A Guide to Report Writing

The Title

The Title should be a concise statement of the report's topic. It should be a clear indication of what the report is about. A useful piece of advice usually given is to mention the dependent and independent variables. The title may also mention the subject/participant group, if this group is unusual in any way, e.g. animals or children. However if the subject group is adult humans (e.g.undergraduate students), then they are not normally mentioned within the title.

Common Errors

The two most common mistakes are either making the title too long, or making the title too short and uninformative. Titles such as:


are poor titles. They don't fully describe the experiment contained within the report. They are too general and uninformative. Titles such as:


are better titles. They give a fuller indication of the content of the report. Note that the first title mentions the IV (stimulus magnitude) and the DV (numerical Estimation). The second title would be appropriate for a study using correlational techniques. These titles provide just enough information.
The following title is weak because it provides too much information:


This title has too much information within it, for example it includes the levels of the independent variable (1) which is unnecessary. Also it outlines the subject group and as they are adult humans, who are not unusual in any way, this is redundant.

As can be seen the trick with the title is to be concise and informative. This is not easy but will come with practice. Similar discipline is needed to produce a good abstract, which is the next section within the report that will be covered.