The Language of Academic and Research Reports

Samir Roy, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering,

National Institute of Technical Teachers’ Training and Research, Kolkata
Block FC, Sector III, Salt Lake City, Kolkata 700106

The topic of this learning unit is the language of academic and research reports. There are
certain interesting features that characterize the language of a typical academic and research
report. We will discuss these features here. After successful completion of this unit, you will
be able to –

• Identify the spirit of objectivity in the language of academic and research reports.
• Apply the principle of objectivity while writing academic and research reports.
• Use data/information/evidence in an appropriate manner in academic and research
reports.
• Express the contents of an academic and research report in a structured way.
• Use graphic objects e.g. tables/diagrams/charts/graphs etc. effectively in the report.

I do hope that you will find this discussion interesting and useful for your purpose.

1. The Spirit of Objectively in Academic and Research Report Writing

At the very outset, we must be aware of the fundamental difference between creative literature
and academic, especially scientific, literature. A creative writing expresses the personal
emotions, feelings, views etc. of the author, or some other character. It is essentially subjective
in nature. In contrast, an academic, or research report presents some objective truth, or a
collection of objective truth. By objective truth we mean something that exists in the outside
world, and exists irrespective of independent of our experience of it. Let us understand the
point with a small example. Suppose someone finds a beautiful lotus flower in a lotus pond.
He is amazed at the sight of the beautiful flower. He comes home, and tells someone there:

i) My God, what an amazing lotus is there in the lotus pond !

or
ii) There is an amazing lotus in the lotus pond.

One can easily see that the first utterance conveys spectator’s amazement at the sight of the
beautiful lotus. It is the expression of his own state of mind. Such sentences are expected in
creative literature. However, in academic or scientific literature, second statement is, usually,
preferred. Please note that here, instead of the reaction of the spectator, a fact about a reality
which is out there, is reported in a dispassionate manner. This is the spirit and essence of the
language of academic and research literature.

So here are some best practices that are usually followed while writing academic or research
reports.

i) Avoid statements in the first person, i.e., words like ‘I’ ‘we’ etc. One can ensure this
by writing such sentences in passive voice, instead of active voice. Let us take a few examples.
Instead of writing “we surveyed among 153 persons from the locality” it is more appropriate to
write “Survey was conducted among 153 persons from the locality.” Similarly, instead of “I
have found that increasing connectivity results in sharp decline in the reliability of the circuit.”
a suitable expression would be “It was observed that increase in connectivity is associated to
a sharp decline in the reliability of the circuit.”
ii) Avoid using interrogative or exclamatory sentences. For instance, instead of “What is
the optimum value of the objective function? We must find.” one may write “The goal is to find
the optimum value of the objective function.” Similarly, instead of “The performance of our
design is so good that no existing design can complete with it.” it is better to write “Results
show that the proposed design outperforms that of the existing designs.” Or, say, instead of
writing “Unfortunately, we could not sustain the level of efficiency as the temperature rose
beyond the threshold value.” One could write “Sustainability of the efficiency declined at
temperature above the threshold value.”
iii) Avoid vogue and emotionally charged expressions like “unfortunately”, “beautifully”,
“luckily” etc.
iv) Avoid complex sentences. Complex sentences, in general, can be partitioned into a
number of simple sentences, which is a more comprehensible and effective way of
communication. Let us consider the following statement :

“As the given problem is computationally hard and requires prohibitively long time to
solve optimally using even the best computational resources, an intelligent technique
was employed which ensures acceptably sub-optional solution available in linear time
using low-cost computational resources.”

This can be easily rewritten in the following manner:

“The given problem is computationally hard. As a result, finding an optimal solution to

this problem requires prohibitively high time even with best computational resources.
Therefore, an intelligent technique has been employed. Such technique ensures sub-
 optional but acceptable solution. This can be achieved in linear time using low-cost
computational resources.”
v) Tables and Diagrams should be used judiciously and effectively. Usually, academic
and research reports contain large amount of data. Moreover, there are information which
involves data, or processed data. Data are provided in the form of raw numerical figures or
some alphanumeric strings. Unless presented in a structured form, it is very difficult to extract
meaning from data. So it is more effective to present data in tabular form rather than in textual
form. However, the main points of the data reported in a table must be presented in language
with a reference to the table. Similarly, graphic objects e.g. pie-chart, bar-chart, graphs etc.
are highly effective tools to express information, or situations related to data.
vi) Remove plagiarism. Plagiarism is a burning issue in the contemporary world of
academic literature. All major conferences and agencies nowadays make sure that a report is
free of plagiarism before they accept it for publication. There are various softwares available
in the market to check whether a document is free from plagiarism, or if not free, then to what
extent it is affected by plagiarism. Moreover, these softwares are intelligent enough to identify
the portions of the document affected by plagiarism. So, when you write your report, it is
advisable to maintain the following conventions:
a) Ensure authenticity of your language. This means the language of your report is yours
and yours only. It should not resemble any other published material.
b) If you use any material already published, you must acknowledge the source by
providing the full reference.
c) Before you formally submit your report, verify that it is free of plagiarism by using some
standard plagiarism checking software. If some portion of your document do not pass
plagiarism check, then rewrite it till it passes the said test.

Hence, in this learning unit on the language of academic and research reports, various
interesting issues have been discussed, including the spirit of objectivity in academic and
research report writing, necessity of presenting the contents in a structured manner using
tables, charts, graphs etc. as and when necessary, and of course, the issue of plagiarism
check. It is expected that if one applies this knowledge while writing an academic, or research,
report, he will be able to produce a quality document leading to the desired outcome.