English for Academic and Professional Purposes

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Writing a Report

Week 0016: Writing a Report

Verbal communication is temporal and easily forgotten, but

written reports exist for long periods and yield long-term
benefits for the author and others. Preparing a report is a
requirement both in school and the workplace. This module
will provide basic steps in writing reports such as the
survey report, scientific and laboratory reports. You will
learn the mechanics of writing reports which is a valuable
tool in any field.
At the end of this module, you will be able to:

a. follow the steps in constructing a survey questionnaire;

b. identify the elements of a survey;
c. determine the components of a scientific report.

The Survey Report

A Report is a planned, organized, factual presentation of

information prepared for a specific purpose and for a specific
audience.
A - The Survey Report
A Survey Report is a formal report administered to a
particular audience to obtain their preferences, pulse,
perception and perspective. It involves data collection from
a group of participants or respondents through interview in
the form of questionnaires.

Questionnaires are tools for written interviews , consist of

structured questions to be answered by the respondents.
Basic Elements of A Survey Report
1. Introduction – includes background information on
the subject and an explanation of why the research
topic is significant..
2. hypothesis statement – a statement regarding the
expected findings of the research.
3. method – the most important aspect of a survey because it
presents the credibility of a research. This section provides

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 explanation of data gathering , interpretation of data and
processes of the survey.
4. analysis – observations are written and interpreted. This
part provides a detailed summary of the conduct of the
research or survey.
5. conclusion – presents the findings of the research as well
as the importance of the findings. This part states whether
to agree or reject the hypothesis. Use graph or chart to
summarize findings clearly.
The Steps in Preparing Survey Questionnaire
1. Determine the purpose of the survey - What you want
to learn.

Set a clear goal in your survey. Decide on what you want to

learn. If the focus of your study is on customer satisfaction
levels in five star hotels in Cebu City, the objectives of the
survey will be to determine how satisfied they are with their
experiences in the hotels around Cebu City.

2. Determine your sample - Whom you will interview.

Decide on your target population, the kind of people to
interview. How many people you need to interview.

3. Choose the method of interviewing- How you will ask.

Questionnaires can be a written survey or personal
interview. Either way, assure the confidentiality of the
respondents’ personal information and answers.
Anonymity of the respondents is taken into
consideration in conducting surveys.
4. Create your questionnaire - What you will ask.
a. Choose your questionnaire design.

Researchers use three basic types of questions: multiple

choice, numeric open ended, close – ended, text open-
ended, rating scales and agreement scales. Examples of each
kind of question follow:

Multiple Choice: Numeric Open-ended:

1. What is your educational How much did you spend on
attainment? groceries this weekend? _________
o Elementary
Graduate
o Junior High School Text Open – ended
o Senior High How can our company improve
School its working condition?
o Undergraduate
o Post Graduate
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Writing a Report

Rating Scales:
How would you rate this product?
o Excellent
o Good
o Fair
o poor

5. Pre-test the questionnaire - Test the questions. Consult the

expert in the field to validate the questionnaire.

Avoid biases in formulating questions.

Bias questions produce bias results.

The Scientific Report and Laboratory Report

The Scientific Report
A scientific report is a document that describes the process,
progress, and or results of technical or scientific research or the
state of a technical or scientific research problem. It might
also include recommendations and conclusion of the research.
Format of a Scientific or Laboratory Report
A scientific report usually consists of the following:
o Title
o Abstract
o Introduction
o Materials and methods
o Results
o Discussion
o Literature cited
Each section of the report should contain specific types of
information.
1. Title - it reflects the factual content of the paper and
should contain less than ten words. The purpose of a
scientific paper is to present evidence and reasons for

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 such evidence , so the title should be straightforward . Use
keywords that can be recognized by the researchers in the
field.

2. Abstract - The purpose of an abstract is to allow the reader to

judge whether it would serve his or her purposes to read the
entire report. A good abstract is a concise (100 to 200 words)
summary of the purpose of the report, the data presented, and
the author's major conclusions.

3. Introduction - The introduction defines the subject of the

report. It must outline the scientific purpose(s) or objective(s)
for the research performed and give the reader sufficient
background to understand the rest of the report. Care should be
taken to limit the background to whatever is pertinent to the
experiment. A good introduction will answer several questions,
including the following:

A good introduction should address the following

questions :

a. Why was this study performed?

 Answers to this question may be derived from
observations of nature or from the literature.

b. What knowledge already exists about this subject?

 The answer to this question must review the literature,
showing the historical development of an idea and
including the confirmations, conflicts, and gaps in
existing knowledge.

c. What is the specific purpose of the study?

 The specific hypotheses and experimental design
pertinent to investigating the topic should be described.
4. Theory

This section presents the theoretical framework or

underlying theories from where the present study or
experiment is anchored.

5. Materials and Methods

This section presents the materials and methods used in the

experiments . The difficulty in writing this section is to provide
enough detail for the reader to understand the experiment
without overwhelming him or her. When procedures from a lab
book or another report are followed exactly, simply cite the
work, noting that details can be found in that particular source.
However, it is still necessary to describe special pieces of
equipment and the general theory of the assays used. This can
usually be done in a short paragraph, possibly along with a
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Writing a Report

drawing of the experimental apparatus. This section attempts to

answer the following questions:

 What materials were used?

 How were they used?
 Where and when was the work done? (This question is
most important in field studies.)

6. Results and Discussions

This section presents the summary of the data from the

experiments discussions of their implications.

How to present the results?

1. Use tables, figures, graphs, or photographs
o Data included in a table should not be duplicated in a
figure or graph.
o All figures and tables should have descriptive titles and
should include
a legend explaining any symbols, abbreviations, or
special methods used.
o Figures and tables should be numbered separately and
should be referred to in the text by number
Examples: Figure 1 shows that the activity decreased
after five minutes.
The activity decreased after five minutes (fig. 1).

o Figures and tables should be self-explanatory; that is, the

reader should be able to understand them without
referring to the text.
o All columns and rows in tables and axes in figures should
be labeled.
o This section of your report should concentrate on
general trends and differences and not on trivial details.
o Many authors organize and write the results section
before the rest of the report.

Present the following in discussion:

o Restatement of the results.
o Emphasize on the interpretation of the data, by
connecting them to existing theory and knowledge.
o Suggestions for the improvement of techniques/
experiment.
o Explain the logic WHY you accept or reject your original
hypotheses.

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o Suggest future experiments that might clarify areas of
doubt in your results.

7. Literature Cited

This section lists all articles or books cited in your report.

o It is not the same as a bibliography, which simply lists
references regardless of whether they were cited in the
paper.
o The listing should be alphabetized by the last names of
the authors.
o Follow the format used by your institution. Either
APA or MLA format.
o Use parenthetical citation or in-text citation.
o When citing references in the text, do not use footnotes;
instead, refer to articles by the author's name and the
date the paper was published. For example:

Fox in 1988 investigated the hormones on the nest-

building behavior of catbirds.
Hormones are known to influence the nest-building
behavior of catbirds (Fox, 1988).

Follow the Rules on Style

R – Read your report and watch for inconsistencies.

U – Units of Measurement: Use the metric system of measurements.
Abbreviations of units are used without a following period.
L - Language
Be aware that the word data is plural while datum is singular. This
affects the choice of a correct verb. The word species is used both as a
singular and as a plural.
E - Expressions: Avoid the use of slang and idioms.
S - Scientific Names : All scientific names (genus and species) must be
italicized. (Underlining indicates italics in a typed paper.)
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Writing a Report

O – Overused of contractions should be avoided.

N – Numbers: Numbers should be written as numerals when they are greater than ten or
when they are associated with measurements; for example, 6 mm or 2g but, two
explanations of six factors. When one list includes numbers over and under ten, all
numbers in the list may be expressed as numerals; for example, 17 sunfish, 13 bass,
and 2 trout.

S – Sentence: Never start a sentence with numerals. Spell all numbers beginning sentences.
Be sure to divide paragraphs correctly and to use starting and ending sentences
that indicate the purpose of the paragraph. A report or a section of a report should
not be one long paragraph.
T – Tense: Every sentence must have a subject and a verb. Be consistent in the use of tense
throughout a paragraph--do not switch between past and present. It is best to use
past tense.
Y – You/ We/ I: Avoid using the first person, I or we, in writing. Keep your writing
impersonal, in the third person.
Example: Instead of saying, "We weighed the frogs and put them in a
glass jar," write, "The frogs were weighed and put in a glass jar."

Be sure that pronouns refer to antecedents. For example, in the statement,

"Sometimes cecropia caterpillars are in cherry trees but they are hard to
find," does "they" refer to caterpillars or trees?

L – Lack of precision: watching especially for lack of precision and for ambiguity. Each
sentence should present a clear message. The following examples illustrate lack
of precision:

"The sample was incubated in mixture A minus B plus C."

( Does the mixture lack both B and C or lack B and contain C?)

E – Edit: reread and edit your work.

What have we learned?

In this module, we discussed about the survey report, scientific or laboratory

report, including the elements and format of writing the aforementioned
reports. The types of questionnaires and examples are also provided as
illustrations.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Glossary

Laboratory reports –are written to describe and analyze a laboratory

experiment that explores a scientific concept.

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 Report – is a planned, organized, factual presentation of information
prepared for a specific purpose and for a specific audience.
Survey report – a formal report written by observing a subject or
completing an experiment, and recording the findings.
Scientific report – is a document that describes the process, progress, and
or results of technical or scientific research or the state of a technical or
scientific research problem. It might also include recommendations and
conclusion of the research.
Questionnaires – a set of research or survey questions asked to
respondents, and designed to extract specific information.

References and Supplementary Materials

Books :
Brantley, C. and Miller, M. ( 2007) Effective Communication for Colleges.
Singapore. Thomson South Western
Dapat, JR, O( 2013) Applied English for Academic and Professional
Services. Manila , Philippines. JFS Publishing
Schwandt, T. A. (2015) The SAGE Dictionary of Qualitative Inquiry. 4th
edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE
Online Supplementary Reading Materials
Scientific Report Guides
http://www.waikato.ac.nz/library/study/guides/write-scientific-reports
Retrieved on May 7, 2017

A Survey Report
https://www.google.com.ph/search?q=writing+a+survey+report&oq=
WRITING++A++SURVEY+REPORT&aqs=chrome.0.0l6.7728j0j8&sourceid=
chrome&ie =UTF. Retrieved on May 3, 2017

Online Instructional Videos

Survey Study: Definition & Design - Video & Lesson Transcript

study.com/academy/lesson/survey-study-definition-design-quiz.html
Retrieved 27 July 2017

How to Write Research & Laboratory Reports: Purpose

study.com/.../how-to-write-research-laboratory-reports-purpose-
structure-content.html. Retrieved 27 July 2017
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Writing a Report

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