You are on page 1of 1

Report format

Cover page, title sheet. Prepared for, prepared by, date, etc. Get the spellings of the names right.

Executive summary: In one page explain what was studied, what information was collected, what analytical method was
used, and what the findings were.

Letter of transmittal: dont use overly flowery language.

Same goes for acknowledgements. Keep it simple and do not put in the contribution of your family members, your
significant others, your gods and prophets. Only people who have directly contributed towards the report.

Chapter 1. Introduction

Origin of the report: Why are you doing this? A part of coursework? Commissioned report? Assigned by the supervisor?

Background: A bit of an insight into the problem scenario. Keep it short, not more than two paragraphs.

Rationale of the study: Why is this important or interesting?

Problem statement, research objectives. Broad and specific objectives.


Chapter 2. Methodology

Explain the research design. Use diagrams if required. Limitations of the research. Scope of the research. What will you
cover and what not?

Split into two parts. Qualitative study, and quantitative study. Sampling methods. Explain the methodology and
limitations. You should be able to list the specific research questions here, and methods for answering them.


Chapter 3. Outcomes of the qualitative study

What did you discover? Summarize but do not use percentage and charts. However, you can use diagrams and tables to
present your findings. You can provide the in-depth information, and a two-page summary of everything you have found
out (if the in depth info. is too long).

Chapter 4. Outcomes of the quantitative study

Part 1:

Based on the outcomes of the study, what hypothesis have you developed? What information did you need to collect?
What outcomes of the qualitative study do you need to quantify? Make a table that shows a list of information that you
need to collect, and the corresponding question in a questionnaire.

Part 2:

Explain the outcomes of the study. Do not copy and paste the SPSS / Minitab output directly. Get it to Excel / Word and
format it properly. Get rid of information that is useless (e.g. valid percent) and statistical tests that you dont know how
to interpret. Charts / graphs do not use them instead of tables unless they can present information in a way that is not
apparent from tables. Dont put one very large simple pie chart in one page. Aggregate all the information. Item by item
analysis can be done, but aggregation is more important.

Chapter 5. Recommendations and conclusion

Make a table that shows the research questions, hypotheses, information collected, tests, and interpretation. Based on this
explain what you have discovered. Then provide clear recommendations based on findings. Dont make
recommendations based on nothing. You can explain the scope for further research.

You might also like