Tips for writing formal reports Essay Example for Free

Tips for writing formal reports Essay 1. I t is necessary to write for a specific audience e.g. colleagues or the scientific public and to recognize the kind of information and order that that person or people will require. This means that there is no one format. 2. All reports must be written in the third person rather than the first or second i.e. ‘100 mls of water was added.’ Rather than ‘I’ or ‘We’ added 100 mls of water 3. A Grade Sheet is required as the first sheet This, like the rest of the report, should be produced on a word processor, double spaced on standard unlined paper with 1 inch margins all round. I t should include the experiment’s number, title of report, date and authors name. 4. Pages should be numbered from the title page onwards. 5. If this is a report produced by a student it should have a title page with the following information:- the title of the course taken, the author and title, names of any associates who assisted with the experiment, the name and address of the college department involved, the person to whom the report is being submitted such as a professor and the date of that submission. 6.This is followed by either an abstract , or the executive summary, usually of about 200 words, on occasion longer. These are written after the completion of the experiment and the rest of the report. The following points should be included, the purpose of the work, a statement of how this was accomplished and a summary of any conclusions reached together with any recommendations for future action. 7. This is followed by a table of contents. 8 There follows the introduction an explanation of why this experiment was done. 9.Then comes the experiment i.e. what was done and why 10 The results are outlined and discussed 11 Finally there must be a brief conclusion and any recommendations. 12 References should be made according to an agreed format e.g. A.P.A. 13 In some cases an appendices are needed for such things as lengthy lists of statistics or a list of calculations made. Each appendix should be numbered separately 14 Any report must be carefully checked for accuracy before submission.