas
Calientes? Why 100 km?

How did you select the unit(s) of study? That is to say, what speci® c sampling technique
did you employ? (e.g. simple random, systematic, purposive). There is no need, however,
to go into great detail about particular techniques, such as describing computer programs
used in your sampling, unless the procedure was unusual. What are the limitations and
shortcomings of the data or sources?
Of course, if you are reporting a ® eld study, a general description of the study site is
essential. Do not forget to include a map. It may save you a great deal of writing and
will almost certainly provide your reader with a clearer sense of the place you are
describing than might the proverbial thousand words. Photographs may also be helpful.
If the site description is especially lengthy, create a separate section for it. Do not,
however, use photographs for purely cosmetic reasons.

Apparatus or Materials. Provide a brief description of any special equipment or

materials used in your study. For example, describe brie¯ y any questionnaires used in
your survey (as well as attaching a copy as an appendix (see below)) or identify and,
where necessary, describe survey equipment used in ® eld observations. Always use
diagrams and photographs if they will help your reader to understand better your work.

Procedure. The `procedure’ section contains speci® c details about how the data were
collected and the methods you used to interpret the ® ndings. If your study was based on
a questionnaire survey, tell the reader about the process of questionnaire administration .
For example, when were the forms handed out? Who administered the surveys? What
happened when targeted individuals could not be contacted? How, when and where did
you conduct your research? How did you describe the study to participants? It is
important that you justify your selection of procedure. Why did you choose one method
over others? What are the advantages and disadvantages and how did you overcome any
problems you encountered? Enough detail should be provided in your discussion of
procedures to allow the reader to replicate or corroborate your work or for your
instructor to evaluate the conduct of your research.

131
Results: what did you ® nd out?
The results section of a research report is typically a dispassionate, factual account of
® ndings. It outlines what occurred or what was observed. In most physical geography
reports, and in empirically based human studies, it is not customary to present
conclusions and interpretations in the results section. However, in some qualitative
studies it is considered appropriate to combine the results with an interpretative
discussion.
A key to effective presentation of results is making them as comprehensible to your
readers as possible. Towards this end it may be appropriate to provide your reader with
an overview of what you are going to do in this section. Use maps, tables, ® gures and
written statements creatively to convey key information emerging from the study, but
avoid listin g large amounts of raw data. Detailed information is better placed in an
appendix. Instead, summarise your numerical data using graphical devices such as line
graphs and pie charts, and appropriate statistical methods such as means, frequency
tables, and correlation coef® cients.
The results section will often have a series of subheadings within it. These usually
re¯ ect subdivisions within the material being discussed, but sometimes re¯ ect methodo-
logical matters. Avoid dividing up the results section on the basis of methods, as this
means you are allowing the methods rather than the issues to shape the discussion. If you
have not done so elsewhere in the report, the results section is an appropriate place in
which to identify the limitations of your data.

Discussion and Conclusion: what do the ® ndings mean?

I am appalled by¼ papers that describe most minutely what experiments were
done, and how, but with no hint of why, or what they mean. Cast thy data upon
the waters, the authors seem to think, and they will come back interpreted.
(Woodford, 1967, p. 744)
The discussion is the heart of a report. Perhaps not surprisingly, it is also the part that
is most dif® cult to write and, after the abstract and introduction, is the section most likely
to be read thoroughly by your instructor and other readers. They will be concerned to
see whether your work has achieved its stated objectives.
The discussion has two fundamental aims:

· to explain the results of your study. Why do you think the patternsÐ or lack of
patternsÐ that you have uncovered have emerged?;
· to explore the signi® cance of the ® ndings. What do the ® ndings mean for the
discipline, for humanity, for you? Consider and make explicit the ways in which your
work ® ts in with that conducted by other people and the degree to which it might have
broader im portance.

Remember that your research is not produced in isolationÐ it has its foundations in the
work of others and, similarly, it can be part of what others do in future. Help the reader
make those connections by making explicit links between your work and appropriate
literatur e (Hodge, 1994).
The concluding sections of the report might also offer suggestions about improve-
ments to the investigative procedure. Where do we go from here? Are there other
methods or data sets which should be explored? What new questions has your study
raised?

132
Recommendations
If your report has led you to a position where it is appropriate to suggest particular
courses of action or solutions to problems, you may wish to add a `recommendations’
section. This might be included within the `conclusion’ or it might be free-standing.
Recommendations should be based only on material covered in the report.

Appendices and References

Material which is not essential to the report’ s main argument, or is too long or too
detailed to be included in the main body of the report may be placed in an appendix at
the end of the report. For example, you might include a copy of the questionnaire you
used or background information on your study area or pertinent data which is too
detailed for inclusion in the main text. However, be warned, your appendix should not
be a place to put everything you collected in relation to your research but for which there
was no place in your report. Appendices are sometimes located in the report after the
conclusions but before the references. Be sure to list all the sources you cited in your
report. For further details on referencing your sources see Mills (1994), or Hay et al.
(1997).

W ritten Expression and Presentation

Language of the Report
It is traditional in report writing to use `neutral’ terms and the language of the third
person (e.g. `it was considered¼ ’ rather than `I considered¼ ’ ). The pressures to write
in such a language remain quite intense in academic settings and beyond. Many
academics and other professionals still distrust or dismiss reports that acknowledge
through their writing style the personalised and subjective nature of research. A report
written in the ® rst person or employing terms which clearly re¯ ect the views of the
author may be considered less `scienti® c’ and less valuable than a piece of work
reporting similar results in the more commonly accepted language of claimed `objec-
tivity’ . However, many academics are shifting their stance on this issue and will claim
that writing in the ® rst person is a more honest and transparent approach. It acknowl-
edges the role of subjectivity in all forms of investigation and the potential impacts of
the research on the environment under investigation (e.g. a study of tourism im pacts in
a remote rural community may raise awareness of the issue amongst the local population
and engender changes which would not have occurred if the study had not taken place).
Be aware of these issues of the rhetoric of reporting research when writing your report.
Remember who your audience is and what conventions of presentation they will expect!
If you have any questions or concerns about whether to `include’ or `exclude’ yourself
from your report writing, ask your instructor.
Another matter of language which needs to be addressed is that of jargon. The word
jargon has two popular applications. Most commonly, jargon refers to technical terms
used inappropriately or when clearer terms would suf® ce. More accurately, it means
words or a mode of language intelligible only to a group of `experts’ in the ® eld
(Friedman & Steinberg, 1989, p. 30). There will be occasions in report writing when you
will ® nd it necessary to use jargon in the second sense of the word. You should never
be guilty of using words in the more common, ® rst sense of the term. Remember, you

133
are writing to communicate ideas to the intended audience as clearly as possible. Use the
language that allows you to do that. KISS your audience (i.e. keep it simple stupid).

Presentation
When you write a report, it is important to match the high quality of your research with
high quality presentation. Your readers and assessors will not be im pressed by high
quality presentation alone, but they may ® nd it easier to understand your results. Be sure
that your report is set out in an attractive and easily understood style. A report presented
in a way that suggests you have taken care in its presentation will also suggest to people
that you have taken care in its preparation. Care is emphasised here, but not gaudiness
and decoration. Do not spend large amounts of money on purely cosmetic illustratio ns.
People tend to be suspicious of overly `decorated’ reports and in a professional
environment (e.g. consulting) they may also question the costs of production.
Get the fundamental matters straight. For instance:

· use the same sized paper throughout. There are, however, some occasions when use
of same size sheets is impractical (e.g. inclusion of maps);
· number all the pages consecutively;
· be consistent in your use of headings, subheadings, fonts and other stylistic matters;
· be sure to use SI (SysteÁme International d’ UniteÂs [International System of Units])
units (i.e. metric) in describing measures.

Written expression and presentation may have an im portant in¯ uence on the overall
effectiveness of your report.

Correspondence: Dr Iain Hay, School of Geography, Population and Environmental

Management, The Flinders University of South Australia, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, SA
5001, Australia. Fax: 61-8-8201-3521. Email: iain.hay@¯ inders.edu.au

NOTE
[1] Earlier versions of this paper have been published in Hay (1996) Communicating in Geography and
the Environmental Sciences (Melbourne, Oxford University Press) and Hay et al. (1997) Making the
Grade. A guide to successful communication and study (Melbourne, Oxford University Press).

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