Download Writing a Research Report: Tips and Guidelines and more Summaries Technical Writing in PDF only on Docsity! Tips for Writing a Good Report Title Should be clear and descriptive, but not too long. Ideally should state main result. Introduction In about 3-5 paragraphs, an introduction: 1) introduces the problem and describes why it is interesting; 2) summarizes what’s known about the problem, citing prior work; and 3) summarizes your approach. • Ask yourself: Why is this problem important? Why is it timely? How does your approach to the problem differ from other approaches? • You may provide a brief preview of your results at the end of the introduction - but no more than a preview. • Do not use subheadings in the introduction. Methods • Explain your methods in enough detail for a researcher in the same field to replicate the experiments and for a researcher in a related field to understand the essence of the methods. • Do not include results (or discussion) in methods, only methods. However, you can briefly indicate the rationale for a procedure if it makes the methods more readable. • Use bold subheadings (on separate lines) to break up the methods. This organizes the methods section by topic and allows readers interested only in some aspects of the methods to quickly find what they are looking for. • Each subheading should be followed by one or a few paragraphs. Each paragraph should have a topic sentence and should be written clearly and concisely. • Avoid repetition. Use “see above” when appropriate and cite published methods when appropriate. Results • Organize your results in a logically coherent order. The order does NOT have to be the order in which the experiments were done, but rather the one which makes the most coherent “story”. It is not necessary to describe every experiment that was done during the summer. Focus on your best experiments. You can mention experiments that did not work briefly and comment on why they may not have worked. • Figures should be numbered in the order they are cited in the text. Insert figures into the document near where they are discussed. • Each figure or table MUST have a legend. Discussion • Discuss your results, putting them in the context of what was known before your study. • Highlight any agreements or disagreements between your data and those of other published studies. Comment on possible reasons for disagreements. • Discuss open questions raised by your findings and any general lessons or conclusions that can be drawn.
