CC0006 Basics of Report Writing

• Has headings and subheadings that show the reader where the various sections of the report are located
• Written on a separate page
• Includes the page numbers of each section

• Briefly summarises the report, the process of research and final conclusions
• Provides a quick overview of the report and describes the main highlights
• Short, usually not more than 150 words in length
• Mention briefly why you choose this project, what are the implications and what kind of problems it will solve

The abstract allow readers who may be interested in the report to decide whether it is relevant to their purposes. Usually, the abstract is written last, ie. after writing the other sections and you know the key points to draw out from these sections.

• Discusses the background and sets the context
• Introduces the topic, significance of the problem, and the purpose of research
• Gives the scope ie shows what it includes and excludes

In the introduction, write about what motivates your project, what makes it interesting, what questions do you aim to answer by doing your project. The introduction lays the foundation for understanding the research problem and should be written in a way that leads the reader from the general subject area of the topic to the particular topic of research.

The purpose of literature review :

• Helps to gain an understanding of the existing research in that topic
• To develop on your own ideas and build your ideas based on the existing knowledge
• Prevents duplication of the research done by others

Search the existing literature for information. Identify the data pertinent to your topic. Review, extract the relevant information for eg how the study was conducted and the findings. Summarise the information. Write what is already known about the topic and what do the sources that you have reviewed say. Identify conflicts in previous studies, open questions, or gaps that may exist. If you are doing

• Case study - look for background information and if any similar case studies have been done before.
• Literature review - find out from literature, what is the background to the questions that you are looking into
• Site visit - use the literature review to read up and prepare good questions before hand.
• Survey - find out if similar surveys have been done before and what did they find?

Keep a record of the source details of any information you want to use in your report so that you can reference them accurately.

Methodology is the approach that you take to gather data and arrive at the recommendation(s). Choose a method that is appropriate for the research topic and explain it in detail.

In this section, address the following: a) How the data was collected b) How it was analysed and c) Explain or justify why a particular method was chosen.

Usually, the methodology is written in the past tense and can be in the passive voice. Some examples of the different methods that you can use to gather data are given below. The data collected provides evidence to build your arguments. Collect data, integrate the findings and perspectives from different studies and add your own analysis of its feasibility.

For CC0006 Group Project, use one of the four methods listed below:

• Literature review
  • Explore the literature/news/internet sources to know the topic in depth
  • Give a description of how you selected the literature for your project
  • Compare the studies, and highlight the findings, gaps or limitations.
• Case study
  • An in-depth, detailed examination of specific cases within a real-world context.
  • Enables you to examine the data within a specific context.
  • Examine a well defined case to identify the essential factors, process and relationship.
  • Write the case description, the context and the process involved.
  • Make sense of the evidence in the case(s) to answer the research question
• Survey
  • Gather data from a predefined group of respondents by asking relevant questions
  • Can be conducted in person or online
  • Describe
    • Why you chose this method (questionnaires, focus group, experimental procedure, etc)
    • How you carried out the survey. Include techniques and any equipment you used
    • If there were participants in your research, who were they? How did you select them and how may were there?
    • How the survey questions address the different aspects of the research question
• Site Visit
  • Analyse the technology / policy approaches by visiting the required site(s)
  • Make a detailed report on its features and your understanding of it

• Present the results of the study. You may consider visualising the results in tables and graphs, graphics etc.
• Analyse the results to obtain answer to the research question.
• Provide an analysis of the technical and financial feasibility, social acceptability, etc.

Note: If you think it works better, you may merge the sections on Analysis and the next section on Discussion.

• Discuss your interpretations of the analysis and the significance of your findings
• Explain any new understanding or insights that emerged as a result of your research
• Consider the different perspectives (social, economic and environmental)in the discussion
• Explain the limitation(s)
• Explain how could what you found be used to make a difference for sustainability

• Summarise the significance and outcome of the study highlighting the key points.
• Come up with alternatives and propose specific actions based on the alternatives
• Describe the result or improvement it would achieve
• Explain how it will be implemented

Recommendations should have an innovative approach and should be feasible. It should make a significant difference in solving the issue under discussion.

• List all sources that you have referred to in your writing.
• Use the recommended citation style consistently in your report.

Include any material relating to the report and research that does not fit in the body of the report in the appendix. For example, you may include the survey questionnaire and detailed results in the appendix.

Start each appendix on a separate page and label sequentially using numbers or letters, eg. Appendix 1, Appendix 2, etc.