Identify a Report Topic
Identifying something to write about is the first step in writing a report. The best way to begin searching for a topic is to conduct some initial research.
Understand Your Audience
Concurrent with identifying a topic for your report, you should begin to learn more about the audience that will read your report.
Focus and Refine Your Topic
Just about any general topic that you identify will be too broad to write about in a comprehensive manner, so you'll need to narrow your topic. There are a number of techniques that writers use to help them focus and refine their topics.
Create a Working Bibliography
A working bibliography is an organized set of bibliographic information about the resources that you find during your research that might be helpful as you write your report.
Evaluate and Synthesize Resources
After you've identified resources, you can begin to evaluate if they will be useful to you.
Taking Notes on What You Read
Once you've evaluated the various resources on your topic, you can begin to read them and take notes on what you read. There are three basic ways to take notes when researching a topic.
Organize Your Ideas and Create Structure
After you've taken notes on what you've read, you can begin to organize your ideas and create a structure for your report. Your report should have three main parts to it - the introduction, body and conclusion - each serving an important function. Within the report there a variety of ways that you can structure your ideas.
Write the First Draft
Your goal in writing the first draft is to get your ideas onto paper.
Revise and Edit the Report
The goal during this step is to improve the manner in which you are communicating your ideas.
Cite Your References
Failure to cite references can be construed as plagiarism. Plagiarism is the act of using someone else's ideas in your paper without giving them credit for them. Plagiarism is a serious offense, which can result in expulsion. There are several different guidelines for citing references:
- MLA Style
- APA Style
- CBE Style
- Chicago style
Information about the different types of documentation styles are available at the library and on the world wide web.
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