12-10-2012, 02:15 PM
MECHANICS OF WRITING A RESEARCH REPORT
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MECHANICS OF WRITING A RESEARCH REPORT
There are very definite and set rules which should be followed in the actual preparation of the research report or paper.
The following points deserve mention so far as the mechanics of writing a report are concerned:
Size and physical design
The manuscript should be written on unruled paper 8 ½’’ × 11’’ in size.
A margin of at least one and one-half inches should be allowed at the left hand and of at least half an inch at the right hand of the paper. There should also be one-inch margins, top and bottom.
Treatment of quotations:
Quotations should be placed in quotation marks and double spaced, forming an immediate part of the text. But if a quotation is of a considerable length (more than four or five type written lines) then it should be single-spaced and indented at least half an inch to the right of the normal text margin.
The footnotes:
Regarding footnotes one should keep in view the followings:
The footnotes serve two purposes viz., the identification of materials used in quotations in the report and the notice of materials not immediately necessary to the body of the research text but still of supplemental value.
Footnotes are placed at the bottom of the page on which the reference or quotation which they identify or supplement ends
Footnotes should be numbered consecutively, usually beginning with 1 in each chapter separately
Use of statistics, charts and graphs:
Statistics are usually presented in the form of tables, charts, bars and line-graphs and pictograms.
It should be suitable and appropriate looking to the problem at hand.
The final draft:
Revising and rewriting the rough draft of the report should be done with great care before writing the final draft.
For the purpose, the researcher should put to himself questions like:
Are the sentences written in the report clear?
Are they grammatically correct?
Do the various points incorporated in the report fit together logically?
Preparation of the index:
At the end of the report, an index should invariably be given, the value of which lies in the fact that it acts as a good guide, to the reader
Index may be prepared both as subject index and as author index.
The index should always be arranged alphabetically.