Some students refer to writing reports for university assignments as to the most unfair and irritating task in their academic writing load. First, you have to write a plan for the assignment, sometimes a proposal (research proposal, for example). Later, you need to deal with a task itself. And after that, when it seems that everything is behind, you have to provide your professor with a report for assignment in question. At some point, it is irritating. However, it can be less challenging if you use report writing tips provided by professional academic authors. Of course, there are different types of stories, and we can’t cover all the rules in this short guide, so choose the ones which are the most applicable to your assignment. Start right away, and you will have a well-thought-out report written in no time.
Always Remember About Structure
We can’t tell you precisely which structure to use, because you might have your own requirements and we don’t want to spoil this assignment for you. However, your primary task is to find those requirements, make sure you understand them and have them in front of you all the time. Reports are not the most original documents ever, so structure matters more than it does when it comes to more creative assignments, like an argumentative essay, position paper, etc. Even if your content happens to be not excellent, the perfect structure will save your score.
Parts of Report Should Be Balanced
There are classic parts of reports inherent to almost any assignment of this kind: Title page, Summary, Contents, List of abbreviations and symbols, Introduction, Body of the report, Conclusions and recommendations, References, Appendices. Sometimes, conclusions and recommendations are included in the body of the report, but rarely — it can only happen if your written university assignment was rather brief. List of abbreviations and symbols is often skipped when the report is not technical. For example, if you have written a research paper on historical matters, it can be omitted, if you have researched Computer Science, it can’t. When saying that all the parts of the report should be balanced, we mean that body part should be more significant than conclusions, introduction and conclusions should take approximately the same space, etc.
Start with Conclusions
Write conclusions before you write an introduction, and later adjust your introduction to it. It will save you time and efforts. You know the conclusions already, and you can write them faster. Introduction and conclusions should be strongly interconnected and be like in one logical structure — there is a possibility that no one will ever read the body part of your report. When you are done with the conclusion, take the most exciting, intriguing, controversial points and mention them in the introduction in the form of a problem statement. Writing a problem (thesis) statement often takes much time, but if you start from the end, it will be much easier.
Don’t Skip Proofreading
It is regrettable when students get low grades for excellent papers just because they’ve skipped proofreading for any reason. It is apparent that you lack time immensely, but it is better to make your report more modest and proofread it thoroughly. Use online grammar checkers and if possible ask someone to read your report — fresh look can come in handy.
When it comes to writing reports the key idea you should embrace is not wasting time. At all. You have all the materials that you need to finish a report, you don’t need to do extra research, etc. If you start immediately after receiving this assignment you can be done in several hours, at least you can be done with the preliminary draft. However, if you decide to procrastinate, you will gradually forget essential points regarding your assignment and lose time analyzing it once again. The quicker you start, the better the final outcome will be. If you are not satisfied with the job you’ve done and don’t have much time to make changes, you can address online writing service for proofreading assistance. It is cheap and efficient, and it is far from cheating, as it is still your paper, written based on your assignment. Good luck!
