Exam 9: Research Reports

A story is a sequence of events. Similarly, research is (or should be) a sequence of logical steps: -Identify a gap or problem in the current knowledge. -Look at how others have addressed this or similar problems. -Work out how to solve it. -Carry out the research. -Present and discuss your findings. -Show their implications. In practice, research is often less linear than this, but presenting it like this makes it easy to follow; however, researchers must be scrupulous not to misrepresent the research. For example, not mentioning several preliminary studies that were aimed at perfecting a method might be acceptable, but omitting one of several surveys because the results contradicted the remaining surveys would be at least ethically questionable (see John et al. (2012) and Nosek et al. (2012) for good discussions).

Research reports are usually written for an academic audience. For students at postgraduate or advanced undergraduate level, this means their supervisors. The main difference between a research report and a report to a client centres on the report's intention; research reports aim to contribute to the body of knowledge on a topic, but reports to a client aim to address the client's specific need-usually a particular problem. Consequently, research reports will always describe how the research was carried out because the study must be able to be replicated. In contrast, a report to a client focuses on findings and recommendations so will often either not include a description of methods or describe these very briefly.