Report Writing

Techniques

Engr. Lawal I. Umar (ilawal010@gmail.com, 07066794845)

 Introduction
• Report writing is the art of Collecting and
documenting information and recording
that information in a factual and objective
manner.
• Report writing is an on-going process!

• Why do we fail?
• Lack of report righting training.
• To many cases.
• laziness or rusty writing skills. 2
 Fundamentals of Report Writing
•Objectivity
•Professionalism
• Use of good
grammer

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 Report Writing skills
• What skills do a good report • Other Needed Skills:
writer need? • Human relations skills
• How are you perceived by the
pubic.
• Human relations skills • Listening skills
• Listening skills • Hearing is not the same as listening!
• Interviewing skills • Interveiwing skills
• Get all of the facts!
• Note taking skills
• • Note taking skills
Factual report writing skills
• When and how is it aproppriate?
• Factual report writing skills.
• This is an art. Not everyone are a
good artist!
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 Types of Report Writing
• The Investigative Report
• Goals:
• grammatically sound structure
• factual and objective content
• professional appearence

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 Ethics in Report Writing

• Unintended personal opinions can cause considerable problems!

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Characteristics of good Report Writing
• Characteristics of a factual/objective report:

• Accuracy: Nothing will cost you’re reputation more than to make

inaccurate statements in your report!
• Logic: Does your report come to a logical conclusion?
• Clarity: Would anyone be able to understand what you are saying.
Even if they are not familiar with the subject matter?
• Conciseness: Is your report to the point?
• Completeness: Is everything covered in the report? Are there
missing information
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 Report Format and Organization
• Report generally include these sections in this order:
• Abstract
• Introduction/Objective
• Background
• Methodology/Procedure
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusion
• Recommendations
 Report Format and Organization
• Abstract/Executive Summary
• Always comes first
• Is brief (one paragraph-one page)
• Past tense
• Content:
• States the problem or main objective
• Indicate the methodology used
• Presents the main findings and conclusions
 Report Format and Organization
•Introduction/Objective
• Explains the problem and its context
• Explains importance of the problem (why does it
matter?)
• Applications of the report
• Explains reason and goals for study
• Motivation
 Report Format and Organization
• Background
• Includes the theory for the experiments
• Any equations required for the calculations
• Each equation should be numbers
• Included references
 Report Format and Organization
• Methodology/Procedure
• Is in past tense and passive voice (3rd person)
• Do not use “We”, “I”, or “You”
• Describes the experimental procedure and data collection
• Included a schematic/diagram of the apparatus
• Write in complete sentence
• “The Course took place at Abuja”
• NOT “We did the Course in Abuja”
• Incomplete sentence and present tense
 Report Format and Organization
• Results
• State the results in the text before presenting any graphs, figures or
tables.
• Text points out the most significant portions of research findings
• Indicates key trends or relationships
• Highlights expected and/or unexpected findings
• Visual representation of results:
• Graphs, tables or figures
• Included error analysis
• Past tense (these are results you measured, calculated or observed)
 Report Format and Organization
• Discussion
• Why did you observed what you observed?
• Explanation for Results:
• Comments on unexpected results, offering hypothesis for them
• Comparison to literature
• Does your research confirm previous studies? Deviate from them?
 Report Format and Organization
• Conclusion
• Discusses:
• What was learned through research
• Strengths and weakness of study
• Possible applications of study (how it can be used)
• Recommendations
• Recommendation
• What would you do differently?
• Any changes would you recommend for the experiment
 The Grammer in Report Writing
• Grammer
• active versus passive voice
• first person versus third person
• specific versus general words
• simple writing
• word choice
• sentence length
• spelling
• chronological sequence
• paragraphs
• organization

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 Visual Design
• Graphics
• Should be used to illustrate specific points
• Should be incorporated in a way that is natural to report’s
content/context
• Should be explained fully in text using references such as “Fig. 1
shows….”
• Should be cited if taken from a source
• Textual information should come before graphics

Courtesy: Purdue Writing Lab

 Language and Vocabulary
• Reports should be easily accessible
• Be straightforward and concise
• Use simple terms, not jargon
• Keep sentences short and simple (20 words max)
• No common phases (be technical)
• “the participants”
• Be specific and not general
• Not “close” or “like” or “pretty” or “roughly”
 Forms of Report Writing
• Note Taking:
• Purpose-
• Meetings minutes
• permanent record
• organization of material
• memory aid’
• interview/interrogation aid

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Note taking:
• Permanent record - Does your
notes end up in the permanent
file? Do not put anything in your
notes you don’t want anyone to
see later!
• Organization of material.
• Using multiple bits of scrap paper is
not a good idea for note taking!

• Legal rules regarding notes:

• timeliness
• usual course of action
• personal observation/knowledge 20

• original entries