Proposal writing

Introduction
Report writing is a slightly different skill from essay writing so this section of the web-page has been produced to help you to gain maximum credit in the postgraduate pathways. Many reports are interesting but do not do justice to the quality of the work done as the authors are unsure of some of the formal requirements that reports are expected to meet.

This guide is intentionally and unashamedly basic. Its intention is to reassure those people who lack confidence in their ability to write acceptable reports. It will not be necessary for many students, but it won't take you long to read it and discover whether you need any advice or not.

Please be a little cautious about consigning this guide to the bucket unread. People may know perfectly well what they ought to have done, but the pressure of a deadline results in some carelessness. If nothing else, you could use the sub-headings in this guide as a checklist that you have given thought to the various aspects that we cover.

There is very little that can be given as rigid prescription of what you must do: 'submit an appropriate report at the right time' is about the nearest we get to a clear imperative.

We can confidently assert that our examiners do not want to be bored by predictable regurgitation and slavish conformity; they hope to be delighted by the quality of personal insights, by evidence of original and creative thinking, by the sensitive adaptation of form to content.

This is official .....
In the official documentation for the postgraduate studies at Jordanhill, it says the following:
Students must adhere to the following procedures. They must:

present written material in a structured, clear and coherent form;
abide by prescribed, approved or negotiated procedures for the work planned;
submit work for assessment by the agreed date;
present written work of a length which is within prescribed limits;
identify sources of evidence in a form which facilitates easy access by others.

Let's take a look at each of these.

Material has to be structured, clear and coherent.
Structure. Not only should your report be covertly structured (as, for example, might be appropriate in a literary essay), but the structure should be made explicit and obvious by careful use of headings and sub-headings. This means structuring your content and then planning the use of capital letters, underlining and bold-lettering to make the structure easily seen by your readers. There is no requirement that all sections and sub-sections be numbered; but if they are, then please do not go beyond three numbers (e.g. 7.2.2).

There is no broad structure that is best for all reports. You should consider the task set and the specific assessment criteria to assist you. It should help the examiner move logically through your account and make sense with you data.

Hint:

Students regularly tell us that, having decided the overall structure, they have great difficulty in starting to write. There is no need to start the process of writing at the beginning!

Start with the section that seems easiest - this is often the description of your activity, the methods bit - then move on to the end, then do the beginning. If you include a summary (and we do recommend this), although it should come very near the front of your report, it should be written last.

Clarity

This may be a matter of structure - see above. It may be a matter of language - see Section D. It may be to do with the quality of your thinking. Usually it is a subtle mix of all three.

There isn't an easy route to clarity, or even a fool-proof method of knowing if you have arrived. To test the clarity of what you have written, try these two strategies.

Read what you have written out loud. Does it sound clear to you when the words are processed at this reduced speed?

Persuade some significant other to be a 'critical friend'. It helps if this person has a sharp intelligence, but is ignorant of the subject of your report. Is your meaning clearly understood by this person?

Coherence

If your structure is pretty good and if you have achieved clarity in presenting your material, the chances are that your report will be thought coherent as well.

The crucial questions to ask yourself are ones like these. Do the bits add up to something? Does each bit seem to relate to what went before? Does the whole thing seem to flow? Have I actually done what I said at the beginning that I was going to do?

ii.

Prescribed, approved or negotiated procedures have to be adhered to.
Remember that your report may be read and assessed by someone other than the person who approved a procedure for you, or negotiated it with you; that other assessor needs to know what was agreed - you may have to tell them.

iii.

Submit the report by the agreed date.

iv.

The length of your report should be within the prescribed limits.
The usual requirement is 3,000 words for a 15 credit point module.

Limits are prescribed for very good reasons, one of which is to protect you from having to do too much. When a report falls well below the limit, it is usually because relevant matters have been omitted or arguments have not been adequately explicated and criticised. When a report is far too long, it is often because the student has been unable to focus on the essential issues and has decided to chuck in everything that might possibly be relevant in the desperate hope that the assessor will be impressed by sheer bulk alone.

Assessors do not count every word. They usually estimate the number of words on an average-looking page and multiply that by the number of pages. You are probably safe if your report is within plus or minus 10% of the prescribed length.

Sources of evidence have to be identified in a form which makes access easy for others.
Please refer to separate instructions at the end of this section about referencing.

From the General Criteria .....
The general criteria for the assessment of postgraduate modules have implications for report writing.

General Criteria for All Modules
In addition to satisfying any module specific criteria, students will be deemed to have achieved a satisfactory standard for any module if they:

display evidence of professional development;

display ability to learn independently;

display adequate grasp of concepts and principles related to the module through appropriate use of language, analysis of situations, response to problems, choice of research methodology;

where professionally appropriate, display ability to locate and comprehend information from literature related to the area of study;

distinguish, where appropriate, between data and inferences using relevant evidence and logically valid arguments;

display proper ethical standards of behaviour (e.g. in respecting confidentiality of data or in displaying attitudes appropriate to countering discriminatory practice).

Students should display evidence of professional development.
It is worth asking what kind of evidence will allow the reader to make the inference that you have developed professionally.

Useful in this regard is the distinction between experience and learning - between what happened to you and what you learned from it. Experience does not automatically teach very much: 'a fool at 20 and three times the fool at 60'; 'not twenty years' experience - one year's experience repeated nineteen times'. Reflection can often turn experience into learning. This all means that a straightforward description of what happened to you, or of what you did, will not provide adequate evidence of learning.

The answer is to make sure that you include in your report things like these.

'I reflected on this experience and realised for the first time that this was of direct relevance to my classroom practice. For example .....'

'When I considered these findings in relation to the familiar folk wisdom of my colleagues, I understood the need of a good theory to guide practice.'

'Although these findings of mine must be tentative they suggest five action points which, if carefully implemented, would greatly enhance social work practice.'

The key evidence will relate to learning, self-awareness and applicability.

ii.

Students should display ability to learn independently.
Please notice the word learning again: you have not just to do things independently, you have to learn from them. Again a merely descriptive account may be necessary, but it will not be sufficient.

Secondly, 'independently' may mean 'on your own'. However, it would show real independence of action if you set up a self-help group with fellow students!

This group will be useful to work with on all aspects of the module including the assignment but the work submitted for assessment needs to be your ideas or needs to acknowledge others contributing to it. The word can also imply an element of unpredictability and creativity: you should show 'independence of mind'. Don't be afraid to say things like: 'The tutor recommended A, but because of X and Y, I actually did B'. But also remember that creativity is rather more than a bizarre leap out of ignorance into the unknown .....

iii.

Students should display an adequate grasp of concepts & principles.
This is the core; this is essential; this is the sine qua non. One little point: if your tutor keeps hammering away about the central concepts of the module then it is simple common-sense to use these concepts centrally and explicitly in your report. Tutors get quite miffed if a report, however sound, could have been written by someone who had never done the work of the module. You, therefore, need to make explicit the theoretical context in which your work is located and show how your study has advanced your understanding of these ideas.

iv.

Students should display ability to locate and comprehend information from literature related to the area of study.
It is not enough to simply quote from and give appropriate references for key texts as set out in section 8.3. You should use direct quotation sparingly, rather synthesise and evaluate the work of others in your own words, thereby demonstrating that you have a 'deep' understanding of the text.

Students should distinguish between data and inferences.
This often gives problems. There are significant semantic and philosophical problems in drawing clear-cut distinctions between data and inferences, as there are for facts and conclusions. We are aware of the thin ice, but are going to skate over it.

Example. 'I saw there were no teachers in the staff room between 4.00 and 4.30 p.m.' This is an observation; observation gives data.

'Unprompted staff leave the school at 4.00 p.m.' This goes beyond observation to inference - perhaps some staff were working in staff bases. The inference may be right, but we need more evidence to be sure.

'The staff are not committed to extended professionalism.' This involves a huge inferential leap from the original data.

Example. 'I have seen six of the things called swans; they were all white.' You have some data. 'All swans are white.' You have made an inference; the next swan may be black - although this is unlikely.

It's OK to deal with data; it's OK to draw inferences from your data; you have to be clear which is which.

If you make a big inferential leap, word it with caution - as a kind of hypothesis. 'It is tempting to conclude ..... but further evidence is desirable.'

Knowledge is what belief becomes when the evidence is good enough.

vi.

Students should display proper ethical standards.
During your work you should adhere to professional ethical standards; in your report it should be clear that you have done so. If you unintentionally transgress during your work, and later discover this, then come clean about it.

You must not try to delude your readers into thinking that other people's work is your own. Further information is included in the University Policy on cheating - see section 1.5.

There is a substantial literature on the ethics of research. You should think hard, and take advice if you are uncertain, about the ethics both of access and of publication. Issues of confidentiality and privacy have to be carefully considered.

The criterion above can also apply to aspects of how you write up your work. Your report should avoid sexist and racist language and you should be intolerant of any sexist or racist values and actions you may encounter.

Language Matters
There are two general beliefs in the 'outside' world about professional workers' styles of writing:

They are incapable of being economical with words

They use far too much jargon.

It helps to give thought to your audience. Who are you writing for? The obvious answer is your tutor and various unknown additional assessors and external examiners. Think of a 'critical friend', this person has three important characteristics:

s/he is intelligent

s/he is interested in your topic

s/he has no time to waste.

Padding, flannel and waffly word-spinning should be ruthlessly cut out of your report. When using specialised technical vocabulary, define it the first time you use the term.

The following is a real, only slightly doctored, example from an assessment. Apologies to anyone who recognises their own work.

'A mapping out of the range of options of possible development programmes can progress with a degree of rationality and logic only when evidence gathered from reflection on previous learning and the knowledge, attitudes, skills and competences involves in that learning and accruing from it is set alongside insightful awareness of the current needs that are possessed by the learner because of the demands of current and emergent professional occupational roles.'

(An absurdly over-complicated sentence trying to impress an academic examiner?)

Guidance on Presentation
Your report has to provide evidence of what you have learned and of the quality of your analytical, critical and creative thinking. Compared with these all the following things are relatively trivial; this does not mean they have no importance. Postgraduate students are expected to be competent at report writing; the public expects certain standards of presentation from educated professionals. Your examiners are only human - they may fail to detect the quality of your mind in a report which is illegible, badly-spelled and devoid of helpful punctuation.

Acknowledgements
A list of acknowledgements is not always necessary. It is always gracious and courteous to acknowledge special help from people - but don't go to ridiculous lengths.

Acronyms
The use of acronyms is only defensible if you spell them out fully the first time you use them.
'The seminar was organised by the Scottish Council for Research in Education (SCRE) .....'

Appendix
An appendix is a useful device for getting around the prescription of a maximum length when you find you have too much to say. Useful things to put in an appendix include things like copies of questionnaires and working documents from the interim stages of data analysis etc. Non-print materials can form part of an appendix: audio and video tapes and computer disks. Never put anything in an appendix which is essential to a reader's understanding of the main report; assume that no-one other than your tutor will ever bother to read appendices.

Figures and Tables
Figures and tables should be helpful summaries of important information. If the content is not that important, but might (for example) help the assessor to check your calculations, then put the figure or table in the appendix. Conventionally, figures contain graphical information (for example, diagrams) and tables contain numerical information.

All tables and figures should be numbered and all should have a helpful title which helps the reader to see quickly what they are about.

Legibility
Reports should be typed or word-processed and clearly structured with headings and numbered, if appropriate. Remember that some typed reports are easy to read, in the sense that each individual word is clear, but they do not give the reader any pleasure. (One report received last year was word-processed in capital letters throughout with no overt structuring of any kind; in narrow terms it was highly legible - but it nearly drove the examiners nuts.)

Pagination
Please number each page.

Paragraphs
Ideally a paragraph should contain one main idea and any amplification or discussion of that idea. If you find yourself writing paragraphs longer than about a third of a page, this probably means that you are not giving enough attention to structuring your thinking and to presenting it with maximum clarity.

Proof Reading
Please do it - even when you are perilously close to the submission deadline. Professional proof readers say it is necessary to proof read any text twice, once for sense and once to detect presentational errors. Some even claim to do the second proof reading backwards to avoid being seduced by the sense of the argument.

Quotations
Other people's work must be acknowledged; sources must be identified in sufficient detail for others to check them.

You have a responsibility not to misquote people. There is another, more subtle pitfall: this is the careful selection of quotes which support your line of argument while blithely ignoring those that don't. This is known as exampling.

As always strict honesty is the best policy; do not hesitate to write something like this. 'Four of the people interviewed said very similar things which support this view; however two expressed very different opinions. Miss X, for example, said that ....'

Spelling
The majority of us have a few words that we regularly mis-spell. Do you know what yours are? If not, enlist the help of that critical friend to help you identify them. Word processed documents should always be spell-checked.

Summary
A summary is nearly always a very good idea; make it no more than one page long and put it at the beginning. Your summary should cover: why you did it; what you did; what you found and how is that important.

Title
Put a little thought into the title of your report. If it turns out to be more than about seven words long, then think again. The title should clearly identify the main focus of your work - but it should not try to be a summary of your report.