16 Data Reporting

Data reporting is a common genre of writing in both professional and academic environments and in a variety of disciplines. You will find similar genres in business (in market analyses or white papers, for example), in all social sciences studies, and in lab reports in most STEM fields.  Though each discipline has marked differences in their expected conventions of this type of writing (for example, whether to use first or third person, past or present tense, active or passive voice, etc.), the following 5 sections are usually included in some way:

1. Introduction: provide any necessary background to your study, possibly a review of previous research on the topic (also called a literature review), and, most importantly, point to your research question or hypothesis.
2. Methodology: explain your procedures in collecting quantitative data, qualitative data, or both (called mixed methods). The writing should be clear and concise but detailed enough that your reader could accurately replicate your methods. You may discuss your informants (demographic breakdowns go here, not in the results) and instrumentation.
3. Results: report your findings. The results section should both SHOW (in figures) and TELL (in writing) the results of your study. This section should highlight significant data points and illuminate trends that a reader should notice. In general, if you show results in a figure (or table), you should also write about it, and what you write about, you should also show in a figure. Avoid analysis in this section.
4. Discussion or Analysis: use your results to draw conclusions. This section analyzes your results in the context of your research question or hypothesis. You should focus on what these results mean and what they tell your reader. Point to your results to help you answer these questions.
5. Conclusion: refer to your research question/hypothesis. The conclusion should also discuss the limitations of this study and make projections about the future research/studies.

_{Note: For STEM specific guidelines, check out the handout on IMRaD Writing Structure on the Resources page of The Writing Center’s website: https://www.utsa.edu/twc/Students.html}