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1、大学英语精读第6册全文课文翻译第六册RESEARCH REPORTS FOR BUSINESS AND THECNICAL WRITING A surprising amount of ones time as a student and professional is spent reporting the results of ones research projects for presentation to teachers, managers, and clients. Indeed, without basic research skills and the ability to
2、present research results clearly and completely, an individual will encounter many obstacles in school and on the job. The need for some research-writing ability is felt nearly equally by college students in all fields, engineering and science as well as business and the humanities. Graduate study o
3、ften makes great demands on the students research-writing skills, and most professions continue the demand; education, advertising and marketing, economics and accounting, science and engineering, psychology, anthropology, the arts, and agriculture may all require regular reporting of research data.
4、ELEMENTS OF THE RESEARCH PAPERThe standard research report, regardless of the field or the intended reader, contains four major sections. These sections may be broken down into a variety of subsections, and they may be arranged in a variety of ways, but they regularly make up the core of the report.
5、Problem Section. The first required section of a research report is the statement of the problem with which the research project is concerned. This section requires a precise statement of the underlying question which the researcher has set out to answer. In this same section there should be an expl
6、anation of the significance - social, economic, medical, psychological, educational, etc. - of the question; in other words, why the investigation was worth conducting. Thus, if we set out, for example, to answer the question What is the effect of regular consumption of fast foods on the health of t
7、he American teenager? we must explain that the question is thought to have significant relevance to the health of this segment of the population and might lead to some sort of regulations on such foods.A frequent subsection of this problem section is a review of past research on the topic being inve
8、stigated. This would consist of summaries of the contributions of previous researcher to the question under consideration with some assessment of the value of these contributions. This subsection has rhetorical usefulness in that it enhances the credibility of the researcher by indicating that the d
9、ata presented is based on a thorough knowledge of what has been done in the field and, possibly, grows out of some investigative tradition.Procedures Section. The second major section of the research report details, with as much data as possible, exactly how the study was carried out. This section i
10、ncludes description of any necessary equipment, how the subjects were selected if subjects were used, what statistical technique was used to evaluate the significance of the findings, how many observations were made and when, etc. An investigation of the relative effectiveness of various swim-stroke
11、s would have to detail the number of swimmers tested, the nature of the tests conducted, the experience of the swimmers, the weather conditions at the time of the test, and any other factors that contributed to the overall experiment. The goal of the procedures section is to allow the reader to dupl
12、icate the experiment if such were desired to confirm, or refute, your findings.Results Section. The third, and perhaps most important, section of the research report is the presentation of the results obtained from the investigation. The basic rule in this section is to give all data relevant to the
13、 research question initially asked. Although, of course, ones natural tendency might be to suppress any findings which do not in some way support ones hypothesis, such dishonesty is antithetical to good research reporting in any field. If the experiments undertaken fail to prove anything, if the dat
14、a was inadequate or contrary to expectations, the report should be honestly written and as complete as possible, just as it would be if the hypothesis were totally proven by the research.Discussion Section. The final required section of a research report is a discussion of the results obtained and a
15、 statement of any conclusions which may be drawn from those results. Of primary interest in business and technical research reports is the validity of the results as the bases for company decisions: Will our planned construction project meet federal environmental guidelines and be approved for build
16、ing? Will this new program attract skilled personnel to our company? Will this new oil recovery technique be financially feasible? Thus, the discussion section of the research report must evaluate the research results fully: were they validly obtained, are they complete or limited, are they applicable over a wide range of circumstances? The discussion section should also point out what question remain unanswered and perhaps suggest directions for further research
