Informational Forms I: Research Reports and Comparative Reports

Same research, different shape

Your class has just finished a novel, and opinions on its ending are split. Your teacher asks two students to investigate. One writes an essay arguing that the ending is effective. The other writes a report: she surveys the class, compares the results with another class's, and presents what she found, with a graph and recommendations for next year's teacher.

That second assignment comes straight from the Grade 11 curriculum, whose examples of forms include a report comparing classmates' responses to a novel. Expectation 2.1 asks you to write for different purposes and audiences using a variety of literary, informational and graphic forms. The essay is taught in the partner unit, Writing: Essays and Literary Analysis. This lesson and the next three teach the other forms, starting with the most common informational form in school, university and work: the report.

Essay vs report

An essay argues a thesis in continuous paragraphs, with transitions carrying the reader from point to point. A report answers a question by presenting findings, in labelled sections that a busy reader can skim, often with tables, graphs and recommendations. Reports are written in an objective, mostly third-person voice, with precise language and numbers.

Readers often do not read reports from start to finish. A principal may read only the summary and recommendations; a researcher may jump straight to the method. Good reports make every section easy to find.

Writing each section

• Summary (or executive summary): written last, placed first. In three to five sentences: purpose, method, key findings, main recommendation.
• Introduction: the question, why it matters, and the scope (what you did and did not study).
• Method: how you gathered information: sources searched, who you surveyed, sample size, dates. This lets readers judge how far to trust the findings.
• Findings: organized under informative headings (Most students found the ending abrupt is more useful than Results 2). Report numbers precisely and objectively. Every table or graph is numbered, titled, labelled and referred to in the text (As Figure 1 shows...).
• Discussion: what the findings mean, how they connect to your research sources, and their limitations (small sample, one school).
• Conclusion and recommendations: answer the question; give specific, practical recommendations that follow from the findings. Teachers should discuss the ending is vague; Add one class discussion on the final chapter's foreshadowing before students write their responses is specific.

Report style

• Objective tone: no exclamation marks, no I think, no loaded words.
• Hedging matches the evidence: The survey suggests..., most, about a third. Never proves from one class's survey.
• Numbers: give both counts and percentages, with n: 12 of 28 students (43%).
• Headings and lists (presentation features from expectation 3.6) to help readers navigate.

Primary data: surveys that do not lie

If your report uses a survey, its questions decide its quality.

• Avoid leading questions. Didn't you love the surprising ending? pushes people to agree. Neutral: How satisfied were you with the ending?
• Avoid double-barrelled questions. Was the ending surprising and satisfying? asks two things at once.
• Offer balanced choices, including unsure or no opinion.
• Keep it anonymous and voluntary; tell people how results will be used.
• Report all the results, not only those that support what you hoped to find.

To calculate a percentage: count ÷ total × 100. 12 of 28 is 12 ÷ 28 × 100 ≈ 42.9%, which you can round to 43%. Check that your rounded percentages add to about 100% (rounding can make them 99% or 101%; say so in a note if it happens).

The comparative report

A comparative report looks at two or more things (two classes' responses, two cities' snow-clearing policies, two phone plans) using the same criteria for each. Choose your criteria first, then pick an organization:

• Block method: everything about A, then everything about B, then the comparison. Simple, and fine for short reports, but the reader must remember A while reading B.
• Point-by-point method: one criterion at a time, comparing A and B in each section. Usually better for longer reports because the comparison happens throughout.

A comparison table with the criteria as rows and the items as columns is often the clearest single feature of a comparative report.