Research Methodology Module-07

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Module 7 RM
Report writing
Report writing is used to develop your writing skills so you can prepare quality reports
based on a good style, a clear format and an effective use of data. The types of report
writing are technical and practical.
1) NEED OF EFFECTIVE DOCUMENTATION
"The importance of documentation" is an axiomatic, and almost trite, battle cry that
human resource professionals constantly beat into the psyches of their supervisors - quite
often to no avail. But what, really, is "documentation?" When do you do it? How do you
do it? And, what, exactly, are you supposed to document? More importantly, have you
ever conveyed this information to your supervisors?
Documentation serves many purposes. It can help prove an essential element of a claim
such as "misconduct" in an unemployment claim, or a "legitimate business reason" in a
discrimination claim. It can help defend a claim, confirming that certain action was taken,
demonstrating that others were treated in the same manner, or preserving a record or
history of prior events. Most importantly, it is the best evidence of events as they
occurred - at a time when they are fresh in the individual's mind. This information
generally constitutes the best evidence of what actually happened, and allows the
individual to recall it in much greater detail several months, or even years later.
What to document? The simple answer is "whatever might become an issue later."
Examples include: Attendance - reasons given for absences and tardiness; performance -
significant incidents of inadequate job performance, violations of work rules, repeated
unacceptable behavior, etc.; attitude - manifestations of inappropriate comments, gestures
or actions not otherwise apparent; discipline - a contemporaneous record of verbal or
written warnings for violations of work rules, including the employee's response and
agreed-upon corrective action; complaints from co-workers - the name of the individual
complaining, the date of the complaint and the nature of the complaint; receipt of
information - confirm receipt of policies, work rules, etc.; training - confirm
participation, subject matter and materials distributed or relied upon; investigations -
record response to complaint, including action taken, information received, etc., to name
a few.
How to document? Be specific - include date (with year), names and all relevant
information. Do not assume anything is so obvious/easy that it will not be forgotten. Be
detailed - use exact words, no matter how offensive or vulgar, and quotes whenever
possible. Be accurate - do not omit relevant details, make assumptions or misrepresent

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what actually happened. Be smart - remember, what you write may someday constitute
evidence in a legal proceeding. Your notes will thus help, or hurt, your case. Make it easy
- prepare/use established forms, email, notes to self, or whatever it takes to be sure that
the record is made. The more difficult or burdensome the requirement, the less likely it
will happen.
2) IMPORTANCE OF REPORT WRITING
Purpose of a report: writing to be read
A key thing to keep in mind right through your report writing process is that a report is
written to be read, by someone else. This is the central goal of report-writing. A report
which is written for the sake of being written has very little value.
Before you start writing your report, you need to have in mind the intended audience. In
the narrowest of possibilities, your report is meant for reading by yourselves, and by your
advisor/instructor, and perhaps by your evaluation committee. This has value, but only
short-term. The next broader possibility is that your report is readable by your peers or
your juniors down the line. This has greater value since someone else can continue on
your work and improve it, or learn from your work. In the best case possibility, your
report is of publishable quality. That is, readable and useful for the technical community
in general.
Overall approach: top-down
Take a top-down approach to writing the report (also applies to problem solving in
general). This can proceed in roughly three stages of continual refinement of details.
1. First write the section-level outline,
2. Then the subsection-level outline, and
3. Then a paragraph-level outline. The paragraph-level outline would more-or-less be
like a presentation with bulleted points. It incorporates the flow of ideas.
Once you have the paragraph-level flow of ideas, you can easily convert that into a full
report, by writing out the flow of ideas in full sentences.
While doing the paragraph-level outline, think also about (a) figures, (b) tables, and (c)
graphs you will include as part of the report at various stages. You will find that many
things can be better explained by using simple figures at appropriate places.
Another thing to nail-down while doing the paragraph-level outline is the terminology
you will be using. For instance, names of various protocols/algorithms/steps in your
solution. Or names/symbols for mathematical notation.

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The overall approach also includes multiple stages of refinement, and taking feedback
from others (peers/advisor/instructor). I will talk about these in more detail after talking
about the overall report structure.
3) TYPES OF REPORTS
Reports are written for different purposes. They therefore contain different information
and structures, including headings and subheadings, and these form the outline of the
report. The table below shows the sections commonly found in these types of reports
. Common report structures
Short report
 Title page
 Introduction
 Discussion
 Recommendations
 References
Science report
 Title page
 Introduction
 Method & materials
 Results
 Discussion
 Conclusion
 Appendices
 References
Business report
 Title page
 Executive summary
 Table of contents
 Introduction
 Discussion
 Conclusion
 Recommendations
 Appendices
 References
Engineering report
 Title page
 Executive summary
(optional)
 Introduction
 Objectives
 Analysis
 Discussion
 Recommendations &
action plan
 Conclusion
 Appendices
 References
Research report
 Title page
 Executive summary
 Introduction
 Method /
methodology
 Results / findings
 Discussion
 Conclusions
 Recommendations
 Appendices
 Bibliography

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4) REPORT STRUCTURE
Structure of a report
The following should roughly be the structure of a report. Note that these are just
guidelines, not rules. You have to use your intelligence in working out the details of your
specific writing.
 Title and abstract: These are the most-read parts of a report. This is how you
attract attention to your writing. The title should reflect what you have done and
should bring out any eye-catching factor of your work, for good impact.
The abstract should be short, generally within about 2 paragraphs (250 words or so
total). The abstract should contain the essence of the report, based on which the
reader decides whether to go ahead with reading the report or not. It can contain
the following in varying amounts of detail as is appropriate: main motivation,
main design point, essential difference from previous work, methodology, and
some eye-catching results if any.
 Introduction: Most reports start with an introduction section. This section should
answer the following questions (not necessarily in that order, but what is given
below is a logical order). After title/abstract introduction and conclusions are the
two mainly read parts of a report.
o What is the setting of the problem? This is, in other words, the background.
In some cases, this may be implicit, and in some cases, merged with the
motivation below.
o What exactly is the problem you are trying to solve? This is the problem
statement.
o Why is the problem important to solve? This is the motivation. In some
cases, it may be implicit in the background, or the problem statement itself.
o Is the problem still unsolved? The constitutes the statement of past/related
work crisply.
o Why is the problem difficult to solve? This is the statement of challenges.
In some cases, it may be implicit in the problem statement. In others, you
may have to say explicitly as to why the problem is worthy of a
BTech/MTech/PhD, or a semester project, as the case may be.
o How have you solved the problem? Here you state the essence of your
approach. This is of course expanded upon later, but it must be stated
explicitly here.
o What are the conditions under which your solution is applicable? This is a
statement of assumptions.
o What are the main results? You have to present the main summary of the
results here.

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o What is the summary of your contributions? This in some cases may be
implicit in the rest of the introduction. Sometimes it helps to state
contributions explicitly.
o How is the rest of the report organized? Here you include a paragraph on
the flow of ideas in the rest of the report. For any report beyond 4-5 pages,
this is a must.
The introduction is nothing but a shorter version of the rest of the report, and in
many cases the rest of the report can also have the same flow. Think of the rest of
the report as an expansion of some of the points in the introduction. Which of the
above bullets are expanded into separate sections (perhaps even multiple sections)
depends very much on the problem.
 Background: This is expanded upon into a separate section if there is sufficient
background which the general reader must understand before knowing the details
of your work. It is usual to state that "the reader who knows this background can
skip this section" while writing this section.
 Past/related work: It is common to have this as a separate section, explaining
why what you have done is something novel. Here, you must try to think of
dimensions of comparison of your work with other work. For instance, you may
compare in terms of functionality, in terms of performance, and/or in terms of
approach. Even within these, you may have multiple lines of comparison --
functionality-1, functionality-2, metric-1, metric-2, etc.
Although not mandatory, it is good presentation style to give the above
comparison in terms of a table; where the rows are the various dimensions of
comparison and the columns are various pieces of related work, with your own
work being the first/last column. See the related work section of my PhD thesis for
an example of such a table :-).
While in general you try to play up your work with respect to others, it is also
good to identify points where your solution is not so good compared to others. If
you state these explicitly, the reader will feel better about them, than if you do not
state and the reader figures out the flaws in your work anyway :-).
Another point is with respect to the placement of related work. One possibility is
to place it in the beginning of the report (after intro/background). Another is to
place it in the end of the report (just before conclusions). This is a matter of
judgment, and depends on the following aspect of your work. If there are lots of
past work related very closely to your work, then it makes sense to state upfront as
to what the difference in your approach is. On the other hand, if your work is
substantially different from past work, then it is better to put the related work at
the end. While this conveys a stronger message, it has the risk of the reader

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wondering all through the report as to how your work is different from some other
specific related work.
 Technical sections: The main body of the report may be divided into multiple
sections as the case may be. You may have different sections which delve into
different aspects of the problem. The organization of the report here is problem
specific. You may also have a separate section for statement of design
methodology, or experimental methodology, or proving some lemmas in a
theoretical paper.
The technical section is the most work-specific, and hence is the least described
here. However, it makes sense to mention the following main points:
o Outlines/flow: For sections which may be huge, with many subsections, it
is appropriate to have a rough outline of the section at the beginning of that
section. Make sure that the flow is maintained as the reader goes from one
section to another. There should be no abrupt jumps in ideas.
o Use of figures: The cliché "a picture is worth a thousand words" is
appropriate here. Spend time thinking about pictures. Wherever necessary,
explain all aspects of a figure (ideally, this should be easy), and do not
leave the reader wondering as to what the connection between the figure
and the text is.
o Terminology: Define each term/symbol before you use it, or right after its
first use. Stick to a common terminology throughout the report.
 Results: This is part of the set of technical sections, and is usually a separate
section for experimental/design papers. You have to answer the following
questions in this section:
o What aspects of your system or algorithm are you trying to evaluate? That
is, what are the questions you will seek to answer through the evaluations?
o Why are you trying to evaluate the above aspects?
o What are the cases of comparison? If you have proposed an algorithm or a
design, what do you compare it with?
o What are the performance metrics? Why?
o What are the parameters under study?
o What is the experimental setup? Explain the choice of every parameter
value (range) carefully.
o What are the results?
o Finally, why do the results look the way they do?
The results are usually presented as tables and graphs. In explaining tables and
graphs, you have to explain them as completely as possible. Identify trends in the
data. Does the data prove what you want to establish? In what cases are the results
explainable, and in what cases unexplainable if any?

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While describing a table, you have to describe every row/column. And similarly
while describing a graph; you have to describe the x/y axes. If necessary, you have
to consider the use of log-axes.
If you are presenting a lot of results, it may be useful to summarize the main take-
away points from all the data in a separate sub-section at the end (or sometimes
even at the beginning) of the results section.
 Future work: This section in some cases is combined along with the
"conclusions" section. Here you state aspects of the problem you have not
considered and possibilities for further extensions.
 Conclusions: Readers usually read the title, abstract, introduction, and
conclusions. In that sense, this section is quite important. You have to crisply state
the main take-away points from your work. How has the reader become smarter,
or how has the world become a better place because of your work?
At the top level, a typical report is organized in the following way.
1. Abstract. (This is a couple of paragraphs - no more - which summarizes the
content of the report. It must be comprehensible to someone who has not read the
rest of the report.)
2. Introduction. (The scope of the project, setting the scene for the remainder of the
report.)
3. Previous work. (One or more review chapters, describing the research you did at
the beginning of the project period.)
4. Several chapters describing what you have done, focusing on the novel aspects of
your own work.
5. Further work. (A chapter describing possible ways in which your work could be
continued or developed. Be imaginative but realistic.)
6. Conclusions. (This is similar to the abstract. The difference is that you should
assume here that the reader of the conclusions has read the rest of the report.)
7. References and appendices.

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5) REPORT FORMULATION
4. How to write well
Many students appear not to realize how difficult it is to write well. Any type of writing
(except perhaps advertising copy) is difficult, but technical writing is particularly hard.
4.1. Precision
You must strive first to be absolutely precise. When you write, it is not sufficient that you
know what you mean; neither is it sufficient that your writing admits of the meaning
which you intend: it must admit of no other meaning. What you write must not be
capable of misinterpretation. Take exceptional care to choose the right word for the
occasion. Do not, for example, write ``optimum'' if you mean ``good''. ``Approximate''
means ``close'', so ``very approximate'' means ``very close'' - which is not what many
people seem to think it means.
4.2. Vigour
Precision in writing is mainly a matter of taking sufficient care. Good writing is not only
precise, however, it is vigorous, and that is much harder to achieve. It helps if you have
read widely, especially novels. Here are some hints which might help you to write
forcefully and vigorously.
Prefer short sentences to long sentences. Prefer short words to long words, provided that
the short word has the meaning you need. Terseness is a great virtue in technical writing.
(But don't go too far; remember Horace's observation: ``Brevis esse laboro, obscurus
fio''.) Avoid circumlocutions. ``In almost all sectors of the computing marketplace'' can
be replaced in most contexts by ``almost everywhere''.
The question of whether to use the passive voice in technical writing is a thorny one.
Most older writers still write ``a program was written ...'' rather than ``I wrote a program
...''. Many of your examiners might share this preference for, or prejudice in favour of, the
passive voice, but this style is passing out of favour in all technical writing, and I advise
you not to use it. Whatever you do, do not use the ``royal we'' (``we wrote a program''
when you mean ``I wrote a program'').
There is general agreement that Latin phrases are best avoided in technical writing (but
the occasional Latin quotation might lend a spurious air of erudition!) Nevertheless,
many careful writers have their own favourite Latin phrases which find occasional use.
The best rule is that a Latin phrase is acceptable if it abbreviates a circumlocutionary
English phrase. Mutatis mutandis, for example, one of my own favourites, is permissible
in place of ``making the appropriate changes'', since any English gloss seems to be ugly
and unwieldy. ``I.e.'' (note the roman font and punctuation) is often useful in place of ``in

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other words'' or ``that is'', and is widely understood. Quite often, however, ``X, i.e., Y'' can
be replaced by ``Y'', because the writer realized while writing X that Y said the same, only
better. ``E.g.'' is overused and best used sparingly; prefer ``for instance'' or ``for
example''.
4.3. Spelling and grammar
You must take exceptional care to spell correctly. Poor spelling is a distraction to the
proficient reader. In most cases there is very little excuse nowadays for spelling errors;
there are many excellent spell-checker programs which make a good job of finding the
errors for you, and excellent (paper) dictionaries which will tell you what the correct
spelling is. Be especially careful with words whose common misspelling is a correct
spelling of a different word, in particular the following pairs: lead/led; loose/lose;
affect/effect. It is dangerous to allow the spell-checker to ``correct'' a misspelling by
itself; many such hilarious ``corrections'' have been reported, for example recently in New
Scientist.
Believe the spell-checker.
If poor spelling is a distraction which impedes understanding, poor grammar is more so.
Take care with apostrophes.
Even if you yourself do not place a strong emphasis on good spelling and good grammar,
most of your examiners do, some fanatically. Most examiners will be irritated by poor
spelling and poor grammar. It is always worth doing whatever you can, short of bribery,
to put your examiner in a good mood. Write well and spell well, for this reason if for no
other!
4.4. Typography
When I prepared my own final-year project report, I wrote it with pen and ink and handed
the manuscript to the departmental secretary who typed it for me on an IBM typewriter.
Modern practice is different, and now you yourself are responsible for producing a
computer-typeset report. This means that you must be familiar both with the formal
requirements set out in the Students' Handbook (restricting the number of pages, type
size, width of margins, and so on) and with the rudiments of typography. You will not be
penalized severely, if at all, if you violate typographical conventions, but good
typography creates a subliminal impression akin to that of good proportion in a painting,
and is desirable for that reason. Since it is a matter of simply learning and following the
rules, you should try to do so. You should learn at least enough (for example) to know the

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difference between the hyphen, minus, en-dash and em-dash, and when to use each of
them.
4.5. Illustrations
Your report should generally contain illustrations (figures or diagrams), but they must be
relevant. Ask yourself if the illustration helps the reader to understand the text. If the text
is readily comprehensible without the illustration, delete the illustration. If it is not, it is
usually better to make the text clearer than to add a diagram.
All illustrations should be prepared by an appropriate program, such as pic, xfig or grap.
They should not be hand-drawn. The only common exception to this rule is circuit
diagrams: given the current state of the art in schematic-entry packages, a hand-drawn
circuit diagram is usually preferable to a computer-drawn one.
If possible, include figures close to the text which refers to them, rather than all together
in an appendix. Circuit diagrams are, again, a possible exception to this rule. It is normal
to list tables and figures at the beginning of the report, after the table of contents.
6) PLAGIARISM
What is Plagiarism?
Plagiarism is the act of taking another person's writing, conversation, song, or even idea
and passing it off as your own. This includes information from web pages, books, songs,
television shows, email messages, interviews, articles, artworks or any other medium.
Whenever you paraphrase, summarize, or take words, phrases, or sentences from another
person's work, it is necessary to indicate the source of the information within your paper
using an internal citation. It is not enough to just list the source in a bibliography at the
end of your paper. Failing to properly quote, cite or acknowledge someone else's words
or ideas with an internal citation is plagiarism.
The act of appropriating the literary composition of another author, or excerpts, ideas, or
passages therefrom, and passing the material off as one's own creation.
Plagiarism is theft of another person's writings or ideas. Generally, it occurs when
someone steals expressions from another author's composition and makes them appear to
be his own work. Plagiarism is not a legal term; however, it is often used in lawsuits.
Courts recognize acts of plagiarism as violations of Copyright law, specifically as the
theft of another person's Intellectual Property. Because copyright law allows a variety of
creative works to be registered as the property of their owners, lawsuits alleging

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plagiarism can be based on the appropriation of any form of writing, music, and visual
images.
Plagiarism can take a broad range of forms. At its simplest and most extreme, plagiarism
involves putting one's own name on someone else’s work; this is commonly seen in
schools when a student submits a paper that someone else has written. Schools, colleges,
and universities usually have explicit guidelines for reviewing and punishing plagiarism
by students and faculty members. In copyright lawsuits, however, allegations of
plagiarism are more often based on partial theft. It is not necessary to exactly duplicate
another's work in order to infringe a copyright: it is sufficient to take a substantial portion
of the copyrighted material. Thus, for example, plagiarism can include copying language
or ideas from another novelist, basing a new song in large part on another's musical
composition, or copying another artist's drawing or photograph.
Courts and juries have a difficult time determining when unlawful copying has occurred.
One thing the plaintiff must show is that the alleged plagiarist had access to the
copyrighted work. Such evidence might include a showing that the plaintiff sent the work
to the defendant in an attempt to sell it or that the work was publicly available and widely
disseminated.
Once access is proven, the plaintiff must show that the alleged plagiarism is based on a
substantial similarity between the two works.
Five Types of Plagiarism
1. "Copy & Paste Plagiarism"
"Any time you lift a sentence or significant phrase intact from a source, you must use
quotations marks and reference the source."
2. "Word Switch Plagiarism"
"If you take a sentence from a source and change around a few words, it is still
plagiarism. If you want to quote a sentence, then you need to put it in quotation marks
and cite the author and article. But quoting Source articles should only be done if what
the quote says is particularly useful in the point you are trying to make in what you are
writing." In many cases, paraphrasing and then citing the original sources is a better
option.
3. "Style Plagiarism"
"When you follow a Source Article sentence-by-sentence or paragraph-by-paragraph, it is
plagiarism, even though none of your sentences are exactly like those in the source article

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or even in the same order. What you are copying in this case is the author's reasoning
style."
4. "Metaphor Plagiarism"
"Metaphors are used either to make an idea clearer or give the reader an analogy that
touches the senses or emotions better than a plain description of the object or process.
Metaphors, then, are an important part of an author's creative style. If you cannot come
up with your own metaphor to illustrate an important idea, then use the metaphor in the
Source Article, but give the author credit for it."
5." Idea Plagiarism"
"If the author of the source article expresses a creative idea or suggests a solution to a
problem, the idea or solution must be clearly attributed to the author. Students seem to
have a hard time distinguishing author's ideas and/or solutions from public domain
information. Public domain information is any idea or solution about which people in the
field accept as general knowledge. For example, what a black hole is and how it is
defined is general knowledge. You do not need to reference a general description of a
black hole. The escape velocity of earth is also general knowledge and needs no
reference. The distance to the center of the Galaxy is also general knowledge. However, a
new idea about how to look for black holes or a new solution to a physics problem needs
to be attributed to the authors. If you don't know what is accepted as public domain in a
particular field, ASK."
Consequences of Plagiarism?
The major consequence of plagiarism is that people who are involved in it can be
disqualified from their course; it can result in ones work being shattered, it can result in
removal from ones academic organization, or it can also result in legal action