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Top Ten Tips for Writing Research Reports

By Amelia Harper

Writing research reports is an important skill for those in high school and college and is anecessary skill for many careers. This type of writing is extremely practical and requires a

writer to gather, analyze, and organize information and then present it in a clear andcohesive fashion. Though some parents and students tend to avoid research writing becausethey consider it difficult, mastering this skill can carry over to many other areas of academiaand ordinary life. In fact, many online courses rely heavily on such writing projects.

Any good writing curriculum can help you learn the mechanics of writing research projects(see sidebar for a writing guide). However, whether you are writing a simple elementary

report or a full-fledged term paper, here are ten simple tips that can help improve your

research report.

1. Pick Your Passion

Some students consider research reports a waste of time—but if the project helps them gain

an understanding of a topic that they want to explore or that fits their future goals, theproject gains significance. As a homeschool mom, it is helpful to offer your student some

freedom to choose a report topic.

As a student, even if you are assigned a general topic, you can often still choose the focus

of your thesis. Try to choose a subject or an approach that interests you—something thattickles your intellectual curiosity. This can make the project much more interesting and will

bring out your best efforts.

2. Remember Your Purpose

The purpose of most research reports is to inform the reader about a certain topic;

however, depending on the assignment, some research reports also require the writer to

draw conclusions about the facts or to persuade the reader to accept a particular theoryabout the facts presented. As you write, keep the purpose of the assignment in focus. Factsneed to be presented clearly, and conclusions should be drawn in a logical manner.

Remember that your goal here is to inform, not to entertain.

3. Know Your Audience

Most research papers are written for a teacher in order to satisfy a class requirement or toeducate your academic peers. Therefore, most are written in formal English, avoiding

contractions and slang language. You should also avoid using the pronoun I  in the report.

The only exceptions are if you are asked to express a personal opinion or are presentingyour own research or eyewitness testimony as supporting evidence. These situations rarely

arise in student writing.

4. Consider Your Questions

One of the best ways to begin organizing your outline and research is to compile a list ofquestions that you would like to answer about your topic. Compiling this list can help youfocus on the aspects of the report that interest you most and help you hone a particular

thesis statement as well. Remember that you are writing a report, not a book, so you

should limit your report to an area that can be adequately covered within the assignedparameters identified by your instructor. After you determine the focus of the report, cross

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out the irrelevant questions and use the relevant ones to help you begin your online

research.

5. Organize Your Thoughts

Once you have established the main thesis of the paper, you need to make an outline of the

information you wish to present. This outline is important, not only because it helps you

structure your paper but also because it gives you a framework for research. The moredetailed you make your outline, the easier it will be to write the final paper.

However, remember that your outline is only a tool and can be adapted as you get further

into the research phase. For instance, if you cannot find anything to support a point, simplyomit it or substitute with another. The data may not be there because the point is too

obscure or, possibly, wrong altogether.

6. Tackle Your Details

As you begin to conduct your research, focus your time and effort on looking for details thatsupport your main points. This support may include a variety of information such as facts,

figures, statistics, examples, definitions, or quotations from reliable experts in the field. If

you are having trouble gathering research, try going to your local library and asking theresearch librarian for assistance. Most are more than willing to help you locate a widevariety of excellent resources available to you in this cyber age.

As you gather pertinent information, be sure to label each bit of information with a title thatfits one of the points or subpoints in your outline. If you are writing on note cards, you can

label a card at the top according to the information recorded there.

If you are gathering information on a computer, you may want to create a separate page orfolder in which you would file supporting details for each point. Find the system that works

best for you and use it to keep track of ways that the information you gather will fit intoyour overall plan in the best way. This will really simplify the writing process when youfinally begin writing the actual paper.

7. Cite Your Sources

As you compile information based on your research, carefully note the source of each piece

of information so that you can properly cite the source later. Most student papers use MLA(Modern Language Association) formatting, and you will need to cite each source in the

body of the paper as you use it, as well as in the Works Cited or Bibliography page at the

end.

If you are not sure how to cite sources, please refer to the sidebar within this article, where

you can find more details about MLA formatting and citation generators that make this task

fun and easy. Citation generators are great online tools that allow you to enter the

information for a source, and then the generator “magically” creates a proper citation.

Also remember to evaluate your sources to determine whether or not they are reliable.Consider the potential bias of the book or website, and examine the credentials as well. For

instance, Wikipedia, despite its popularity, is not usually considered a reliable sourcebecause its content is not always written by experts in the field and its data are not always

verified. However, Wikipedia (or its more conservative counterpart, Conservapedia) may

be a good place to obtain a general summary of the topic and to look for related links toadditional, helpful information. Just be careful to verify all facts by using another, more

reliable, source and quote that source instead.

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8. Unify Your Ideas

Your introduction and conclusion can make or break a research paper. The introductionshould prepare the reader to explore your topic by exciting interest in the topic or by

demonstrating how and why the information is relevant to the reader. It should alsointroduce the main points of the paper.

As you write the body of the paper, make sure that your ideas stay focused on the topic youintroduced: discard extraneous information that, though it may be interesting, distracts

from the ideas presented in the introduction. The conclusion should restate and summarizethe ideas presented in the introduction, thus unifying your presentation.

9. Connect Your Dots

Good transition words, phrases, and sentences help your readers connect the dots from oneidea to another. You can use words such as first , second , third , finally , etc. to help highlight

different points of your outline as you convert the organizational ideas into prose form.

Words and phrases such as however , moreover , in addition to, on the other hand , andconsequently  help the reader understand how ideas relate to one another, whether by

expanding the previous idea, contradicting the previous idea, or showing the consequenceof the idea. The use of good transitions adds clarity to your writing and is the mark of amature and logical writing style.

10. Strengthen Your Style

As you advance to the final stages of your project, take time to polish your paper by

working to improve your style. There are several ways to accomplish this: (1) Check for

grammar and spelling errors that may overshadow all your brilliant work. (2) Make sure thatyour sentence structure has good variety and is not monotonous. (3) Check to see if youcan convert any of your passive-voice sentences to active voice instead, as it is usually the

stronger and clearer voice. (4) Review your vocabulary choices and determine if you canmake better word choices, words that clearly and accurately convey the information and

appropriately represent the literary level of the project. (5) Incorporate literary elementssuch as parallelism to make your writing more elegant and quotable.

As with all your writing, the final step should be to read the paper aloud to yourself or

someone else. This is the best way to catch awkward wording that could trip up a reader. By

following these guidelines, almost anyone can produce a great research report. For morehelpful aids, see the Research Resource Guide (sidebar) to find sites that will set you onyour research adventure.

Research Resource Guide

• A Research Guide for Students: How to Write an A+ Research Paper —

www.aresearchguide.com/1steps.html 

• Free Britannica Research Guide E-Book for Elementary Students—

info.eb.com/training/materials/RSR_BSE.pdf  

• Internet Public Library—www.ipl.org 

• Guide to MLA Format—owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01 

Citation Generators

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• EasyBib—www.easybib.com 

• KnightCite—www.calvin.edu/library/knightcite/index.php 

• CiteFast—www.citefast.com 

 Amelia Harper is a homeschooling mother of five and a pastor’s wife. She is also the author

of Literary Lessons from The Lord of the Rings , a complete one-year literature curriculumdesigned for secondary-level homeschooled students. In addition, she is an English tutor

and a freelance writer who contributes regularly to newspapers and magazines. For moreinformation, go to www.homescholarbooks.com. 

Copyright 2012, used with permission. All rights reserved by author. Originally appeared in

the July 2012 issue of The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, the family education magazine.

Read the magazine free at www.TOSMagazine.com or read it on the go and download the

free apps at www.TOSApps.com to read the magazine on your mobile devices.