IRS – Final Report

Phase 6 – Final Report

• Dates: December 6-8

Final Report Sections

Introduction

• Briefly introduce your topic in a paragraph or so.
• Engage the reader with a rationale for reading this study.
• Be sure to include any personal reasons for being interested in this study

Project Goals

• Briefly communicate the goals of the study.
• What relationships are you investigating?
• What is the measurable purpose of the study?

Background Research

• This is where you will insert the background information that you have collected.
• This is a formal paper, cited properly, to give the reader a background in the topic being investigated.
• Nothing personal is included here.
• No personal opinions or personal interpretations of any information are to be included here.
• Do not speculate about ideas or relationships.
• This is pure, objective research. [LINK]

Experimental Design

• In this section you will include all of the aspects of your experimental design.
• Insert drawings and other helpful visuals of the experimental setup.
• This section includes your procedure and all of the details of how you executed your study.
• Be sure and include all of the information from the work already prescribed. [LINK]

Data

• While it might not be practical to include all of your data in the body of the report, you should have all of the data included as part of an appendix to your report.
• This should include a summary of the data, without interpretation.
• Also include any appropriate remarks about how the study was conducted, especially if any modifications were made along the way. [LINK]

Data Analysis

• You should include the results of how you interpreted the data collected.
• You should summarize any calcualtions and statistical analysis performed along the way.
• What showed a relationship? What didn’t show a relationship?
• DO NOT add your commentary in this section.
• This is a place to report, objectively, what you found.
• Graphs and tables are inserted in this section. [LINK]

Discussion of Results

• In this section you get to connect your findings with the prior research.
• Your opinion about the meaning of the results is appropriate here.
• Don’t start too far outside of this box, though, and connect your results with topics and ideas not already presented.
• If you need to fill in some additional research in that section so that you can compare your results to new information then please go back and do so.
• What could you have done differently? What are the next steps?
• Style away… and tell me what you really think!