1. How to Write a Good Report Alan Lee

2. Contents What makes a good report? Clarity and Structure Figures and Tables (floats) Technical Issues Further reading Conclusions

3. The purpose.... The report exists to provide the reader with useful information –Should this drug be licensed? –How do we fit non-linear regressions? It succeeds if it effectively communicates the information to the intended audience It fails otherwise!!

4. To succeed... The report must be –Clear Well structured, clear, concise, suitable for the intended audience –Professional statistically correct, correctly spelled, produced with a decent word processor –Well illustrated illustrations that aid understanding, integrated with text

5. The audience Often 3 different audiences –The casual reader/big boss who wants the main message as painlessly as possible –The interested reader who wants more detail but doesn’t want to grapple with all the gory technical details –The guru who wants the whole story

6. What to do? To address all 3 audiences effectively, –Include an abstract for the big boss –A main body for the interested non-specialist –A technical appendix for the guru Thus, a structure emerges!

7. Structure Good structure enhances and encourages clarity Gives signposts implements the vital principle –tell them what you are going to say –Say it! –tell them what you have said

8. Structure: details A good report has the following parts –Title –Table of Contents –Abstract/executive summary –Introduction –Main sections –Conclusions –References –Technical appendix

9. Title Should be informative, “punchy”, can include puns, humour Good –The perfidious polynomial (punchy, alliterative) –Diagnosing diabetes mellitus: how to test, who to test, when to test (dramatic, informative) Bad –Some bounds on the distribution of certain quadratic forms in normal random variables (boring, vague) –Performing roundoff analyses of statistical algorithms (boring, vague)

10. Table of Contents Shows the structure of the document and lets the reader navigate through the sections Include for documents more than a few pages long.

11. Abstract/executive summary Describes the problem and the solution in a few sentences. It will be all the big boss reads! Remember the 2 rules –Keep it short –State problem and solution

12. The Introduction State the question, background the problem Describe similar work Outline the approach Describe the contents of the rest of the paper –in Section 2 we... –in Section 3 we...

13. Further sections Describe –Data –Methods –Analyses –Findings Don’t include too much technical detail Divide up into sections, subsections

14. Conclusions/summary Summarize what has been discovered Repeat the question Give the answer

15. Appendix This is where the technical details go Be as technical as you like Document your analysis so it can be reproduced by others Include the data set if feasible

16. References Always cite (i.e. give a reference) to other related work or facts/opinions that you quote Never pass off the work of others as your own – this is plagiarism and is a very big academic crime!!

17. How to cite In the text Seber and Wild (1989) state that….. In the references Seber, G.A.F and C.J. Wild. (1989). Nonlinear Regression. New York: Wiley.

18. Writing clearly Structure alone is not enough for clarity – you must also write clear sentences. Rules: –Write complete short sentences –Avoid jargon and cliché, strive for simplicity –One theme per paragraph –If a sentence contains maths, it still must make sense!

19. AGHHHH! He wrote Although solitary under normal prevailing circumstances, raccoons may congregate simultaneously in certain situations of artificially enhanced resource availability. He meant.. Raccoons live alone but come together to eat bait.

20. Maths Good Bad

21. Figures and Tables (Floats) Golden rules for Figures and Tables: Describe float in text (integration), make sure it matches description Place after the first mention in the text Make sure float conveys the desired message clearly: keep it simple! Provide informative captions

22. Figures Always label and give a caption under the figure Be aware of good graphics principles: avoid –chart junk –low data/ink ratio –unlabelled axes –broken axes –Misleading scales See Cleveland, “The Elements of Graphing Data”, “Visualising Data” Using a good graphics package (R!) helps enforce good practice

23. Bad!

24. Figure 1. Plot of log Brain weights (gm) versus log body weights (kg) for 28 species Better!

25. Tables Always label and give a caption over the table Be aware of rules for good tables: –avoid vertical lines –don’t have too many decimal places – compare columns not rows

26. MultiplePrefixSymbol 10 12 teraT 10 9 gigaG 10 6 megaM 10 3 kiloK 10 -1 decid MultiplePrefixSymbol 10 12 teraT 10 9 gigaG 10 6 megaM 10 3 kiloK 10 -1 decid Too busy Better

27. MultiplePrefixSymbol 10 12 teraT 10 9 gigaG 10 6 megaM 10 3 kiloK 10 -1 decid Horizontal hard to read Vertical easier to read Multiple10 12 10 9 10 6 10 3 10 -1 Prefixteragigamegakilodeci SymbolTGMKd

28. Busy – too many DP’s Better Number of Processors Time (secs) 128.35221 47.218812 83.634951 161.929347 Number of Processors Time (secs) 1 28.35 4 7.21 8 3.63 16 1.92

29. Technical Issues Sectioning Table of Contents Spelling and Grammar Choice of word processor

30. Sectioning Proper division of your work into sections and subsections makes the structure clear and the document easy to follow Use styles in word/ sectioning commands in Latex \begin{section}….\end{section}

31. Table of contents Provides “navigation aid” Make sure TOC agrees with main body of text If you use styles (Word) and sectioning commands (Latex) this will happen automatically

32. Spelling and Grammar Use a style manual/dictionary if in doubt Spell check!!!! Proofread!!!! He meant… –This technique can also be applied to the analysis of golf balls He typed…. –This technique cam also by applies to the analysis or gold bills

33. Choice of word processor Word or Latex? My spin….. –Use Word for a short document with few figures and tables and little mathematics –Use Latex for a longer document with many figures and tables and lots of complicated maths.

34. Further reading There are many excellent books giving good advice on technical writing. Two I like are Higham, Nicholas (1993) Handbook of writing for the Mathematical Sciences, Philadelphia, SIAM. Silyn-Roberts, Heather (2000). Writing for Science and Engineering: Papers Presentations and Reports. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinmann. Both discuss writing reports and giving verbal presentations.

35. Conclusions Structure is vital Write clearly Good clear simple illustrations Spellcheck and proofread Reference all material used or quoted