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SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL 2

PRACTICAL
RESEARCH 2
Quarter 2 – Module 6

RESEARCH-REPORT WRITING
 I. OBJECTIVES

At the end of this module, you should be able to:

 Determine what is research writing and report writing;

 Familiarize with the standard research-writing format; and
 Compare and contrast research writing and report writing.

II. WARM-UP ACTIVITY

Directions: Based on your experience in writing a research, define research writing and why
it is important. Write it in 2-3 sentences

III. LEARNING CONCEPTS

Research-report writing is an academic, in that, its focus is on reporting or telling about the
results of your investigation of a specific subject matter. It is not simply communicating your
opinions, but doing this in a controlled way; that is, you have to follow socially determined and
discipline-specific rules in terms of language, structure, and format or style. Governed by several
writing rules and standards, research-report writing is the most challenging and demanding kind
of writing among learners in higher education institutions. (Russell 2013; Corti 2014; Punch
2014)

RESEARCH WRITING VS. REPORT WRITING

Both writing depend on various sources of data or information, but they differ from each
other as to what kind of data they present. Research writing presents facts and opinions of other
people about a particular subject matter. It also includes your own interpretations, as the
researcher, about these known facts. Report writing, too, presents facts and opinions of others;
however, it does not claim that these opinions originally come from the writer, for the reason that
some reading materials like books, journals, magazines, and other reading materials have already
published these facts and opinions. This is where the main difference between the two lies.
(Litchman 2013; Babbie 2013; Punch 2014)

GUIDELINES IN RESEARCH-REPORT WRITING

 Now, you know that research-report writing is not plain writing of a report where you just
present facts and opinions of other people that you got from varied reading materials. It is a
special kind of writing that communicates not only declarative knowledge or discovered ideas,
but also procedural knowledge or the processes you did in discovering ideas. Hence, to make
your research report communicate all these forms of knowledge to readers, you need to apply the
following guidelines in research-report writing.

1. Organize the parts of your research based on the standard research-report

structure that consists of the following sequential components:
a. Title – this part of your research paper gives information and descriptions
of the things focused on by your research study.
b. Abstract – using only 100 to 150 words, the abstract of a research paper,
presents a summary of the research that makes clear the background,
objectives, significance, methodologies, results, and conclusions of the
research study.
c. Introduction – given a stress in this section of the paper are the research
problem and its background, objectives, research questions, and
hypotheses.
d. Methodology – this part of the research paper explains the procedure in
collecting and analyzing the data and also describes the sources of data.
e. Results or Findings – there’s no more mentioning of analysis of data not
yet analyzed data in this section. What it does is to present the research
findings that are expressed through graphics statistics, or words.
f. Conclusions – this section explains things that will lead you to significant
points, insights, or understanding, or conclusions that derive their validity,
credibility or acceptability from the factual evidence gathered during the
data-collection stage. Stated here, too, is the significance of the results;
that is, whether or not these are the right answers to the research questions
or the means of hypothesis acceptance or rejection. Your assessment of the
data in relation to the findings of previous research studies is also given a
space in this section of the research paper.
 g. Recommendations – due to teachers’ instructions or discipline-specific
rules, this section tends to be optional in some cases. Done by some
researchers, this section tends to be optional in some cases. Done by some
researchers, this section gives something that will expand or extend one’s
understanding of the conclusions raised earlier, such as suggesting a
solution to the problem or recommending a further research on the subject.
h. References – it is in this part where you display the identities or names of
all writers or owners of ideas that you incorporated in your research paper.
i. Appendices – included in this section are copies of materials like
questionnaires, graphs, and letters, among others that you used in all
stages of your academic work.
2. Familiarize yourself with the language of academic writing.

Research-report writing is an academic writing and central to this kind of writing is the
expression of ideas, viewpoints, or positions on issues obtained through learned or trained
methods of producing sound evidence to support your claims or conclusions about something.
Here are some ways to maintain an objective and an impersonal tone in academic texts such as
your report about your research study:

a. Dominantly use passive voice than active voice sentences.

b. Use the third-person point of view by using words like his or her, they, or the
user, instead of the personalized first-person point of view like I, me, we, our,
etc.
c. De-emphasize the subject or personal nature of the academic text by avoiding
the use of emotive words like dissatisfied, uninteresting, or undignified.
d. Use modality (words indicating the degree of the appropriateness,
effectiveness, or applicability of something) to express opinionated statements
that are prone to various degrees or levels of certainty. For instance, use low
modality when you think your opponents have strong chances to present their
valid reasons against your argument or high modality, when you are sure you
have sufficient basis to prove your point.
 High modality expressions like could, should, must, definitely, absolutely, surely,
necessarily, and essentially are used for recommending solutions to problems or for specifying
reasons for some actions.

3. Observe the mechanics of research-report writing which are as follows:

a. Physical appearance. Use white bond paper having the size of 8 ½ x 11 in. and
provide 1 ½ in. left right margin, plus 1 in, top-bottom margin. Unless your
teacher instructs you to use a particular font style and size, use the standard
Times Roman, 12 pts.
b. Quotations. A one-line, double spaced quotation is in quotation marks; 4- to 5-
line, single spaced quotations are indented further from the margin to appear
as block quotation.
c. Footnotes. Footnotes appear at the bottom of the page and are numbered
consecutively stating with one (1) in each chapter.
d. Statistics and graphs. Use tables, charts, bar graphs, line charts, pictograms,
flowcharts, schematic diagrams, etc. in connection with the objectives of the
study.
e. Final draft. Subject the final form of the research report to editing, revising,
rewriting, and proofreading.
f. Index. Alphabetize these two types of index: subject index and author index.

RESEARCH-REPORT WRITING STYLES OR FORMAT

Depending on the requirements of your teacher or the area of discipline, adopt any of the
following research-report writing styles or format:

1. APA (American Psychological Association)

2. MLA (Modern Language Association)
3. CMS (Chicago Manual of Style)

The first two styles – APA and MLA – are the most commonly used styles or format. Prone
to objectivity, those in the field of Science, Psychology, Business, Economics, Political Science,
Anthropology, Engineering, and Law go for APA; to subjectivity, Humanities (Religion,
Literature, and Language) go for MLA. Chicago style is the basis of the APA and MLA styles. It
 is called Author-Date Style if it follows the APA format; Humanities Style, if it follows the MLA
style.

IV. TASK 1

Directions: Fill in the blank with the correct answer. (10 PTS)

1) Chicago style is given the name, ________________________ system for APA;

Humanities system for ___________________. Deciding on what font style to use
refers to the ________________ of your paper. This also tells you to use
_____________________ for one-line quotation and single space for
_________________ quotation.
2) A brief summary of your research paper is given by the ______________, the
Background, research problem, and research questions by the __________________.
In the ______________ section of your paper, you reveal research
______________________ that get their extended meanings in the section called
_______________.

V. TASK 2

Directions: Without going back to the text, compare and contrast each given pair of
expressions using one sentence. (20 PTS)

WORDS IN PAIRS COMPARISON CONTRAST

1. Research vs. Report writing
2. Author-date system vs. Humanities
system
3. MLA vs. APA
4. One-line quotation vs. Five-line
quotation
5. Conclusion vs. Recommendation
6. Left-Right margin vs. Top-Bottom
margin
7. Abstract vs. Introduction
8. Academic language vs. Literary language
9. Passive voice vs. Active voice
10. Research report vs. Literature report

Prepared by:

Kessel Mae Formentera

Subject Teacher