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WRITING & EDITING your Research Education Report
Raffles Institution
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LECTURE OBJECTIVES
Consider these questions: Why is it important to learn how
to write an academic report? How do we write an academic
report? How do we edit our report to
achieve coherence?
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REASONS – Three Ps
Practicality. You need this skill till the end of your academic career
Practice makes permanent. Have a head start over others if you start early
Present insightful critiques of research articles
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OVERVIEW
An academic report is broadly divided into four main sections:
- Introduction- Methods- Results- Discussion You might want to use different
headings but the Content of your Written Report (WR) should cover these four broad sections.
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OVERVIEW
Four questions to think about:1. What is your research topic?2. How you went about
investigating your topic?3. What have you found?4. What are the implications of
your findings?
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OVERVIEW
Recommended length?? Rough approximation…- 1/3 Introduction- 1/3 Methods & Results- 1/3 Discussion (Key assessment
criteria to be noted, cannot be too short!) – refer to Assessment
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SCORING TIP!
Always keep in mind the assessment rubric
Make sure your WR addresses these assessment rubrics!
2012 Report Writing Assessment Rubrics (Product) Form pg 36.doc
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INTRODUCING YOUR PROJECT
What is the Introduction? Not the introductory paragraph of a
GP essay!! Covers the background of your topic Ends with a statement of what you
are examining or investigating for RE (i.e. your research objective)
Broadly relates to the first part of your task
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INTRODUCING YOUR PROJECT
3 essential ingredients for an excellent introduction:
1. A strong justification for your choice of topic To bring out the significance of your
topic. To set your topic within an
important context.
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INTRODUCING YOUR PROJECT
2. Having sufficient sources to substantiate your ideas or support your arguments
Conduct a literature review if information is insufficient.
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INTRODUCING YOUR PROJECT
3. A clear research objective State clearly what you seek to
investigate for your project worke.g. to explore the feasibility of your proposed idea; to examine the effectiveness of your implemented idea, etc
This leads us nicely to the next section: Methodology
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DESCRIBING YOUR METHODOLOGY
Important but often omitted section If omitted, the reader is left
wondering where you had obtained your data from
This section tells the reader what you did to answer your research question, e.g. conducted a survey and an email interview, etc
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2012 Writing a Research Report (Y1).doc
Copyright (c) 2008 J&C Research Consultants Pte. Ltd.13
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PRESENTING YOUR RESULTS
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REPORTING YOUR RESULTS(recapitulation of prev
lecture…)
1. State your research objective and describe your methodology before reporting your results
AN EXAMPLE: To explore the marketability of our new
proposed product [research objective], a survey was conducted with 120 respondents from RI [methodology]. The respondents were all males, aged … (Describe the survey sample)
Results showed that … [report your results]
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REPORTING YOUR RESULTS
2. Present a finding by first stating the conclusion and then support it with relevant data or the results from your analyses.
This is followed by the interpretations derived from the data.
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FROM PREVIOUS EXAMPLE Results showed that males were willing
to pay more for the new proposed product than females [conclusion from the data].
On average, male respondents indicated that they are willing to spend $35 on the product, as opposed to females who are willing to pay only $25 [relevant data].
Hence, it is recommended that marketing strategies should focus more on male consumers who are willing to pay more for the product [interpretation/inference].
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NOTE (once again…)
Difference between reporting the results and interpreting it
Reporting is describing what the data show e.g. On average, males were willing to spend $35 on the new product while females will pay only $25
Interpretation involves a discussion of the implications (that is, we should focus marketing efforts on male consumers).
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REPORTING YOUR RESULTS
3. Use figures purposefully
Data with only two categories (such as Yes/No and Aware/Not aware) do not require a figure.
Figure 1. Respondents who thought the exhibition was
a success
65%
35%Yes
No
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REPORTING YOUR RESULTS
3. Use figures purposefully
Use bar charts instead of pie charts to present information more clearly.
Figure 2. Reason that captured respondents'
attention
30%
35%
10%
25%Colour
Music
Film
Others
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REPORTING YOUR RESULTS
35
30
25
10
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5
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25
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35
40
Colour Music Film Others
Per
cen
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Figure 2. Reason that captured respondents' attention
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REPORTING YOUR RESULTS
3. Use figures purposefully (cont’)
Note that pie charts are seldom used in academic reports
Captions for figures are placed at the bottom, not at the top.
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REPORTING YOUR RESULTS
35
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35
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Colour Music Film Others
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Figure 2. Reason that captured respondents' attention
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REPORTING YOUR RESULTS4. Honesty is the best policy:
Integrity issues when reporting results
If the results did not turn out as expected, this is also a finding which means you might have to rethink your prior assumptions.
Do NOT falsify your results A plausible reason for unexpected results is
your methodology, e.g. convenience sampling (i.e. asking friends to respond to the survey), administering of survey, how questions were phrased, etc
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Copyright (c) 2008 J&C Research Consultants Pte. Ltd.25
REPORTING YOUR RESULTS4. Honesty is the best policy:
Integrity issues when reporting results (cont’)
Discuss what was learnt from the research process and offer suggestions for how the project could be improved upon in future research
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DISCUSSING YOUR FINDINGS (reminder) Common mistake: Many projects
fail to score a good grade because students interpret and discuss their findings very superficially.
Students can end their projects with an in-depth discussion of their project at these three levels:
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DISCUSSING YOUR FINDINGS
i) Interpret your results Summarise all the key findings from
your data. E.g. Overall the results from our survey
showed that our proposed exhibition is a feasible approach to showcase the life and work of our groundbreaker. Specifically, … (provide a summary of the key findings and their implications)
Provide an answer to the research objective stated in the introduction (gives closure to the entire project).
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DISCUSSING YOUR FINDINGS
ii) Discuss your methodology (i.e. the strengths and limitations)
Recognise that the data you collected is not 100% accurate, hence cannot take the results at face value.
Present the strengths of your research Acknowledge the limitations of your project
work (e.g. non-probability sampling, administering of survey, how questions were phrased, issues that were not examined, etc)
Offer suggestions for future research
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DISCUSSING YOUR FINDINGS
iii) Consider the broader implications of your results
End the report by linking it back to the introduction
Relate the implications of your results to the wider context that you have based your project
Revisit the challenges described in the introduction and offer suggestions or principles based on your results.
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EDITING TIPS FOR A COHERENT REPORT
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EDITING TIPS FOR A COHERENT REPORT
1. Start with the method section ensure essential information is
reported.
2. Work on the results section make sure results are clearly
presented and properly interpreted
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EDITING TIPS FOR A COHERENT REPORT
3. Complete the introduction bring out the significance of your
topic, check for proper referencing and proper substantiation of ideas
4. Tidy up the discussion to mirror the introduction ensure that the report ends with a
thorough and in-depth discussion
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Exemplars from Previous Years
•Most final RE Final Report longbin.pdf
•2009 Y1 RE Exemplar Final Report_Gambling_with comments.doc
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Reminders
All reports should be ring bound into a booklet.
Proper in-text citation using APA format
Do not plagiarise! Claims of plagiarism over PhD for
ce minister to drop his title.docx
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Group Report
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FURTHER READING
For more information on report writing, please refer to Project Works Volume 3: Strategies for Effective Report Writing.