A Guide to Report Writing

How to use this Guide

This guide is split up into the sections of a report. There are seven sections in all, listed on the column on the left. Each section has its own page which provides instruction on how to go about writing that section with some examples. Navigation is simple you can go through the guide from beginning to end or merely click on the name of individual sections with which you need help.

There are various subsections within each page that you need to look out for. The first subsection is "Common Errors", these sections outline the mistakes that students make when trying to write reports. They are in no way exhaustive, but point out the most common errors. Also there are subsections on some pages called "Reading Reports".These sections attempt to give you some ideas about how to go about critically evaluating reports that others have written. Although the main aim of this guide is to help you write your own reports, it provides a opportunity for you to reflect upon the research papers that you will be reading.

The Examples

Throughout the guide the information that is given is illustrated by examples, these, as will be obvious, are in black indented type. Most of the examples given describe an experiment concerning mnemonics (strategies that aid memory see page 272-273 of your course text: Gleitman et al. 1999). This is a fictional experiment created to provide a suitable example for the level at which this guide is pitched. The actual experiment concerns comparing the recall from memory of a list of words by two groups who are using different mnemonic strategies with a control group that were told to use no strategy. The aim is to see which of the mnemonic strategies aid memory the best. It must be stressed that this is a fictional experiment, purely for illustrative purposes.