How to Write a Good Report

Alan Lee

Contents

• What makes a good report?• Clarity and Structure• Figures and Tables (floats)• Technical Issues• Further reading• Conclusions

The purpose....

• The report exists to provide the reader with useful information– Should this drug be licensed?– How do we fit non-linear regressions?

• It succeeds if it effectively communicates the information to the intended audience

• It fails otherwise!!

To succeed...The report must be

– Clear • Well structured, clear, concise, suitable for

the intended audience

– Professional• statistically correct, correctly spelled,

produced with a decent word processor

– Well illustrated• illustrations that aid understanding,

integrated with text

The audienceOften 3 different audiences

– The casual reader/big boss who wants the main message as painlessly as possible

– The interested reader who wants more detail but doesn’t want to grapple with all the gory technical details

– The guru who wants the whole story

What to do?

To address all 3 audiences effectively,

– Include an abstract for the big boss

– A main body for the interested non-specialist

– A technical appendix for the guru

Thus, a structure emerges!

Structure

• Good structure enhances and encourages clarity

• Gives signposts• implements the vital principle

– tell them what you are going to say– Say it!– tell them what you have said

Structure: details

A good report has the following parts– Title– Table of Contents– Abstract/executive summary– Introduction– Main sections– Conclusions– References– Technical appendix

TitleShould be informative, “punchy”, can

include puns, humourGood

– The perfidious polynomial (punchy, alliterative)

– Diagnosing diabetes mellitus: how to test, who to test, when to test (dramatic, informative)

Bad– Some bounds on the distribution of certain quadratic

forms in normal random variables (boring, vague)

– Performing roundoff analyses of statistical algorithms (boring, vague)

Table of Contents

• Shows the structure of the document and lets the reader navigate through the sections

• Include for documents more than a few pages long.

Abstract/executive summary

Describes the problem and the solution in a few sentences. It will be all the big boss reads!

Remember the 2 rules– Keep it short– State problem and solution

The Introduction

• State the question, background the problem

• Describe similar work• Outline the approach• Describe the contents of the rest of

the paper– in Section 2 we ...– in Section 3 we ...

Further sections

• Describe – Data– Methods– Analyses– Findings

• Don’t include too much technical detail

• Divide up into sections, subsections

Conclusions/summary

• Summarize what has been discovered

• Repeat the question

• Give the answer

Appendix

• This is where the technical details go

• Be as technical as you like• Document your analysis so it can

be reproduced by others• Include the data set if feasible

References

• Always cite (i.e. give a reference) to other related work or facts/opinions that you quote

• Never pass off the work of others as your own – this is plagiarism and is a very big academic crime!!

How to cite

• In the textSeber and Wild (1989) state that…..

• In the referencesSeber, G.A.F and C.J. Wild. (1989). Nonlinear Regression. New York: Wiley.

Writing clearly

• Structure alone is not enough for clarity – you must also write clear sentences.

• Rules:– Write complete short sentences– Avoid jargon and cliché, strive for simplicity– One theme per paragraph– If a sentence contains maths, it still must

make sense!

AGHHHH!

• He wroteAlthough solitary under normal prevailing circumstances, raccoons may congregate simultaneously in certain situations of artificially enhanced resource availability.

• He meant..Raccoons live alone but come together to eat bait.

Maths

• Good

• Bad

abyxbaxy /)(

./)(

thatfollowsit equation theFrom

abyx

baxy

Figures and Tables (Floats)

Golden rules for Figures and Tables:

• Describe float in text (integration), make sure it matches description

• Place after the first mention in the text• Make sure float conveys the desired

message clearly: keep it simple!• Provide informative captions

Figures

• Always label and give a caption under the figure

• Be aware of good graphics principles: avoid– chart junk– low data/ink ratio– unlabelled axes– broken axes– Misleading scales

• See Cleveland, “The Elements of Graphing Data”, “Visualising Data”

• Using a good graphics package (R!) helps enforce good practice

0 5 10

02

46

8

log(Animals$body)

log

(An

ima

ls$

bra

in)

Mountain beaver

Cow

Grey wolfGoat

Guinea pig

Dipliodocus

Asian elephant

DonkeyHorse

Potar monkey

Cat

Giraffe

Gorilla

Human

African elephant

Triceratops

Rhesus monkey

Kangaroo

Golden hamster

Mouse

Rabbit

SheepJaguar

Chimpanzee

Rat

Brachiosaurus

Mole

Pig

Bad!

Figure 1. Plot of log Brain weights (gm) versus log body weights (kg) for 28 species

0 5 10

02

46

8

Log Body weight (kg)

Lo

g B

rain

we

igh

t (g

m)

Mountain beaver

Cow

Grey wolfGoat

Guinea pig

Dipliodocus

Asian elephant

Donkey Horse

Potar monkey

Cat

Giraffe

Gorilla

Human

African elephant

Triceratops

Rhesus monkey

Kangaroo

Golden hamster

Mouse

Rabbit

SheepJaguar

Chimpanzee

Rat

Brachiosaurus

Mole

Pig

Better!

Tables• Always label and give a caption over the table

• Be aware of rules for good tables:

– avoid vertical lines– don’t have too many decimal places– compare columns not rows

Multiple Prefix Symbol

1012 tera T

109 giga G

106 mega M

103 kilo K

10-1 deci d

Multiple Prefix Symbol

1012 tera T

109 giga G

106 mega M

103 kilo K

10-1 deci d

Too busy

Better

Multiple Prefix Symbol

1012 tera T

109 giga G

106 mega M

103 kilo K

10-1 deci d

Horizontal hard to read

Vertical easier to read

Multiple 1012 109 106 103 10-1

Prefix tera giga mega kilo deci

Symbol T G M K d

Busy – too many DP’s

Better

Number ofProcessors

Time (secs)

1 28.35221

4 7.218812

8 3.634951

16 1.929347

Number of Processors

Time (secs)

1 28.35

4 7.21

8 3.63

16 1.92

Technical Issues

• Sectioning• Table of Contents• Spelling and Grammar• Choice of word processor

Sectioning

• Proper division of your work into sections and subsections makes the structure clear and the document easy to follow

• Use styles in word/ sectioning commands in Latex\begin{section}….\end{section}

Table of contents

• Provides “navigation aid”

• Make sure TOC agrees with main body of text

• If you use styles (Word) and sectioning commands (Latex) this will happen automatically

Spelling and Grammar• Use a style manual/dictionary if in

doubt• Spell check!!!!• Proofread!!!!

He meant…– This technique can also be applied to the

analysis of golf balls

He typed….– This technique cam also by applies to the

analysis or gold bills

Choice of word processor

• Word or Latex?• My spin…..

– Use Word for a short document with few figures and tables and little mathematics

– Use Latex for a longer document with many figures and tables and lots of complicated maths.

Further reading

• There are many excellent books giving good advice on technical writing.

• Two I like are Higham, Nicholas (1993) Handbook of writing for

the Mathematical Sciences, Philadelphia, SIAM.Silyn-Roberts, Heather (2000). Writing for

Science and Engineering: Papers Presentations and Reports. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinmann.

Both discuss writing reports and giving verbal presentations.

Conclusions

• Structure is vital• Write clearly• Good clear simple illustrations• Spellcheck and proofread• Reference all material used or

quoted