PRIORITIES
Its all about our priorties “Nothing is impossible in life” I have read and listened it from many but couldn’t heed on it that may be because I don’t give much priority to my dreams or may be I am…
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Writing scientific reports
In this post we explore how scientific reports differ from general report writing, including structure, conventions and other key elements.
Scientific reports follow a specific structured format and includes a comprehensive description of technical or scientific research or experiment(s), including recommendations and a conclusion. A scientific reports purpose is to communicate information to other scientists.
Scientific reports should provide the reader with clear instructions on how to replicate an experiment and ensure that the methodology can be examined, and the results validated whilst also using and reflecting upon existing literature.
Conventions in scientific writing are a strict set of rules which must be followed; however the exact conventions can vary depending on the piece of work you are carrying out.
Scientific writing should always be straightforward, clear, concise and to the point. Its very important with this type of writing to:
We will go on to look at how to achieve this in the next section.
Let’s look at the the important aspects of scientific writing:
The purpose of your writing is to communicate your ideas to the reader who may be your supervisor or another scientist. It is essential that each part of your writing contributes towards your purpose and stays on topic.
Considering your audience (who will read your writing) is a useful step in the process of writing your report. What does your audience need to know? Who are they?
Objectivity is an essential part of scientific writing. Remember the aim of a report is to clearly state the facts and the conclusions that have been reached from the observation of an experiment. It is based on quantitative and or qualitative evidence. Any conclusion that you reach must be supported by the data you present in the report and linked to established research in the relevant scientific field.
Scientific writing is about detail so make sure you are precise in what you write and avoid ambiguous language that may be open to a different interpretation.
Scientific writing is also very concise in style. To achieve this, make sure you are focussing on communicating as efficiently as possible, avoiding elaboration where it isn’t necessary. There are a number of different strategies that you can use to write concisely including ‘Short, relevant, critical’ which are described in more detail in the ‘Writing your main body’ resource.
Scientific writing generally uses an active voice as this supports a clear, precise writing style. However, both the active and passive voices are useful tools with their own strengths which can be employed in your writing. Passive voice also has a role to play and can be used to help your writing flow more naturally.
Unlike non-scientific writing, a scientific report uses differing tenses across the various sections of the same report.
Past tense is used in the introduction, methodology and results sections of your report. It helps to indicate the experiment has already occurred. Here’s an example sentence:
Present tense is used in your report where you are writing about already established knowledge, referring to figures or within your discussions and conclusion sections. Here’s an example sentence:
Definitions and abbreviations are used when referring to technical terms in your writing. The first time you refer to a word or phrase, its important to write it out in full followed by the abbreviated form or definition after it. This is also placed inside brackets as shown in the example below:
Once you have established an abbreviation you should then continue to use it throughout the rest of your report.
As with any piece of academic writing it is essential that you reference the sources you include in your report. References include a citation within the text of the report and a full reference at the end of the report following the conclusion and before the appendix. Sources that you reference set your work within the context of other published work.
Citations are generally located in the Introduction section to highlight the evidence for current theories or topics. They will also be found in the discussion section where they can be used to demonstrate how the findings from the experiment/research relate to the published literature. Links to further support on referencing can be found at the end of this post.
There are different formats for a scientific report and IMRaD is one of the most recognised ones. It takes a rigid, structured approach to the format and is used extensively in the sciences including 4 distinct stages, the Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion. In this section we will discuss a slightly expanded IMRaD structure as shown below:
1. Abstract
2. Introduction
3. Methodology
4. Results
5. Analysis and Discussion
6. Conclusion
An abstract is a summary of your report. It tells the reader what you did, how you did it and what you found out in a quick glance. It’s best to write the abstract last, since you will be summarising each section of your report into a single paragraph.
Purpose of your abstract
An abstract is often the first thing someone will read in your report. They will use it to become familiar with what’s in the report to help make a decision if it’s something they want to read in more detail (you can use abstracts in the same way when reading and researching for your own assessments!). Your abstract should tell the reader everything they need to know about your experiment.
When writing your abstract, imagine you are describing your report to someone else, then consider what the key pieces of information they would need to know to understand the report as a whole.
Structuring your abstract
Abstracts need to contain a lot of information within a small word-count. Having a set structure to follow can be really helpful in ensuring you include the information you need.
There are many different approaches to structuring abstracts and different approaches may work for different people and different types of work. We have included two different structures here that you may find useful. Try to experiment and find what works for you.
An abstract is normally one paragraph in length and roughly around 200–300 words. Therefore, each point should be no more than 1–2 sentences.
The introduction section of the report should inform the reader why the paper has been written. It should include sufficient background information so that the reader can understand, evaluate and potentially replicate the experiment.
Before you start writing the introduction, reflect on these two questions:
The introduction will:
The methodology tells the reader how you conducted your experiment or study in enough detail to allow the reader to recreate it. Your methodology also needs to include a discussion of why you conducted it in that way.
To explain how you conducted and analysed your experiment, you should include appropriate details which may include:
To explain why you conducted and analysed your experiment in the way you did you should include:
Structuring your methodology
The methodology is usually structured chronologically or sequentially in order of when you performed each steps of your experiment.
Using subtitles to help guide the reader through the different stages of your experiment may also be useful in this section of your report.
The results section (sometimes called data or findings) details the data you collected and answers the question: ‘what did you find out?’
Your results section should give an impartial outline of the data. In this section, you will usually present the reader with:
Your results section should not include any discussion or explanation of results or present your interpretations of the data. The analysis and conclusion sections gives you a chance to explain what you think your findings mean.
The structure for your results section may look like this:
The analysis and discussion section is where you will provide critical analysis of your results, written in the present tense. In this section you will tell the reader what you think the results mean and why you think they are important including:
However it is important your analysis and discussion section does not present the reader with new pieces of data not included in your results section. You should also try to avoid simply repeating your results without analysis and overusing jargon.
Structuring your analysis and discussion
There is no definitive structure for an analysis section. It is important to consider about what works best for your own study and the findings you wish to discuss. However you may want to consider:
The conclusion is a paragraph that summarises the results and discussion sections of the report and its where you highlight what you think your research has demonstrated and what you have learnt from it.
Your conclusion is a brief section at the end of your report, not a long piece of writing so remember to write clearly and concisely. Considering the following questions may help you structure your conclusion:
It’s not a prerequisite for the conclusion but you can refer to further experiments that would be useful in relation to your experiment. However your conclusion should not:
In this post we explored the conventions, key elements and structure of scientific reports. This post is written as a guide to support you with your assignments; it is important you refer to guidance provided by your school or academic for specific referencing styles and possible standard report structures you may be required to follow in your work.
We have collated the key information you need to include in each section of your report as a downloadable checklist, you can find this and other related resources in the further support section below.
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