1. Why Starting the Night Before is a Bad Idea...: Writing Your Report

2. Introduction
The extended project covers many different formats of projects, for example, a dissertation, performance or field study. This is reflected in the project report.
Although this session is aimed at students undertaking the dissertation project (5000words) it will be useful for all types of project, as the same principles will apply to writing all reports.
The report may be the longest assignment you have written to date and it can be overwhelming to think about writing up your work.
Early planning can help you break down the writing into manageable sections, give your work structure and help you get your message across more effectively.
It can be daunting to write such a long document – but this session should help you to plan your writing and make it easier to manage

3. Aims of the session
To get you thinking early about the structure (and writing) of your final report
It is helpful to plan and write your report as you are doing your research and it can help direct your research by focusing on what is really important
To give you some tips about the literature review and critical writing
To help you plan your work
It is important to think early about what you will write and the structure of your report.

4. The main elements of the report
You will be doing projects on varied subjects
The structure for your report may vary slightly depending on your topic and discipline, for example, writing up a science experiment versus exploring a social phenomenon
There are elements of the report common to all projects
Follow up after
the
session
There is a broad structure into which most projects will fit. This will give the basis of your plan for writing.
Different disciplines may however require that you emphasise different aspects of the report or a slightly different structure. Why don’t you check this out with you supervisor after the session?
Discuss with your teacher/supervisor the best structure for your individual project

5. Elements common to all reports
Tell them what you are going to say
Say it
Tell them what you said
Introduction
Literature review
Methodology/strategy for investigation/technique
Findings of the investigation
Discussion
Conclusions
All of these elements are important and it is important to include them all somewhere in the report although you may choose – in discussion with your supervisor – to give them different names or combine them into bigger sections.
These elements may guide your structure (you may wish to use them as headings) or you may prefer to combine some of these elements into different sections or chapters.
Remember there may be additional elements or different names for these elements in your own discipline

6. Tell them what you are going to say
The Introduction
Tell them what you are going to say
We are now going to look at individual sections of a report.

7. The Introduction
This is where you will introduce the project to the reader.
Think about:
Describing your topic. What is your aim?
Do you have a specific question to answer
Are you exploring a topic in detail
Are you creating something
Defining the topic e.g. - a geographical area, a period of time, a measurement, a material or a social phenomenon
There may be a number of interpretations of your topic, make it clear to the reader what you are studying
Why have you chosen this topic ?
is it important
subject of particular interest
relates to a hobby
or maybe you future career plan
Most dissertations will aim to answer a question that you have formulated yourself – you have a particular interest and knowledge in the subject and it is important to introduce the subject to the reader and impart you enthusiasm to your audience
The introduction is very important it sets the scene for the reader.
EG – studying social deprivation in Manchester
How would you define Manchester – postcode or inside the M60
what do you mean by deprivation these are a number of ways of defining and measuring this
Are you interested in a particular period time – changes over time

8. Activity 1: Have a chat!
Talking to others about your project and asking questions can be really helpful in clarifying your topic
Describe your topic/aim
Individually write one short sentence about your topic
Defining the topic
In a small group take turns read out your sentence and ask questions about each topic, start to define the area
E.g. what do you mean by….?
how would you measure ...?
One way to help you think about your topic is to discuss it with other people – sometimes when you are discussing your project or being asked questions about it you realise that you are not as clear as you thought!
This is why it is so important to think about planning your writing early as it can help you define and clarify your thoughts before you have gone ahead with your project
We are going to spend a few minutes firstly thinking about your own project and then discussing it with a partner or a small group
Firstly Individually write one short sentence about your topic – take 5 mins to do this. You could write your aim or a sentence about what you are interested in studying
Then In a small group take turns to read out your sentence and ask questions about each topic.
Give an example – e.g. social deprivation in Manchester
What do you mean by social deprivation?
Can you define the concept?
How would you measure it?
Are you interested in changes over time? How will this time period be defined?
You might not know all the answers right now but this can be a good place to start thinking about your topic.

9. The Literature Review
An integral part of any extended project should be your engagement with a wide range of resources relating to your chosen topic. Your assessors will be looking for adequate and appropriate depth and breadth of sources. A literature review is basically where you compile an overview of the information you have found out. It might also involve an evaluative element, i.e. an indication of the sources you think it’s worth paying most attention to, and (crucially) why you think this.

10. What is a literature review?
Focuses on a specific topic and is organised around and related directly to your project
Compiles the research/information that has been published on the topic by recognised scholars and researchers
• Provides background for the problem (research question) or puts the problem into historical perspective
• Informs the reader about the current concepts and state of research on the topic and any controversies
• Describes the pros and cons of particular studies and may suggest areas for further research
• Organizes the literature into a narrative
It might be useful to think about what we mean by a literature review – this might be a substantial element of your work.

11. It also demonstrates your skills
Information seeking: the ability to search the literature efficiently, using manual or computerized methods, to identify a relevant set of articles (and books)
Organisation
Appraisal: to identify good evidence/arguments
Writing: structure and presentation
It is a creative process
These skills are part of the assessment!
A literature review also demonstrates some important transferable skills – these are part of the assessment.

12. Think about the big picture
Who has written about your topic?
policy makers, researchers/academics
Is there community debate?
Bloggers, campaigns/interest groups
Where does the media stand on the issues?
Think about where will you have to go to access this information – a library, website…..
In pairs think about where you think you might find sources for the literature review. (5 mins discussion)
When you have a lot of literature it is useful in the beginning to take a step back and think about the big picture………
This will help you focus down on the main points – you could maybe do this using a table or a spider diagram
If you have a very topical or controversial topic you may want to analyse the media’s response to this – but also think about what viewpoint they are trying to express with their article
Keep a record of where you searched for information and why, you may need to write this into your report.

13. Structuring the literature review
How can you order your literature review?
Chronologically (historical)
Thematically
Methodologically
By key researchers
When you have done quite a bit of research, you may have lots of sources and you will have to think about how to organising them. It’s important to avoid just writing a list. There are lots of different ways you could tackle presenting a review of your literature that will be much more informative for both you and the reader – here are a number of different approaches you could consider using.
There are a number of ways to do this – so you may want to take sometime to think about what best suits your topic.
Chronologically (historically) An historical perspective can be very useful. By moving through history, you can often both appreciate and show how new ideas are effectively a result of a conversation with older ones. This may be helpful in explaining contemporary thinking about an idea.
Thematically – for example there are different theories about child development, offering different ways of thinking about how children learn. Grouping similar theories or ideas together may be a useful way of thinking about an issue
Methodologically - compare and contrast different ways of collecting data on your topic – this is likely to be most appropriate if you are doing your own empirical research or analysing empirical research presented by others.
Key researchers – there may be two or three key people who have made major contributions to the field or fields you are researching. You may choose to present your research in short sections discussing each individual. Within each section you may also want to include comments made by commentators, and an indication of how the ideas of each key research relates to the other.
You can use a combination of these different ways of presenting and digesting what you have discovered or engaged with. The key is to make it coherent. You may want to say up front how you will deal with the literature, so that your reader is not left guessing what your approach was.
E.g. - The literature will be presented to emphasise the development of the concept of social deprivation over the 20th century and explore how the definition has changed during this period.

14. Developing a clear line of argument
On its own, evidence cannot contribute to academic debate. The interpretation and presentation of that evidence within an argument allows the evidence to make a contribution.
Make sure that:
There is always a clear link between your own arguments and the evidence uncovered in your reading
You include a short summary at the end of each section
You acknowledge opinions which do not agree with your argument. If you ignore opposing viewpoints, your argument will in fact be weaker
A good literature review needs a clear line of argument. You therefore need to use the notes you made whilst doing your reading to express an academic opinion.
When you are writing your literature review, you may not quite yet be sure of your own argument. Writing the review may be part of the process of trying to work this out. However, as you are writing it you must make sure that there is a clear link to your question and any sub questions you want to ask.

15. Going beyond description
You not only need to show you can extract, interpret and summarise information but that you can go beyond this and show connections between ideas, information, sources etc.
Compare and contrast different authors' views on an issue • group authors who draw similar conclusions • note areas in which authors are in disagreement • highlight exemplary studies • highlight gaps in research
Show how your work
relates to previous studies/developments
relates to the literature in general
Critique/synthesis where are the similarities and differences
e.g.
information needs of cancer patients have been studied in a number of countries /health care contexts and with many tumour groups
similar findings were found in X papers
the main findings are……
however there are some contradictory findings in papers X, Y
Some reasons for this may be the health care context etc.

16. When to stop
It is important to keep control of the reading process, and to keep your research focus in mind.
Always bear in mind your research question
Why am I including this?
It might be interesting but is it relevant?
Planning your review is the best way of keeping the focus.
Decisions need to be made about where to focus your reading, and where you can refer briefly to an area but explain why you will not be going into it in more detail.
The literature review is important but it is only one aspect of a report

17. Methodology
Another section you may want to include is Methodology this could include your strategy for an investigation or explanation of a technique you are using.

18. Methodology
The reader needs to know how you carried out your investigation/created something.
You may be discussing a physical process – an experiment or a survey or a creative process – creative writing or making a film.
It is helpful to break it down into steps and explain how and why decisions were made
Use your reflective diary as you are going along to document this
You need to be able to fully explain your methods of research in such a way that the reader – if they wanted to – could recreate the process of your work e.g. redo an experiment, survey or an analysis of a concept.
This element of your project will be especially important if are going out and collecting raw, primary data and responding to it (for example a survey of attitudes or behaviours, or a lab experiment). This is because there are lots of ways of interpreting and responding to data – for instance how we interpret an open question on a survey – e.g. how do you feel when….
Explaining your methodology may be something on which you place less emphasis if your assignment is more ‘ideas’ based, and largely involves responding to written text e.g. literature or philosophy.
However in any case, you need to be clear about the approach you took to the process, and this should be recorded as you go along and reflected either in your written report or in your post-project presentation.

19. Findings and discussion

20. Findings and critical discussion
How will you present your findings, results or ideas?
Charts and diagrams
Map
Film or painting
A play or creative writing
Quotes from an interview
What do they mean ?
How have you interpreted your findings?
This part of the dissertation is the really fundamental bit where you must spell out clearly and systematically an argument that will lead to a conclusion.
This section will usually form the bulk of an EP project if you are producing a written report.
Make sure you have an argument and that you are clearly laying out reasons or evidence for what you say which will lead to a conclusion. The reader must be led through the thought process that underpins and justifies any conclusions drawn.
In the findings you will present your results. This data/information may be resented in a number of ways.
You will then need to interpret the data/information.
In many projects the data and results will be presented in different sections but in some projects findings and analysis can be presented together – check out what is most usual in your discipline.

21. Conclusions
Tell them what you said

22. Conclusions
Real conclusions, not just a summary/repetition of the findings
The extent to which you achieved what you set out to achieve
Possible weaknesses/limitations of the methodology and interpretations
Recommendations for the future
Reflections on doing the project – use diary/activity log to help you here
how well you performed at different stages of the project
what you would do differently next time and why
what you have learned about conducting research and writing a dissertation
You draw your report to a close in the conclusion section. No new data or information should go here, you should be summarising what you’ve said whilst explaining really clearly what this shows, and what it leads you to think.
Try to draw some real conclusions based on your findings and discussion and comparison with the existing literature.
The conclusions section is a good point at which to reflect on the experience.

23. Activity 2: Planning your writing
This is a really good opportunity to think about the structure of your report
Try using the structure from this workshop
Introduction
Literature review
Methodology/strategy for investigation/technique
Findings of the investigation
Discussion
Conclusions
Try to write a few key words or phrases to help you plan what you will write at each stage.
What will you include under each heading?
You might not know all the answers right now but this can be a good place to start thinking about your topic.

24. Writing is a process
It is important to see the writing stage as part of the process, not something that happens at the very end .
It is often not until you start explaining something in writing that you find where your argument/discussion is weak or incomplete
It is hard to get started but it is best to have a go at writing - you can always revise it later on
You don’t have to start at the beginning, pick a section you feel confident with and get into a routine of writing
Keep reading and amending your work – each section will probably need at least two drafts
A good structure will help with this

25. Finishing touches
The Abstract (if required) – should be written when you have completed the dissertation
Presentation is very important, it does make a difference if your headings are consistent, everything is labelled properly and all the pages are there! Try not to print out at the last minute
Leave time to read through you work . Check for typos, formatting and make sure all of your references are correct in the text and in the reference list
Ask someone reliable to proof read your dissertation
It is important that your work is well presented and you should always try to leave a few days at the end to make sure you can add all the finishing touches.
It is always worth having someone else read through you work maybe a family member or a friend. Most academics will have at least one person read their work before they submit it to a journal. The person proofreading doesn’t have to understand everything.

26. Further Reading
Mounsey C (2002) One Step Ahead: Essays and Dissertations, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Redman P. (2001) Good Essay Writing: A Social Sciences Guide. Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications Ltd
Thomas, S. A. (2000). How to write health sciences papers, dissertations, and theses. Edinburgh; Churchill Livingstone.