Reports
A report provides clearly organised information about a situation or problem under investigation.
The information may come from your experience, your reading, your research, experiments or measurements conducted in a laboratory or out in the field.
Report structure
Reports may have different structures, depending on the discipline and the purpose. Below is an example report structure, but of course you should always check your assignment instructions to see what format or structure they suggest, and if in doubt, check with your teacher.
| Abstract (or Executive Summary) |
Summarises each section of the report, including what research was conducted, what the results or findings were, and what recommendations were made. |
|---|---|
| introduction |
|
| method |
Explains how the research was conducted, using a step-by-step description. |
| findings |
Shows the results of the research study, often in the form of tables, graphs or charts. |
| discussion |
Explains what the results mean. This usually requires the researcher(s) to interpret the data and explain:
|
| conclusion & recommendations |
|
| appendices |
Appendices include any information that is relevant to the report but too lengthy to include in the body of the report. This may include questionnaires used as part of the study, or full data sets obtained from your research. |
Report examples
Click on each arrow for examples
Example report introduction
[1] Fibre optics has been a relatively new technology for communication and is being utilised in businesses as the underlying infrastructure to transport data. Fibre optic cabling relies on the reflection of pulses of light to send data down thin glass cladding, therefore allowing data to literally move at the speed of light. [2] This technology has enormous potential to transform businesses and is slowly being implemented in Local Area Networks (LANs). Whilst there is a wide variety of applications, this report will primarily focus on the value it can provide to businesses, specifically within the data centre and telecommunications. [3] First Data is a global payment processing company which provides electronic commerce and payment solutions in 34 countries with over 6 million merchant locations. As this company deals with over 1800 transactions per second, it is crucial that all transactions are processed in a fast and secure manner. As a result, First Data and its various clients are heavily reliant on its infrastructure to continue to service the globe.
The general objective of the final report is to demonstrate the value that fibre optics infrastructure can bring to a business through the undertaken investigation and encourage a greater adoption of fibre optics in businesses. This will be achieved through the following specific objectives:
- Identify the opinions of staff towards the value of fibre optics within their workplace
- Identify the qualitative value that fibre optics can bring to a business once successfully implemented
- Recommend ways to increase awareness of the potential benefits of fibre optics for telecommunications, internal and external to a company
As research is being conducted in a company which resides in the financial services sector, the security of information is a large risk and constraint which could affect the results of the research. Access to company documents is limited and will have to be generalised when referenced in this report.
| 1 |
Introduces the overall topic being discussed. |
| 2 |
Explains why this topic is important, and which aspect of the topic this report will focus on. |
| 3 |
Introduces the company being analysed as a case study in this report. |
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Gives very specific descriptions of the purpose of the report. |
|
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In other reports, this section may use the heading “Scope” or “Limitations”, and would explain which aspects of the topic will not be discussed in this report and why. |
Example methods section
Research Methodology
[Paragraph 1] To investigate the value of fibre optic technology to a business in the areas of the data centre and telecommunications, an empirical study was undertaken. This study required both observations and staff surveys within the chosen company. The surveys will provide a general overview of the staff’s thoughts towards fibre optics, allowing statistical data to be gathered for further analysis. This statistical data has also been used for comparisons between various companies as well as for further investigations. Observations allow for an understanding of people’s behaviour towards the technology and how they interact with it. The statistical data will be the primary method used in this investigation and the collected observational data will be used to support the statements.
[Paragraph 2] A survey was emailed to the network services team to complete on Wednesday, 30 October, 2013. The survey was repeated on Wednesday, 11 December 2013. Survey results were collected using ‘Forms’ in Google Drive (https://drive.google.com). Observations were conducted from Monday, 28 October, 2013 up until Friday, 1 November, 2013. The questions asked in the survey can be found in Appendix A.
| Paragraph 1 |
If it is a research proposal then the methodology would be written in the future tense because it is written before the research has been done. If it is a report then the methodology is written in the past tense because it is describing research that has already been conducted. |
|---|---|
| Paragraph 2 |
The methods section should give very specific details about how, when and why the data was collected. |
Example findings
The data gathered from the responses can be found below in the form of a table. There were 10 responses from the first survey. The second (repeated) survey had 28 responses. The following graphs were generated to visualise the data generated by the staff survey, in order to assist with the analysis and help identify trends and outliers.
Figure 5 Question 3, First Survey
Figure 7 Question 5, First Survey
[Data interpretation] Figure 3 indicates that respondents feel strongly about the value of fibre optics to increase profit as there is a definitely positive response towards this question. This is indicated by 50% of respondents selecting 5 for ‘Strongly agree’. This indicates that the fibre optics has assisted in streamlining the business which improved the quality of its service. It should be noted that 30% of respondents responded with 3 for ‘Neutral/No opinion’ which also indicates that they feel fibre optics has neither increased nor decreased profits, This demonstrates that fibre optics has resulted in increased profit for the business.
| Figure 5 |
Presenting data in tables, charts or graphs makes the information easier to understand. Always give your table or chart a clear heading that explains what it is showing. |
|---|---|
| data interpretation |
It is important to interpret the data for your reader by highlighting the most important findings and explaining what they mean and how they are relevant to the purpose of your report. |
Example Discussion
Based on the collected and analysed data, fibre optics has been seen by staff to add value to this company. In particular, this value can be defined as: monetary, adaptability to future needs, uptime, business applications, customer relations and quality.
The knowledge gained can be applied in a global context as ‘value’ is a multi-faceted, global concept. The various aspects of value that were observed are general to allow for them to be applied to other businesses and include:
- Monetary value
- Adaptability to future needs
- Maintenance
- Customer relations
Whilst the contents of each data centre are unique, they all serve the same purpose and are relied on in a similar way worldwide. For this reason, a study in one company’s data centre will also be comparable to other data centres for other companies and can potentially represent them all if enough valid data is collected.
The discussion section is sometimes combined with the ‘Results’ or ‘Findings’ section, and allows you to interpret the findings by explaining why you think you got these results, and how they might be relevant to other people, such as organisations, governments or other researchers.
Example Conclusion
[1] In conclusion, this study has demonstrated that the fibre optical infrastructure which has been progressively implemented in businesses is perceived by staff to add real value and allows the company to cater for future opportunities. However, it has also shown the challenge of maintaining the technology as there are a wide variety of views on this. [2] In order to better understand how fibre optic technology can most effectively be implemented within organisations, further research is required. This should include a more in-depth investigation with a greater range of employees, including those outside of the network services team. This will allow for the investigation to include data from different perspectives. [3] Such studies will hopefully increase our understanding of how companies use fibre optic technology, which should in turn allow us to get maximum benefit out of a truly unique and flexible technology.
| 1 |
Summarises the main purpose and findings of the report. |
|---|---|
| 2 |
Suggests areas for further research to help better understand the topic. |
| 3 |
Explains how this research has been useful and/or what the implications of further research into this topic might be. |
References
The reference list should always be on a separate page. Most UTS assignments use APA 7 as the referencing style, but always check your assignment instructions and, if in doubt, check with your Subject Coordinator.
Anumolu, P. & Pirich, R. (2017). Fiber Optic Considerations for Insertion into Legacy Avionics Platforms. IEEE, 7, 24-25. https://doi.org/ 10.1108/JD-09-2017-0134
Abts, D. & Felderman, B. (2012). A Guided Tour through Data-center Networking. Queue, 10(5), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.3390/ rel5010219
Common Language Used in Reports
click on each arrow for some example phrases.
Stating the purpose of the report
- The major objective of this study is to examine ….
- The aim of this report is to investigate the differences between X and Y.
- This report investigates the usefulness of ….
Acknowledging scope or limitations of the report
- Several aspects of this topic are outside the scope of this report. Firstly, ….
- This study only examines ….
- The report focuses on X but does not include Y.
Describing the method or process
- Data for this study were collected using ….
- The study was conducted in the form of a survey, with data being gathered via ….
- Experiments were conducted using ….
Reporting Results
- Table 1 shows an overview of ….
- Figure 1 compares the results of X with the results of Y.
- The table in Appendix A illustrates some of the main characteristics of ….
Highlighting significant, interesting or surprising results
- The most surprising aspect of the data is ….
- One striking result to emerge from this study is that ….
- Interestingly, there were significant differences in respondents’ attitudes towards …
Summary of findings
- These results suggest that ….
- Overall, these results indicate that ….
- Together, these results provide important insights into ….
Explanations for results
- There are several possible explanations for this result. Firstly, ….
- This result may be explained by the fact that ….
- This result is likely due to ….
Noting implications
- This finding has important implications for developing ….
- One of the issues that emerges from these findings is ….
- These findings may help us to understand ….
Suggestions or recommendations
- Further research should be conducted to investigate ….
- There are a number of important changes which need to be implemented. Firstly, ….
- A key policy/strategy priority should be to plan for ….
Conclusion
- This report has argued that ….
- This report has discussed the reasons for ….
- The main goal of the current study was to determine ….
Want to know more?
Adapted from: Academic Phrasebank
