Natashia’s Tips for Successful Reports

 

The following tips are helpful to prepare reports acceptable in business management.

You should think of a “client” at the management level of the business, to whom you are communicating your scientific findings. 

Be brief and to the point

  1. Bullet Your report should be about ten (10) pages long, without the appendices.

  2. Bullet Explain clearly your findings and conclusions.

  3. Bullet You may follow the suggested layout (see below).

  4. Bullet When using visual aids such as plots, choose wisely which to include in the main text. Help interpret results by discussing them. If there are elements not necessary for discussion, delete them.

Suggested Layout for Report


Title (authors and affiliations)


Executive Summary: single page, written in layman’s terms.

  1. ‣ State the problem and research question.

  2. ‣ State the goals of your project. 

  3. ‣ Summary of results and findings.

  4. ‣ Summary of recommendations (if applicable).


Introduction and Background: about two pages.

  1. ‣ Problem statement.

  2. ‣ Context overview and background.

  3. ‣ Mathematical model and research question.

  4. ‣ Statement of the goals of project.


Conclusions and Recommendations: about one page.

  1. ‣ Main results only (subsidiary results in appendix)

  2. ‣ Summary of analysis of results in context and recommendations.


Methods: about three to five pages (main contribution), written in scientific way so that other students can understand. The “client” should be able to reproduce results using this section.

  1. ‣ Theory.

  2. ‣ Techniques and methodology.

  3. ‣ Analysis.


General Discussion (optional)

  1. ‣ Related problems.

  2. ‣ Related literature.

  3. ‣ Alternative approaches not explored.


References


Appendices

  1. ‣ Mathematical models, results, and supporting theorems.

  2. ‣ Flow charts, computer code, computer output.

  3. ‣ Data, figures and plots.

  4. ‣ Large tables of results.

Go To Presentation Tips

(Who is Natshia?)