How to Write an Effective Report

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Research Design: After finalizing the solution the research design is prepared which basically covers how the research has to be conducted. It includes:

- Nature of research design

- Information requirements

- Data collection –primary and secondary sources

- Scaling techniques

- Questionnaire development and pretesting

- Sampling technique

- Fieldwork

Data Analysis: After the data collection, data analysis is done. Data Analysis is the systematic and statistical process of analysing the collected data to define, reduce and evaluate it. The various techniques that are prescribed are applied in this step and results are recorded in output sheets.

Results: The results of different techniques adopted are presented in this section. Being the most important part of the research project, the results must be depicting the detailed as well as easy to understand information. This section should represents the results in coherent and structured manner so that client will be able to get something out of it. The better way is to use tables, graphs and figures to present the details and findings discussed in the text.

Limitations: Any market research project is bound to face one or more limitations because of constraints like time, resources, and other organizational constraints. The limitations provided in the report is very important for management to understand that the results that have been found are subject to certain assumptions and limitations. So the generalisation of the results in other situations is not possible.

Conclusions and Recommendations: The results must be interpreted by the researcher to highlight the solution to the problem. Then the researcher reach on some conclusions and recommend suggestions on the basis of the results. The care should be taken while giving suggestions such as whether are they feasible, practicable and relevant for management.

Guidelines for the Great Report Writing

As already told there are differences in the format of report written by different researchers but there are some standards that have to be followed. These standards or guidelines help to frame the report in a professional manner. Some important guidelines to be considered while writing a report are as follows:

- The report is written for specific readers so the report should be written keeping in mind the technical sophistication of the readers. Mostly top management people are reviewing the report so they are not interested in jargons but need simple explanation of the facts.

- The report must be structured in such a way that there is a flow in the report. The logical connection should be there in the structure of the report. Another aspect related to this is the clarity of ideas. Headings and sub headings should be used for topics and sub topics respectively.

- There must be consistency in the report in terms of usage of font and font size, graphs and tables. This would highlight the professionalism in the report.

- The researcher should make a terse and concise report. Unnecessary things must be removed. The reason is that if too much details are given important points may be missed and also researcher should not compromise on the completeness for achieving brevity in the report.

- The page numbers should be provided at the bottom of the pages in the report.

- The table and graph should be given a proper title which displays its importance. The data in the table must be distributed evenly in the rows and columns. And if there is some information that can be provided in the table, it should be given in the footnotes below the table using asterisk sign (*).

- The graphical aid given in the report will complement what is written in the report so the graphs must be used in the report.

- The citations must be given for any secondary information in the form of tables, graphs and text that are included in the report.

Benefits of Report Writing

The well written report can serve client and researcher in a number of ways. The following points highlight the benefits of writing an accurate and relevant report:

- The layman person who have no knowledge of research projects can understand the research and its importance since the good report is easy to understand.

- The management can refer to executive summary to have an idea about the feasibility of the project.

- The summary section that includes results and recommendations can provide a quick gist about the research.

- The report is written in a logical manner so it is very easy to follow what the researcher is intended to tell about the whole research process.

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References:

Malhotra, N., & Dash, S. (2011). Report Preparation and Presentation. In Marketing Research: An Applied Orientation (6th ed., pp. 727-734). New Delhi: Pearson.