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Purpose of This Guide

This guide is intended to help researchers write more effective and more readable reports of empirical research studies. It will be helpful to people who are generally good writers but have little or no experience at writing this type of research report. It may also be helpful to people who are experienced at writing this type of research report but whose reports are not as readable and effective as they might be.

This guide is not intended to be a complete course in writing—not even a complete course in writing research reports. It focuses on the problems that arise in the writing of a particular type of research report. Many people who write reports of empirical research studies also write theoretical papers, methodological papers, position papers, book reviews, or other types of articles. Some of the advice in this guide may apply to those other types of writing, but much of it will not.

This guide is intended to be a compendium of helpful advice, not a list of requirements. The advice it contains is the product of many years of experience in writing research reports and attempting to help others write them. Nevertheless, it represents the opinions of one person. It does not necessarily represent the position of ETS.

An effective research report has—at least—the following four characteristics:

? Focus: an effective report emphasizes the important information.

? Accuracy: an effective report does not mislead the reader.

? Clarity: an effective report does not confuse the reader.

? Conciseness: an effective report does not waste the reader’s time.

Working Ahead

You can begin writing the report of your study before you have actually done thestudy. Working ahead on your report allows you to use your time more efficiently, but there is an even better reason for doing it. Working ahead on the report helps you plan and conduct the study, because it forces you to think systematically about what you want the study to accomplish.

You can begin writing the introductory section of the report as soon as you have decided on the general approach your study will follow. You don’t have to wait until you have completed your research to begin writing your report.

Those interested in receiving the full report should send an email to [email protected]