RESEARCH REPORT WRITING

DEFINITION
Research is the systematic investigations into study of a natural phenomena or materials or
sources or existing condition of the society in order to identify facts or to get additional
information and derive new conclusions. It is a production process, which needs a number of
inputs to produce new knowledge and application of new and existing knowledge to generate
technology that ultimately may generate economic prosperity of a nation. Simply, a research
paper/report is a systematic write up on the findings of the study including methodologies,
discussion, conclusions etc. following a definite style. The research report writers in making
the report good qualitative should remember the saying ‘Try to express, not to impress’.
More elaborately and precisely, a report or systematic write up on the findings of a research
study including an abstract/executive summary/summary, introduction (Background with
literature review, justification, objectives etc.) methodology/materials and methods
(including statistical design, if any), results and discussion, conclusions and
recommendations, references etc. following a definite style or format may be called a Research
Report.
TYPES OF REPORT
General types of reports are
1. Informational
 Inform or instruct – present information.
 Reader sees the details of events, activities or conditions.
 No analysis of the situation, no conclusion, no recommendations.
2. Analytical
 Written to solve problems.
 Information is analyzed
 Conclusions are drawn and recommendations are made.
3. Persuasive
 An extension of analytical reports - main focus is to sell an idea, a service, or
product.
 Proposals are the most common type.
 Reports usually have a more diverse audience, more than one purpose and more detailed
information. Some other types of reports are –
A. Incident Report: A report describing how close you are to completing something
you planned.
B. Accident Report: A report describing how many goods or services were sold,
and the reasons for any differences from the plan.
C. Sales Report: A report on what has happened in a place, and how close your
organization is to finishing construction.
D. Progress Report: An academic report on how and why something has changed
over time.
E. Feasibility Study/Report: A report describing something that has happened.
F. Recommendation Report: A report on how practical a proposal is.
G. Site: A report on what your organization should do.
H. Case Study: A report describing how someone was hurt or something was
damaged.
I. Periodic Operating Reports: To monitor and control production, sales, shipping,
service, etc.
J. Situational Report: To describe one-time events, such as trips, conferences, and
seminars.
K. Investigative/Informational: To examine problems and supply facts – with little
analysis.
L. Compliance: To respond to government agencies and laws.
M. Justification/Recommendation: To make recommendations to management and
become tools to solve problems and make decisions.
N. Yardstick: To establish criteria and evaluate alternatives by measuring against
the ‘yardstick’ criteria.
O. Research Studies: To study problems scientifically by analyzing a problem,
developing hypotheses, collecting data, analyzing data, and drawing conclusions.
COMPONENTS OF A RESEARCH REPORT
Scientific research articles provide a method for scientists to communicate with other
scientists about the results of their research. A standard format is used for these articles,
in which the author presents the research in an orderly, logical manner. This doesn't
necessarily reflect the order in which you did or thought about the work. The following is a
general outline for a research report.
TITLE
 The title is centered at the top of the page and only important words are capitalized. It
includes a very brief statement of the main variables (independent and dependent) in the
study.
 Make the title specific enough to describe the contents of the paper, but not so technical
that only specialists will understand. The title should be appropriate for the intended
audience.
 The title usually describes the subject matter of the article. For example: Effect of
Smoking on Academic Performance.
 Sometimes a title that summarizes the results is more effective. Example: Students Who
Smoke Get Lower Grades.
 Titles with colons are currently in vogue but usually they are not as cute as you think
they are when you first think of them.
 Notice that the title allows the reader the most succinct summary of the main ‘players’
in the experiment and the character of their relationship to each other.
AUTHOR
 The author’s name is centered below the title along with the name of the university or
research institution.
 The person who did the work and wrote the paper is generally listed as the first
author of a research paper.
 For published articles, other people who made substantial contributions to the
work are also listed as authors. Ask your mentor's permission before including
his/her name as co-author
ABSTRACT
 An abstract or summary is published together with a research article, giving the
reader a ‘preview’ of what’s to come. This is used by potential readers to determine
whether or not the paper is interesting enough to read, so it should be clear, concise and
complete.
 Abstract should be one paragraph of 100-250 words, which summarizes the purpose,
methods, results and conclusions of the paper.
 It includes a statement of the manipulations of the independent variables and a précis
of the results of the research. Do not include review of the literature or theoretical
background, but leave these for the ‘Introduction and Discussion’.
 It is easiest to write the abstract after the paper itself is written. A rough rule of thumb is
to write an introductory sentence, then one sentence per chapter of your report and
a few sentences summarizing your most important conclusions/recommendations.
 Don’t use abbreviations or citations in the abstract. It should be able to stand alone
without any footnotes.
Here is a summary of the content of the ABSTRACT and its order of presentation-
a. Identification the subject population,
b. Specification of the research design,
c. Apparatus and data gathering procedures,
d. Summary of the results including statistical significance levels,
e. Report on the inferences made or comparisons drawn from the results.
INTRODUCTION
 Centre the word ‘INTRODUCTION’ on the page. It begins on a new page which is
numbered. Put down the title once again as on the face page, but do not repeat
researcher’s name.
 A reader of the introduction should be able to answer the following questions,
although not in any depth.
i. What is the research about?
ii. Why is it relevant or important?
iii. What are the issues or problems?
iv. What is the proposed solution or approach?
v. What can one expect in the rest of the research?
 Tell the reader what the problem is, what question you will try to answer, and
why it is important. It might be important for practical reasons or for theoretical (or
methodological) reasons having to do with the development of a scholarly discipline.
Don’t neglect either type of reason.
 The introduction should lead up to, and conclude with, a statement of how you
intend to approach your question and why your approach is an improvement on past
efforts (or why it is worth undertaking even if it isn’t). This is essentially what is
new about your approach, your particular contribution.
 You can think of the introduction as
a. a description of the psychological issues that you are going to investigate;
b. a discussion of the research question(s) or hypothesis that you are
examining;
c. a reference to other studies (in the same area) which have results which bear
on your research project - whether they are in the same direction as your
hypothesis or in the opposite direction. The final paragraph(s) should include a
more specific definition of your variables (independent and dependent) and a
clear statement of the predictions based on the background information that you
have presented.
 The related work section (sometimes called literature review) is just that, a review
of work related to the problem you are attempting to solve. It should identify and
evaluate past approaches to the problem. It should also identify similar solutions to
yours that have been applied to other problems not necessarily directly related to the
one you’re solving. Reviewing the successes or limitations of your proposed
solution in other contexts provides important understanding that should result in
avoiding past mistakes, taking advantage of previous successes, and most
importantly, potentially improving your solution or the technique in general when applied
in your context and others. In addition to the obvious purpose indicated, the related
work section also can serve to:
A. justify that the problem exists by example and argument,
B. motivate interest in your work by demonstrating relevance and
importance,
C. identify the important issues,
D. provide background to your solution.
 Any remaining doubts over the existence, justification, motivation, or relevance of
your research topic or problem at the end of the introduction should be gone by the end
of related work section.
  Avoid editorialization, personal opinion and judgmental statements. Stay close to
the data, theory, design and hypotheses. Your hypotheses should never appear to come
out of nowhere or to be derived from personal opinion and preference.
 Hypotheses are usually stated formally in the closing paragraph of the introduction. If
you have more than one hypothesis, state them in a logical order using numbers.
Although your experiment may contain more than one independent variable and
dependent variable, each hypothesis can contain only one of each type of variable.
You state them in conceptual terms rather than in terms of the specific procedures
(operational definitions) used in your experiment.
 Concepts and terms are to be defined clearly as soon as they are introduced and
then used consistently thereafter. Make sure you do not include the term you are defining
in the body of the definition (tautology).
METHOD
 This section can be thought of as the ‘cookbook’ section of the paper, by reading this
section, could duplicate (or in research terms, replicate) your study. Therefore, it
should be complete, detailed and clear enough to allow another investigator to
understand how you ran your experiment.
 Centre the word ‘METHOD’ on the page. This section is written in past tense.
 The methods section is generally easy to write - you simply describe what you did, how
you did it, and when you did it.
 The method is divided into several subsection headings which you should use in the
organization of your paper.
a. Subjects
1) Who are the subjects? The ‘Subjects’ subsection specifies who participated in
the study. The subjects are described according to age, gender and other
relevant social or demographic considerations.
2) How many subjects are there? State the total number of participants and the
number assigned to each experimental condition. If any subjects did not
complete the study, give the number and reason.
3) How the subjects are selected? Report how the subjects were selected for the
experiment and how the chosen subjects were assigned to groups. For
example, was some sort of randomization technique used or was some other
method necessary? Report such things as payments or promises made to
subjects.
 b. Apparatus
This subsection (if one is required) gives a brief description of the equipment or
materials used in the study. Standard hardware such as stop watches need not be
described in detail. Remember the description must be detailed enough so that the reader
can replicate the study.
c. Procedure
Being a kind of recipe of each step in the execution of the experiment, these
instructions to the subjects must be recorded verbatim. The formation of groups and
the specific experimental manipulations performed on each group are included.
Procedures such as randomization, counterbalancing and other control procedures
are also detailed. To assist yourself in the clear execution of this section, keep in
mind that one of the purposes of it is to allow another experimenter to replicate
exactly what you have done. Do not put results in this section. You may, however,
include preliminary results that were used to design the main experiment that you
are reporting on. Mention relevant ethical considerations. If you used human subjects, did
they consent to participate? If you used animals, what measures did you take to minimize
pain?
RESULTS
 Centre the word ‘RESULTS’ on the page. Do not begin on a new page unless space
considerations require it. This is (obviously) where you present the results of your
experiment to the reader. The results section is also written in the past tense.
 The result section summarizes the data and the statistical treatment of them. If the data
are relatively simple, they may be reported entirely in text without the use of TABLES or
FIGURES.
 Summarize the main idea of your findings and report them whether or not your
hypothesis(es) have been confirmed. Present the results in the same order as you have
made your predictions (hypotheses) in the introduction and do so in simple sentences.
 Do not discuss the implications, interpretations, or theoretical significance of your results
in the RESULTS section.
 Most professors (except nitpickers) prefer the tables and figures close to where
they are needed.
a. Tables
 Tables placed in the results section of the paper are reserved for the most
important data directly related to the experiment. Tables are economical in that
they compress data and allow the reader to see relationships not otherwise
discernible at a glance.
  A good table should not duplicate the text of the RESULTS but the text
should highlight the data by referring to the table.
 The table should be self explanatory as well as related to the text.
 Always number the tables and refer to those numbers in the text - If tables are
included in an APPENDIX, these are identified with capital letters (e.g., Table A).
 Tables always appear in the order in which they are mentioned in the text.
 Every table is given a brief explanatory title written in telegraphic style. It is
placed below the table number and above the table.
 Enough space is used to render the table easily readable. Notes of sub-headings
are employed to explain abbreviations, parentheses or units of measurement.
b. Figures
 What has been said of Tables applies generally to the figures of the results section
as well.
 Figures are graphs, charts, and illustrations.
 The caption is placed below the figure instead of above. The word ‘Figure
1’ appears first followed by the caption. Only the first word of the caption is
capitalized.
 If there is enough space, you may place it on the same page as text, but a separate
page should otherwise be used, especially for publishing purposes.
 Remember to place the dependent variable on the vertical axis and to
follow the rules for correct calibration of the data.
 Both axes should be clearly labeled, and the graph lines too when appropriate.
DISCUSSION
 The word ‘DISCUSSION’ is centered. Do not use a new page unless it is necessary.
 It is a good idea to begin the discussion with a summary of the results, for the benefit of
the reader who wants to skip the results section (and to remind the reader who didn’t skip
it but got interrupted by a phone call and forgot it).
 The discussion section states the major results (what you have discovered), and tells the
reader what you think they mean. There is no need in this section to restate the data - that
is all in the results section.
 Your discussion section should refer back to those studies you mentioned in your
introduction. Discuss how your results are similar to the findings (results) of these
studies, or, if they are different, (don’t panic), how they differ (and your ideas as to
 why they differ). Attempt to resolve and deal with these differences by suggesting
reasons for why they might have occurred.
 Another good tactic is to suggest ideas for future research experiments in this area, ones
that follow the study you have done, improve upon it, etc. For example, you could
suggest how to further explore a finding you discovered, suggest how to discover why
you got different results form other researchers, etc.
 If your discussion section is fairly long, it’s nice to put a short summary
paragraph (of the conclusion, interpretations, etc.) at the very end to help the
reader remember your general conclusions.
 This is also a good preparation for writing the abstract. Remember, the discussion
section will make or break your paper - put a lot of thought into it and try to
draw sophisticated (and accurate) conclusions from your data.
 The discussion section will show your grasp of the inductive and deductive
thinking routines involved in experimental work.
REFERENCES
 This is the last section and it should conform to APA style.
 Centre the word ‘REFERENCES’ at the top of the page, but do NOT underline it or
place it in quotation marks.
 A reference list cites works that are publicly available.
 This section is always placed on a separate page, and the page number is omitted.
 Works cited in the text of your experiment must appear in the reference list and
conversely each entry in the reference list must be cited in your text.
 Since reference lists are intended for the use of the reader, they must be accurate
and complete.
 A reference consists of the following broad subsections - AUTHOR, DATE OF
PUBLICATION, TITLE and PUBLICATION DATA