The Writer's Handbook

Writing Scientific Reports

This section describes an organizational structure commonly used to report experimental research in many scientific disciplines, the IMRAD format: Introduction, Methods, Results, And Discussion.

Although the main headings are standard for many scientific fields, details may vary; check with your instructor, or, if submitting an article to a journal, refer to the instructions to authors.

Use the menu below to find out how to write each part of a scientific report.

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The Abstract

The guidelines below address issues to consider when writing an abstract

What is the report about, in miniature and without specific details?

State main objectives. (What did you investigate? Why?)
Describe methods. (What did you do?)
Summarize the most important results. (What did you find out?)
State major conclusions and significance. (What do your results mean? So what?)

What to avoid:

Do not include references to figures, tables, or sources.
Do not include information not in report.

Additional tips:

Find out maximum length (may vary from 50 to 300+ words).
Process: Extract key points from each section. Condense in successive revisions.