How to Write an Academic Report: Tips & Examples

Learning how to write an academic report is not only for your academic success but will also benefit you in the future. A report is essentially a systematic pattern of writing that includes explaining an event, a meeting, or research in a proper written format, so that it can be used in the future. You will mostly need it for explaining your research, and in the future, you will need it for many reasons. Let's start by understanding how to write an academic report, as you have deal with it first.

This blog gives you complete information on how you can manage to write an academic report that will help you score good grades. You will see a step-by-step explanation of writing a report. We have mentioned, proper academic report structure for you, and we have also mentioned some of the best and most useful tips on writing your academic report. We know that with the help of an example a we understand better, which is the reason we have made you learn how to write an academic report for university with an example. So go ahead and learn everything, and you can also take help from our assignment help UK Services.  

Definition of a Report and a Report Structure

A report is a formal composition of text that is meant to contain the findings or recommendations of a particular audience. An effective report is well organised in sections and is written using sub-sections. When sitting down to write an academic report, think about the various sections of the title and make sub-sections that represent what you are being requested to do. An academic report could be structured in several different ways, depending on the task you have been given. But the most accurate and perfect academic report structure is provided to you below; you can follow that and get everything done according to that.

• Title page
• Abstract or executive summary
• Introduction
• Methods
• Results, data, findings
• Discussion
• Conclusion and recommendations
• Bibliography or reference list
• Appendices

Also Read: How to Write a Good Assignment Without Plagiarism?  

Who and what is the report for?

 

 

 

 

 

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There are various reports; even when you are writing an academic report, you must learn for whom you are writing the report and what the aim of your report is.

Remember the audience when you write your academic report; you will be given a topic for which you have to write an academic report. For Example, your topic of academic report may be:

• Is it an experiment you are reporting?
• Is this to give background information?
• Do you make recommendations for action?

How to write an Academic Report

Academic Reports are written in straightforward language, and it does not take long before they read into reports, and this may be a significant difference from essay writing.

Breaking them down into sections is common, and each of the sections has its own headings and sub-headings. These parts can contain some bullet points or numbers in addition to the more structured sentences. A report tends to have shorter paragraphs than an essay.

Academic writing also includes both essays and reports. You should apply proper grammar, diction, and punctuation in the sentence structure.

Academic writing is high-end and thus you cannot use apostrophes and shorten words like it, could not etc. Rather, say it is and could not.

1. Structure and Organisation

Essays are very unstructured compared to academic reports. They are broken down into sections and sub-sections, which are formatted in bullet points or numbers.

Various disciplines have different report structures, but the most popular report structures are as follows:

2. Title page

The title page must be descriptive and informative and should present the subject being reported on concisely.

3. Abstract (or Executive Summary in business reports)

Basically, an abstract is a short description of the methods, findings, discussion, and conclusion of your academic report. This section is meant to provide the reader with a complete overview of the academic report before proceeding to read the rest of it; hence, it will be best to write this section last.
The summary of the main findings and the major recommendations should be followed by a description of the main problem and objectives.

4. Table of contents

This table of contents will help readers select the most relevant sections for them. It is important that your contents page accurately reflects the format of your report.

5. Introduction

This is the section where you must provide a background of your research with explaining what is the aim and objective of your research. In this section, you can also refer to the literature and academic reports on what has already been researched about your topic and whether there are any research gaps. You are also likely to see that some reports contain a section, known as Terms of reference, whereby you determine who commissioned the report, what it discusses, and what the limitations are.

6. Methodology

In case your report included a methodology in your research process, you should mention what that was, e.g. you might have interviewed clients, held a few focus groups or conducted a literature review. The methods section is to give the correct description of the methodology used and procedures so that other people can repeat the same process if they want to.

7. Results/findings

Next, if results/findings section is where you need to summarise all your findings using your methodology/research. This must include figures, graphs, tables and most significant findings and patterns. You do not have to make an effort to explain your findings (this will be done in the discussion section).

8.  Discussion

During the discussion, you are supposed to critique your findings. You might have to rephrase what your report was trying to demonstrate, and whether this is the case or not. You must also evaluate the validity and importance of your findings and explain how these findings are relevant in terms of prior research.

9. Conclusion

The conclusion must wrap up the results of your report and give recommendations on what should be done or what research should be conducted. What you are also likely to have to do as a result of your study is provide a list of particular recommendations.

10. References

The references are a list of any sources that you have referred to in a report. Strictly speaking, your report must adhere to the referencing style of your choice, such as Harvard, Numeric, Oscola, etc.

11. Appendices

Appendices should be used to elaborate on things mentioned in the main report. When you have but one, then it is an appendix; when you have more than one, then they are called appendices. Appendices allow you to give backup information, typically data or statistics, but the information provided should be directly related to what the report is all about.

Appendices may have either an alphabetical or numeric heading, i.e., Appendix A or Appendix 1. The sequence in which they appear in the back of your report depends on the sequence in which they are mentioned in the body of your report. You are expected to use your appendices in the body of your report, i.e., you would say, in the body of the report, in the questionnaire analysis, you would say, for example, see Appendix B. You need to remember to include the appendices on your contents page

How to write an academic report example

The best way of learning how to write an academic report for university is with the help of an example. By going through this example, you can see how paragraphs are focused on the aim of that section.