Report writing 101

Check your assignment brief. You may find guidelines have been given OR models are linked to. If there is no information, ask your tutor to specify the required report structure and/or provide a structure model example. 

Reports are often written for a very specific reader. Check your assignment brief. Don’t waste your word count telling your reader what they already know e.g., if they are a CEO of a company, they will know when the company was founded. 

Title 

This provides a brief guide to the reader on what the report is about.   

Strategies: 

• Aim for a title of no more than 15 words unless otherwise indicated in your assignment brief.  
• Remember you don’t have to create a full sentence (e.g., A report on how to properly identify greenwashing practices in SMEs in Scotland à Identifying greenwashing practices in SMEs in Scotland).  
• Identifying the keywords (topic) in your report will probably help OR unpick the assignment question or instructions and use the same/similar keywords.  

Abstracts and Executive Summaries. 

These summarise your report. However, they do have differing features. Grammarly gives good advice on writing abstract summaries and executive summaries.

Table of contents 

The Microsoft guide on how to create a table of contents takes you through what you’ll need to know if you need to include this element in your report.  

Introduction 

This section states the problem to be solved, or the research/task to be carried out, and the purpose or significance of these elements. It may also include a discussion of theory or previous research.  

Methodology 

This section (also known as) gives details of the materials and/or equipment used, and/or the participants involved as well as detailing step-by-step how the research was carried out or describes what theory the research is based on so that the reader could repeat what you did.  

Bullet points  

These are useful to draw the reader’s eyes to key information and may be used in the methodology section OR the results section.  

Strategies: 

• Always add a paragraph of text before your list of bullet points (to introduce the list).  
• Format the bullet point list carefully e.g., start each bullet point with a verb and end all your bullet points with a semi-colon.  

Results 

In this section, you report the results of your investigation, reading, or experiment. You do NOT have to report all your results. You need to select the key results and ones that you will write about in more detail in the discussion section. 

Figures 

In the results section, you may wish to include information in tables, graphs, or other visual formats.  

Strategies: 

• Refer to all visuals as “figures”. 
• Never include a visual without signposting to it in the main body of your writing e.g., … (see Figure 1. below). 
• Place the visual as close as possible to the sentence where you signposted it. 
• Label your visuals carefully with the figure number, the title of the figure, and if it is NOT your visual, follow appropriate referencing conventions.  

Discussion 

In this section, you must briefly describe again in your own words your results or research findings and interpret them. You need to show that you understand the significance of your results.   

Conclusion 

Sum up the main points from the discussion section.   

Recommendations 

This section is typically found at the end of the report sometimes with the conclusion, sometimes as a separate section, where you indicate what any researchers should do next based on what you have found or not found.  

Limitations 

Here you show your understanding of what you have written about and its context in the broader subject area by detailing limitations (constraints or flaws) relating to either the content of the report OR to yourself as the writer of the report.   

References 

Most reports for the purposes of academic study require you to refer to sources to support your ideas. Use the referencing system (style) indicated in your assignment brief (if NOT noted ask your lecturer what is expected OR use the information on referencing designed by the academic librarians for further guidance).  

Appendix 

This section usually contains raw data, calculations, graphs, or other quantitative (numerically based) materials that are too big to include in the main body of the report. 

Strategies: 

• Refer the reader to each appendix in your report - A Likert scale questionnaire was used (see appendix 1). 
• Label the appendix page with the appropriate number and brief title – Appendix 1: Copy of the Likert Scale Questionnaire