ENGL 214

Academic & Professional

Communication

Abstracts & Purpose Statement

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Aims
• To provide further guidance on
report title specificity and types
• To understand the difference
between informative and descriptive
abstracts
• To learn the function of purpose
statements in academic reports
• To write a clear purpose statement
for your report
Report Title Submission
• Due today (by 7pm) if you have not
already submitted
• Do some general reading in order to
specify your title and ideas before
submitting
 Determining Titles and Specificity
• Education – Security/Safety/Privacy
• Child Safety in Schools
• Child Safety in South African Secondary
Schools
• Bullying in South African Secondary
Schools
• Bullying in South African Secondary
Schools / School-Based Interventions

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 Which Report Type?
• Mitigating the Effects of Bullying in South
African Secondary Schools Through School
Based Interventions

• The South African Government Should

Encourage School Based Interventions in
Secondary Schools to Mitigate the Effects of
Bullying

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 Which Report Type? (2)
• Mitigating the Effects of Bullying in South African
Secondary Schools Through School Based
Interventions
• The South African Government Should Encourage
School Based Interventions in Secondary Schools to
Mitigate the Effects of Bullying
• An argumentative essay needs to be a genuine
academic debate.
• No one would argue that the effects of bullying should
be increased or enhanced.
• Therefore, the topic lends itself to a problem/solution
style report.

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 Problem/Solution Titles

• you may wish to specify

what type of solution you
will be proposing
• there are many solutions to
different issues
• try focusing on one core
solution to avoid
generalizing
The type of The ‘issue’
solution
proposed

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 Report Balance
• If you are writing a
problem/solution report, it
needs to be balanced
• This means it needs to have
the same number of
problems and solutions
(usually three)
• The problems and solutions
need to be directly related to
one another

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Model Report Available on BlackBoard (4pm)

Mitigating the Effects

of Bullying in South
African Secondary
Schools Through
School Based
Interventions

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 Abstracts

• There are two kinds of abstracts:

• informative abstracts
• descriptive abstracts
 Informative abstracts
• used in academic journals
• offers readers a concise,
accurate and complete re-
statement of the article with
specific information
• has conclusions and
recommendations
• includes statistical findings
Informative Abstracts (2)
• summary of academic writing/research
• for the reader’s convenience

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 Descriptive Abstracts
• used in shorter reports (i.e. 214 Term
Report)
• are usually only two or three
sentences (c. 50 words)
• put either on the title page or the
second page
• they state what the article contains,
without specific details
• a descriptive abstract will simply
mention the recommendations
without specifying what they are
 Descriptive Abstracts
• you will need to complete a descriptive
abstract for both of your report
submissions
• it is considered an essential part of your
report to complete
• omitting it will necessitate at most a ‘C’
grade for organisation according to the
rubric
• it should be no more than three sentences
long (c. 50)
• its quality is not graded; only its
presence
 Abstract

This report supports the provision of portable health monitoring devices to the

citizens of Russia in order to reduce the rates of cardiovascular disease. Russia

currently has one of the highest rates of heart disease globally. This has a

substantial, negative impact on both the health and economy of Russian

society. It also provides a number of recommendations to facilitate this

process.

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Purpose Statement
• functions as a thesis statement for a longer
written work
• it only states the aims of your report
• it will come in the introduction of your
term report (second paragraph, final
sentence)
• it consists of two parts
• problems/solutions;
arguments/recommendations
Here

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 Problem/Solution Reports
You will either be examining
the causes, effects or
problems related to your issue

This needs to be reflected in

your purpose statement

Your language should be

chosen carefully

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Problem/solution examples:

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Argumentative Report Examples:

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 This report supports the implementation of targeted nutritional

education classes to reduce child obesity levels in Kuwait, and provides

recommendations for relevant stakeholders regarding the

implementation of such classes.

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Complete your purpose
• Having this approved now, will save work later on
tatement on the shared
excel document • You will be able to use it on your progress report and both
draft submissions
• Submit it to the shared spreadsheet
• Remember the purpose statement requires one sentence in
two parts (problem/solutions or
arguments/recommendations)
• Please submit it by 12th September 7pm along with your
title
• This is optional; however, reports without a clear purpose
statement will be heavily penalized.
The following slides are extra and
contain useful language for
formulating purpose statements
and some additional examples.

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Important Advice
• find key words that focuses on the primary
activity of your report.
• Think about exactly what you want to
achieve:
• Do you want to identify a value or the
extent of a particular phenomenon?
• Use to determine, to calculate, to measure.
• Do you want investigate a system or a
phenomenon?
• Use to analyse, to identify, to examine.
Introducing the purpose

• These are some of the ways you can introduce your

aims and objectives:

• The objective of the report is to…

• The research was carried out in order to
investigate…
• The goal of this study is to…
• This study investigated whether…
Sample “wave power” report titles:

Problem/solution Argument
Overcoming the Common Wave Power Systems are
Difficulties of Wave Power Needed in the Eastern
Systems Province
INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION
PROBLEMS ARGUMENTS
SOLUTIONS COUNTERARGUMENTS
CONCLUSION CONCLUSION
RECOMMENDATIONS RECOMMENDATIONS
Sample:
Problem/solution
Overcoming the Common
Difficulties of Wave Power
Systems This report will focus on the current
INTRODUCTION generation of wave power systems,
examine a number of difficulties
PROBLEMS
that designers of wave power
SOLUTIONS systems face, and suggest solutions
CONCLUSION for those common problems.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Sample:
Argument
Wave Power Systems are
Needed in the Eastern
This report argues in favor of using Province
wave power as a source of INTRODUCTION
alternative energy for use in the
ONE SIDE
Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia,
OTHER SIDE
and makes recommendations on the
prospect of such a project. RECONCILLIATION
CONCLUSION
 Samples Purpose Statements Problem/Solution:
The purpose of this report is to measure the damage
caused by industrial chemical waste, and to
identify ways that the risk of personal injury can
be reduced.

The goal of this study is to determine primary

causes of obesity for females aged 30-40 and to
investigate the effectiveness of various exercise
equipment to combat this problem.