Chapter 7: Reporting Research Findings

Graduate Program
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Overview
• Writing a scientific report
• Presenting research findings (oral)

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Writing a Scientific Report
• In today’s digitized world, written scientific reports are
ubiquitously accessible all over the world
• Hence, produce written scientific reports that are of good
quality and standard
• In the presence of similar reports, readers chooses to read
a papers that are informative, clear, and understandable
• Written presentation is basic means of communication
• Conference report
• Technical report
• Abstract
• Theses/dissertation
• Research (thesis) proposal, books, manuals assignment report
• …

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Elements of Good Writing
• Technical writing
• “structures information using both text and design to achieve an
intended purpose for clearly defined audiences”
• Elements of good Technical Writing
• Thoughtfulness
• What is written has been thought over for several times
• Persuasive and economical, both in structure and words
• Correctness
• Grammar, punctuation, spelling, and proper syntax
• Appropriateness
• Have the right tone (professional) and avoids verbosity
• Readability
• Text flows smoothly, reader knows where the paragraph is heading
• Summaries may be used to assist reader to digest chapter or section

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Elements of Good Writing …
• Characteristics of good research report
• Succinct and formal: Try to say a lot in few words
• Be professional and serious
• Maintain accuracy and clarity
• Always keep your objectives and your audience in mind

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Elements of Good Writing – Purpose
• “Writing is a purpose driven activity”
• A written presentation has to meet specific needs which depend on
the purpose of the writing

• Technical writing may be used to describe, clarify, evaluate

and critique, synthesize and integrate, summarize,
teaching (such as text books or manuals), convincing
people to buy our ideas

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Elements of Good Writing – Purpose
• The initial step to writing well is knowing purpose of writing
• In the case of scientific writing, the purpose is to get across
an idea, a finding, etc. across to a wider readership

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Elements of Good Writing – Purpose
• In short the goals of technical writing are
• To tell others what you found and how you found it (or them)
• This is a record of your research process, not just a summary of your
findings
• To let others benefit from your work and experience (includes
negative experiences)
• To give an indication of where you or other researchers might go
next
• A poorly written paper is either
• a consequence of deficiency in understanding the purpose of writing or
• lack of proper implementation

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Elements of Good Writing - Target Audience
• One does not write to himself, writing is targeted for the
benefit of others
• Focus on the need of the reader, not on the writer’s desire
• Tailor your report to the perceived level of scientific
understanding

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Elements of Good Writing - The Organization
• General structure of a typical scientific report
• Title
• Acknowledgement
• Abstract
• Table of Contents
• Lists of Figures and Tables
• Introduction
• Materials and methods
• Results
• Discussion/Conclusion
• References
• Appendices, where applicable

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Elements of Good Writing - Results
• Core section of the scientific report and answers the
question
• “What did you obtain from the experiments you conducted?”
• The results section
• Describes what you learned about the problem as a result of your
research
• Identifies the degree of accuracy related to your findings
• Gives the reader your view of the significance of your findings
• Results include
• Assumptions and definitions
• Simulations
• Experiments
• Limitation of the results

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Elements of Good Writing – Results …
• The presentation of the results must be clear and arranged
in a logical order
• Present results in tables and figures/graphs in stead of
words
• However, make sure that you properly label your tables and note
the legends of your figures
• Each table/figure should be a standalone as an information
• The words in the body of the paper that accompany each table or
figure are to provide further elaboration of the results
• Some readers skim through the charts, tables and figures
presented to get a quick grasp of the results

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Elements of Good Writing – Results …
• Draw the attention of the reader to those results that you
deem significant or interesting
• Indicate trends or changes that the average reader may not
easily observe
• There is always the temptation to not include those
outcomes that do not support or go contrary to your
expectation
• Omitting these results is unprofessional and will not present the
entire picture to your reader
• Common practice is to include comparative results from
other works in the results section

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Discussion, Conclusion & Recommendations
• This component basically answers the question
• “What do the results mean?”
• Discussions
• Interpretation of your results
• Generalizations and abstractions from your results
• Describes how accurate your findings are
• What is the significance of the results of the research
• Conclusion
• Is summary of the report – the work and the results.
• Restatement of results: What are the factual findings that resulted
from your research? What are you implying as a result of these
findings?
• Concluding Remarks: What are your opinions based on the
findings and results?

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Discussion, Conclusion & Recommendations
• Recommendations : may indicate a course of action on the
applications of the results and findings or suggestions for
future work
• Put your interpretation of results in context of the existing
body of scientific knowledge
• Avoid making overreaching generalizations that go beyond
the scope of the results you obtained
• In totality, the results component should contain
• Summing the work in the output of the work accomplished
• Give further research direction or suggestions
• In this way, the paper leaves the readers with a clear
impression about your work

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Elements of Good Writing - Appendices
• If more than five symbols, abbreviations, or acronyms are
used in the report, they are to be listed with their
explanation

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Elements of Good Writing – Good Practices
• Some principles & good Practices in technical writing
• Outline your ideas before you start (themes, questions,
propositions, and other logical steps in an argument)
• Draw a diagram or mind map of relationship between ideas
• Write the body (Abstract to Conclusion/Recommendation) of the
report first
• Then write the front (Title to Table of Content) and
• back matter (Appendix to list of Acronym)
• Write summaries of individual sections (to be deleted later)
• Write regularly
• Talk about your ideas before, during, and after writing them down
• Get regular feedback on what you write, from a peer or peers in the
same subject, and from your advisor (ask for a specific feedback
such as clarity of ideas and concepts)

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Elements of Good Writing – Good Practices …
• Composing
• Composing: Getting ideas onto paper -paragraph and sentences
• Sentence: Consistent and simple structure; main aim is clarity
• Notation: Consistent and suggestive; Avoid unnecessary notation
• Formulas
• Are part of the regular text
• Create equations with equation editors
• Number all equations
• Figures/Tables
• Caption must always be meaningful and easily understood
• Explanation of the figures must be given in the text
• Axes of graphs must be labeled, units shown, and meaning explained
• Use appropriate scale for eligibility of information in the graph
• If colored graphics are used, let them have sharp contrast w.r.t. the
background as well as among other graphs

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Elements of Good Writing – Good Practices …
• Reading and Revising
• Read the draft after some time since the first writing
• Read the draft as if it were written by another person
• Proofread
• Read for logic, cohesion and comprehension
• Does what you read reflect you intentions?
• Check the citations
• Read with one aspect or rule at a time (flow, grammar, etc)
• Get someone to read for you
• Always be ready to rewrite 3 to 4 times over

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Elements of Good Writing – Good Practices …
• Editorial, format and layout issues in technical writings
• Paper size
• Font type, size and typeface
• Line (and new line) spacing
• Paragraph indentations
• Columns in a page
• Page/column margin sizes
• Figures/graphs/tables
• Equations
• List of figures, acronyms

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Overview
• Writing a scientific report
• Orally presenting research findings
• Plan the presentation
• Prepare the presentation
• Deliver the presentation

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Presenting Research Findings (Oral)
• Objective
• Need to acquired skills necessary to effectively communicate your
research findings using oral medium
• Supplemented with audiovisual system

• Required considerations
• Preparing a scientific presentation
• Identify audience
• Organize the presentation to be informative
• Consider stylistic issues to make interesting presentation
• Avoid common errors

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Presenting Research Findings …
• Presentation is conveying information to others via
• Speaking – oral - or
• In written form – reports
• Purposes of presentation are
• Communicating with others
• Persuading others
• Training/teaching others
• Graduating
• …
• Presentation is also an important part of professional
practice
• Good presentation skill contributes to professional success

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Presenting Research Findings …
• Oral presentation, unlike written presentations, is a direct
communication between a presenter and audience
• Oral presentation requires
• A lot of practice
• Mastering the art of gauging a presentation to the audience in a
clear, interesting and informative manner

Speaker Audience
Wants to convey something May want to listen and benefit
One person, usually Many persons
Familiar with the topic May not be familiar with topic

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Planning Presentation – Issues
• Determine the objective (type) of talk which may be
• Talk to present new research results
• Review/Overview talk
• Tutorial talk
• Training/Teaching
• Presentation for selling an idea or a product (proposal)
• ….
• Assess knowledge level of audience
• Homogeneity of audience
• Knowledge of audience
• Tailor your talk to the audience
• Major points you want to present
• 3-5 points

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Planning Presentation – Organizing
• In the case of presenting a research finding organize
message(s) around the followings
1. Why was the work done? State problem and goal
2. What are possible solutions? State solutions
3. What findings resulted from the work? Present results of the
work
4. What do the results imply? State implications/consequences of
the work

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Planning Presentation – Organizing …
• There are basic organizational principles common to
presentations
• E.g., a graduate seminar, thesis/dissertation defense, a scientific
meeting talk, etc.
• Focus the presentation to the
• Topic
• Hypothesis
• Objective or
• Question the research is addressing
• Avoid side issues that may distract the audience from the
core ideas

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Planning Presentation – Structure
1. Overview of the presentation
• Overview, introduction, motivation 20%
2. Main presentation
• Main body of the talk 70%
• Methods, Analysis, Results & Discussions
3. Tell what you told them again
• Summary 10%
• Conclusion and Recommendation

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Planning Presentation – Structure …
• Focus on few main points
• Design presentations around time
• Check the allowed time
• Make a story line in a logically efficient order
• Order in which the work is carried out
• This may not be the best order of presentation

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Planning Presentation – Structure …
• Create a logical order for your presentation
• Cover
• Title
• Authors/Affiliations
• Intro
• Problem statement
• Research question
• Literature review
• Main
• Research method
• Research design
• Key assumptions
• Results/discussion

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Planning Presentation – Structure …
• Ending
• Implications/conclusion & recommendations
• Limitations of results
• Future work

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Planning Presentation – Structure …
• Check regularly whether
• Focus is on the main points
• For logic and structure
• Keep the allotted time in mind
• Use powerpoint, seminar package, beamer

• Possess basic skills in using presentation software such as

Microsoft’s PowerPoint

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Stylistic Issues: The Slide
• Give emphasis to the way slides are designed & presented
• Slide should be clearly visible and legible to the audience
members sitting even at the very back of the room
• Therefore, certain points to consider include
• Layout, background, font, …

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Stylistic Issues: The Slide …
• Layout
• Slide background color and color of text should have a sharp
contrast
• E.g., if the background is midnight blue, then the text could be white
or bright yellow

• How about orange on black ?

• If unsure about what color combination to use for the text

and background, the safest choice is to use black text on
white background

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Stylistic Issues: The Slide …
• Background
• After choosing an appropriate slide background, stick to the
choice, i.e., use the same background throughout the presentation
• Particularly for scientific presentations, a plain background is
preferred
• A gradient of the shades of the same color is also acceptable

• If graphic, picture, etc. are to be added in the background,

make sure that it is
• Subject appropriate and
• Does not draw attention away from the text and figures

• Party balloons, a motorcycle flying off a cliff, etc are not

deemed appropriate

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Stylistic Issues: The Slide …
• Font
• ‘Small’ case letters are easier to read than ‘CAPITALIZED’ letters
• The type, size and typeface of the font are equally important
• Select a font type that is easily legible and has sufficient spacing
between letters
• Do not use condensed fonts, where one letter appears to overlap
with the next

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Stylistic Issues: The Slide …
• Font size, may be in the range of 18 to 28
• A good starting point is twenty-four
• Adjust the font size particularly for titles, graph legends, etc,…

• Using bold font typeface throughout is not necessary

• Limit the use of bold fonts for titles, headers and words you want to
emphasize

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Stylistic Issues: The Slide …
• Limit the fonts to at most 2 different types
• To assess whether your slides are clear, visible and legible
• View them projected on a white wall or screen and seated a fair
distance away
• If opportunity allows, preview your slides in the same auditorium or
conference room where the actual presentation will take place

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Stylistic Issues: The Slide …
• Content of pages in the slide – Text
• Slides should contain figures (images, graphs or tables)
whenever possible
• Use of text be limited to
• State the problem
• Frame the problem
• Summarize results
• State major conclusions
• A slide with more lines of text will bore your audience
• State key concepts in bulleted phrases or short declarative
statements and cover the details verbally

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Stylistic Issues: The Slide …
• Don’t write (and READ) every single word on your slides in
full sentences
• Assume literate audience
• That can read for themselves
• Otherwise
• You will be making the presenter a redundant
• Who does not add value to the presentation

• Avoid crowding each slide with a dense text

• Limit the slide pages
• Consider the rule minimum 10s - 100s per slide or average 60 s
per slid

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Stylistic Issues: The Slide …
• For technical presentations may be “2 minutes per slide”
required
• One slide ~ one message!
• Don’t overdo formulas
• Be created with equation editor
• Watch your colors (at most 3 colors)

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Stylistic Issues: The Slide …
• Content of pages in the slide – Tables and graphs
• Have only few columns and/or rows
• If need be, breakdown your table into bite-sized snippets that the
audience can absorb and digest
• Graphs, drawings or pictures should be clearly viewable
• Variables on both axes scaled and clearly shown with units
• Appropriate coloring for sharp contrast with background and other
content in the slide

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Stylistic Issues: The Slide …
• Errors
• Major/minor errors such as misspelled words, grammatical errors,
punctuation mistakes, etc
• Errors convey to the audience that you have not put in enough
attention to your work

• The implication of errors is the audience will be skeptical

about the soundness of the work
• If the presenter did not pay attention to the material
displayed in public, can he/she really be trusted to pay due
diligence during the actual conduct of the research?
• Avoid errors at all costs! Check spelling and grammar

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The Presenter: General
• Pay attention to your own present-ability
• Oral presentations provide opportunities to impress
colleagues and fellow scientists
• Thus due care should be taken in preparing yourself for
presentation
• Accepted norms that a presenter should generally follow
• Physical appearance and mannerism

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The Presenter: Physical Appearance
• Dress appropriately, be clean and attractive
• Though there is no defined dress code, certain “don’ts”
that one should follow
• Do not dress shabbily
• Do not come with unkempt/undressed hair and untreated beard
• Do not wear slippers
• Do not wear jeans and T-shirt
• Other extremely causal clothing
• Further, shabby/causal dress unnecessarily draws the
• Attention of the audience away from the slides and
• Core ideas you are trying to communicate

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The Presenter: Mannerisms
• Certain mannerisms may be magnified when standing in
front of an audience
• Some mannerisms may be the symptoms of standing
nervously in front of an unfamiliar crowd
• Mannerisms could manifest in many ways
• E.g., gestures such as scratching your nose or behind the ear,
rubbing the palms, etc.
• Thus try to exercise and avoid or minimize these, say
during rehearsal
• Speak loudly and clearly; avoid monotony; change volume,
speed, rhythm; make pauses

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The Presenter: Others Related Issues
• Language (English)
• Keep it simple (concise/short but accurate)
• Emphasize the key points (and minimize on less essentials)
• Check the difficult pronunciations
• Ending a point and beginning a new point
• Slow down and higher volume
• Short pauses
• Appropriate expressions
• Interact with audience
• Questions to audience (not frequently)
• Be open to questions

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Practicing/Rehearsing
• After completing the slide preparation, rehearse it
• It is not appropriate to memorize every single word
• Practice/rehearse the talk until it is smooth and you no
longer require supplemental notes to guide you
• Moreover, include transition sentences that will make the
move from one slide to the next a natural progression

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Practicing/Rehearsing
• Have an ending prepared such as
• “Thank you for your attention, does anyone have any questions?”
• “That concludes my talk, I will be happy to take your questions”
• Do it in front of a mirror, for friends, while walking, etc.
• Oral presentations commonly have strict time limits

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Practicing/Rehearsing
• Make eye contact with your audience
• Take sufficient time to describe the
• Axes on graphs
• Symbols in your figures
• Columns in your tables
• …
• Draw audiences‘ to the points you wish to highlight by
using a pointer such as a
• Laser
• Stick or
• Computer mouse

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Practicing/Rehearsing
• When making reference to the work of others, always
mention name(s) of those responsible for the work
• Do not just say “The people who did this work …” or “They
determined that …”
• Instead say “Fisseha et al. studied this same problem …”

• State actual values, explain the trends, …

• E.g., “The growth was 25 percent more …” [while pointing at the
number]
• “The trend shows a steep decline…” [while pointing at the graph]
• Acknowledge and thank individuals who contributed for the
work
• Finish on time!

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Questions and Answers (Q&A)
• If the audience does not come forward to ask questions, it
is either because
• They did not find the presentation interesting or
• No new information has been gained

• If you do not clearly understand the questions posed,

politely ask the person to clarify or repeat the question
• Avoid turning the Q&A session into a dialogue between
yourself and the person asking the question
• May be the person is not satisfied with the answer and may pose a
follow-up question
• In such instances, it is customary to attempt to clarify your answer

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Questions and Answers …
• An audience who is persistently asking questions is not
(might not be) because s/he wants to embarrass you in
front of your peers
• Rather because s/he wants to engage in an honest
scientific debate about a matter of importance or interest to
him/her

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Questions and Answers …
• If you have no idea on how to answer a question
• Simply acknowledge the importance of the question and
• State that you do not have a ready answer
• DO NOT make up an answer if you do not have one!
• Fibbing an answer usually leads to more questions
• Making up a false answer diminishes your credibility as a scientist
in the eyes of your peers

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