Reports are concise and well-written documents that scholars use to communicate the findings of a project. A report can be formal, informal, or even short, depending on the understanding or expertise of who will read your report. The information in a report should be presented logically in different headings or sub-headings. There could be several reasons for writing a report:
- To present and report lab or financial information
- To depict research findings
- To present what you have learned from reading, research, and experience
- To analyse a certain problem and present a particular action
Before writing a report, you must clearly understand your audience. Brainstorm about their needs and what they need to know. A report can be written for the general public, academic staff, or clients. Academic report writing comes in various shapes and styles, depending on your topic and supervisor’s guidelines.
What is an Academic Report?
An academic report presents the results of an experimental study, survey, and research method. An academic report requires certain sections and a specific layout depicting a specific style of expression, such as a formal tone, usage of a third person, focus on facts and topic rather than personal opinion, and precise word choice.
What is the Order of the Main Points of an Academic Report, & How do they Signify it?
Reports are more structured documents divided into sections and sub-sections. These sections are formatted utilising bullet points and numbering. Academic reporting can vary according to the discipline. Their order is very important and must be followed for meaningful content, ensuring their meaning is not lost. The most common and important points are below.
Title Page: Some important points must be present on the title page, including:
- The complete title of the report; should be concise and informative
- Your course and tutor’s name, along with academic information
- The name of the person or name of any stakeholder to whom the report belongs
- The name of the institution, person, and company for whom the report has been prepared
Acknowledgements (Optional): Although this section is optional but you must add this section if you have received academic report help from academics, supervisors or libraries etc.
Term of Reference (Optional): It describes the scope and limitations of your report. It also covers the audience, the report’s purpose, and the methods used.
Abstract: It is a brief description and overview of the content of your academic report. It must contain the background of your study, sources of information, the aim of the study, methods used to conduct a particular study, main findings, and conclusions & recommendations. It should be concise but clear in meaning because it is the first thing that is read. So, It should be exciting and engaging enough to capture the reader’s interest.
Table of contents: This is a very important aspect of your report writing because readers will utilise this table to assess the relevancy of each section to them. So, it should accurately represent the structure of the academic report. You can number each heading and sub-heading along with page numbering. It should also contain a listing of diagrams, illustrations, and appendices.
Introduction: This section represents the whole topic, explaining why you have chosen a certain topic. It also describes aims and objectives but in a detailed form. You can also incorporate literature and a general overview of your work while expanding these points in the main body. You can explain how the rest of the report is organised at the end of the introduction. Below are some important points that must be catered to in the introduction:
- Brief description and discussion of the problem of context
- It should be at least 1.5 or 2 pages long
- Purpose and objective of the report
- A description of past studies
- Size of study, time frames, and data collection
Literature Review: This section is dedicated to summarising past researchers’ studies, including their findings. This section is required to make a storyline, but it should not be extensive because readers are interested in your work, not the others. It is not necessary to describe the work that is irrelevant to your work. It would help if you focused on summarising work that is relevant to your topic.
Methodology: it is an accurate description of you performed the research. You can explain the methodology you used to build your study, the sampling method, and the actions you took in a scientific experiment. The methodology is always written in the past tense, describing what you have done already. The description of the methodology may include the following:
- A list of equipment used
- Explanation of procedures followed
- Source of materials and details
- Any modification applied in methodology
Results: This section describes the results of your study. It can be in anything, for example, the response of participants, test results, data from a scientific experiment, and statistical analysis results. You can describe this information in tables, figures, and graphs with accurate labels. But remember that you should not repeat the same information in the text. Focus on important points only to describe in the text. If there are large data, you can keep it in the appendix.
Discussion: This section describes the implications of your studies while explaining them in relation to past studies. This section discusses how these findings comply with research findings or not. Here, you can also describe the limitations of your study. If this section is long, you can divide it into multiple sections and create bullet points to present data. You can explain the accuracy and significance of your findings in relevance to previous research.
Conclusion: You can state a summarised form of your work and recommendations based on your findings that any future research may ask for. Additionally, you must check the guidelines of your institute before final submission.
References: Here is a detailed list of all the resources you used in writing your report. You should follow a standard referencing style provided by your department and institute.
Read: How to Write Significant Event Analysis in Academic Report
Additional Remarks:
By using the information mentioned above, you can write a good academic report without taking any stress.
Here are some additional points that you must follow while writing an academic report:
- Read your report again and again to improve flow and readability
- Check the relevancy of all the information
- Pay attention to active/passive sentences you have written
- Chcek grammar and spelling mistakes before final submission
- Enlist and cross-check all the references
- Examine if you have added any content without acknowledging it
Conclusion
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