How to Write a Good
Report
Gursewak singh
Contents
• What makes a good report?
• Clarity and Structure
• Figures and Tables (floats)
• Technical Issues
• Further reading
• Conclusions
The purpose....
• The report exists to provide the reader with
useful information
▫ Should this drug be licensed?
▫ How do we fit non-linear regressions?
• It succeeds if it effectively communicates the
information to the intended audience
• It fails otherwise!!
ToThesucceed...
report must be
▫ Clear
Well structured, clear, concise, suitable for the
intended audience
▫ Professional
statistically correct, correctly spelled, produced
with a decent word processor
▫ Well illustrated
illustrations that aid understanding, integrated
with text
What to do?
To address all 3 audiences effectively,
▫ Include an abstract for the big boss
▫ A main body for the interested non-specialist
▫ A technical appendix for the guru
Thus, a structure emerges!
Structure
• Good structure enhances and encourages clarity
• Gives signposts
• implements the vital principle
▫ tell them what you are going to say
▫ Say it!
▫ tell them what you have said
Structure: details
A good report has the following parts
▫ Title
▫ Table of Contents
▫ Abstract/executive summary
▫ Introduction
▫ Main sections
▫ Conclusions
▫ References
▫ Technical appendix
Title
Should be informative, “punchy”, can include puns,
humour
Good
▫ The perfidious polynomial (punchy, alliterative)
▫ Diagnosing diabetes mellitus: how to test, who to test,
when to test (dramatic, informative)
Bad
▫ Some bounds on the distribution of certain quadratic
forms in normal random variables (boring, vague)
▫ Performing roundoff analyses of statistical algorithms
(boring, vague)
Table of Contents
• Shows the structure of the document and lets the
reader navigate through the sections
• Include for documents more than a few pages
long.
Abstract/executive summary
Describes the problem and the solution in a few
sentences. It will be all the big boss reads!
Remember the 2 rules
▫ Keep it short
▫ State problem and solution
The Introduction
• State the question, background the problem
• Describe similar work
• Outline the approach
• Describe the contents of the rest of the paper
▫ in Section 2 we ...
▫ in Section 3 we ...
Further sections
• Describe
▫ Data
▫ Methods
▫ Analyses
▫ Findings
• Don’t include too much technical detail
• Divide up into sections, subsections
Conclusions/summary
• Summarize what has been discovered
• Repeat the question
• Give the answer
Appendix
• This is where the technical details go
• Be as technical as you like
• Document your analysis so it can be reproduced
by others
• Include the data set if feasible
References
• Always cite (i.e. give a reference) to other related
work or facts/opinions that you quote
• Never pass off the work of others as your own –
this is plagiarism and is a very big academic
crime!!
How to cite
• In the text
Seber and Wild (1989) state that…..
• In the references
Seber, G.A.F and C.J. Wild. (1989). Nonlinear
Regression. New York: Wiley.
Writing clearly
• Structure alone is not enough for clarity – you
must also write clear sentences.
• Rules:
▫ Write complete short sentences
▫ Avoid jargon and cliché, strive for simplicity
▫ One theme per paragraph
▫ If a sentence contains maths, it still must make sense!
Tables
• Always label and give a caption over the
table
• Be aware of rules for good tables:
▫ avoid vertical lines
▫ don’t have too many decimal places
▫ compare columns not rows
Technical Issues
• Sectioning
• Table of Contents
• Spelling and Grammar
• Choice of word processor
Sectioning
• Proper division of your work into sections and
subsections makes the structure clear and the
document easy to follow
• Use styles in word/ sectioning commands in
Latex
\begin{section}….\end{section}
Table of contents
• Provides “navigation aid”
• Make sure TOC agrees with main body of text
• If you use styles (Word) and sectioning
commands (Latex) this will happen
automatically
Spelling and Grammar
• Use a style manual/dictionary if in doubt
• Spell check!!!!
• Proofread!!!!
He meant…
▫ This technique can also be applied to the analysis
of golf balls
He typed….
▫ This technique cam also by applies to the analysis
or gold bills
Choice of word processor
• Word or Latex?
• My spin…..
▫ Use Word for a short document with few figures
and tables and little mathematics
▫ Use Latex for a longer document with many
figures and tables and lots of complicated maths.
Further reading
• There are many excellent books giving good
advice on technical writing.
• Two I like are
Higham, Nicholas (1993) Handbook of writing for the
Mathematical Sciences, Philadelphia, SIAM.
Silyn-Roberts, Heather (2000). Writing for Science and
Engineering: Papers Presentations and Reports.
Oxford: Butterworth-Heinmann.
Both discuss writing reports and giving verbal
presentations.
Conclusions
• Structure is vital
• Write clearly
• Good clear simple illustrations
• Spellcheck and proofread
• Reference all material used or quoted
