Resource of the Week #48: A Brief Guide to Writing Research Reports

Hello again. This week I’m featuring a resource that can especially help in reporting research in the social sciences.

This semester I’m teaching a course called Research Methods in Science and Technology Journalism. The textbook that we’re using—Mass Media Research: An Introduction, by Roger D. Wimmer and Joseph R. Dominick—has supplementary online materials.

One of these materials, “Research Reports”, provides guidance in writing reports on research. Much of the guidance applies to reporting research in many fields, especially in the social sciences.

This guide discusses writing both journal articles and the type of research report for a company or government agency. Such a report commonly has an executive summary—that is, an overview at the beginning that administrators can read to get the main points.

Overall, this guide is easily readable. However, there’s a possibly confusing problem with indentation: Some bulleted items should be indented more than the others but aren’t.

Despite this small problem, this guide is a fine resource. I’m glad it states that “the primary goals in all research reports are accuracy and clarity”. This message is one that we also like to convey in AuthorAID.

Until the next post— Barbara