COM 4.3b Polishing and Refining Reports & Proposals

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Academic Skills for University Success: Capstone

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The University of Sydney

Academic Skills for University Success: Capstone

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课程 5（共 5 门，Specialization Academic Skills for University Success）

This Specialization is aimed at preparing students for undergraduate study in an English-speaking university. The course equips you for full participation and engagement with your studies by building awareness and understanding of the core values and expectations of academic culture, and providing you with practical strategies to apply to your studies. In the Capstone Project, you will apply the academic knowledge and skills you have learnt throughout courses 1-4 to research, write and present a project proposal that addresses a complex, real-world problem related to your field of interest and/or future study. After completing this course, you will be able to: 1. Apply a range of idea generation techniques 2. Apply research strategies to search, collect, select, process, and cite information 3. Use the research process to develop and critically analyse ideas 4. Apply critical thinking skills to evaluate and analyse ideas and evidence 5. Use problem-solving skills to identify gaps in knowledge and define issues 6. Develop creative and innovative solutions to real-world problems 7. Use appropriate academic genres for written texts and multi-media presentations 8. Use written and oral skills to communicate ideas effectively for academic contexts

从本节课中

RESOURCES - Optional

This module is for the resources from the other courses you have studied. There is no new, or extra, material here. You do not have to watch any of this material.

PSS 5.1a Communicating solutions in academic contexts5:51

PSS 5.1b Communicating Solutions in Written & Oral Form3:36

COM 4.2c Coherence & Cohesion11:51

COM 4.3a Polishing and Refining Essays14:08

COM 4.3b Polishing and Refining Reports & Proposals8:25

COM 4.3d Editing for Language11:09

COM 4.4a Formatting & Proofreading Written Assignments for Sumbission5:50

与讲师见面

Katherine Olston
Deputy Director (Digital Learning)
University of Sydney Centre for English Teaching
Luke Alexander
Academic Literacy Instructor and MOOC Learning Instructor
Centre for English Teaching
Lydia Dutcher
Education Manager, Graduate Programs
Centre for English Teaching
Jessica Blackburn
Academic Literacy Instructor and MOOC Learning Designer
Centre for English Teaching

[MUSIC]

All right, let's get back to report writing now.

For this lesson, we'll assume you got a first draft.

Well done!

However, if you really want to increase your chances of good marks,

a first draft isn't the end.

There are few more things you'll need to do in order to turn

the first draft of your report into something great.

In this lesson, we'll look at what you can do to improve your report

using a company case study report as our example.

We'll first look at some overall checks you can do.

Then, some ways to improve your report structure and language,

then how to write effective titles for your report,

before finishing with how to write an abstract, or summary.

So the overall report.

As with essays, it's essential that you check to make sure you have answered

all aspects of the assignment prompt the same techniques we look at in our

screen cascades can be use here, too.

For example, highlighting key elements in question and finding them in the text.

Make sure in particular that you're fulfilling the given criteria.

Look through your marking rubric and give yourself a mark.

The course, while we are starving with this, it's also a check you can do

at the very end once you polished and refined each individual section.

This brings us to your report structure.

Again, make sure that every section that you're question asks for

is in your report.

If you've been given a model report match the sections in yours to

the sections in it.

Or you can create a reverse outline.

Check that there is a logical development to how you present the information.

This means checking for coherence and cohesion to make sure your ideas and

sections are logical and fit together.

We can see our lessons in 4.2C, 4.3A, and 4.3D for more information on this.

In particular, you need to check the language of your report.

Make sure that sentences are not too long.

Professional reports favor being brief and

are written using short, concise sentences.

How do we do this?

Let's take a look a our example report.

A business case study, looking at a company, called, Kurosawa Film.

Here is an example paragraph from a section, entitled,

Kurosawa Film's competition in Asian markets 1995-2005.

Can you find any issues?

Feel free to pause the video and read the paragraph.

No doubt you have identified a number of problems with this paragraph.

The second sentence beginning with this loss is far too long and

need to be broken down into shorter sentences.

The other issue with this except is one of relevance.

The last sentence is not really related to the topic of the section or

even to the report as a whole.

Unlike in essays, sentences in report should nearly always be simple,

direct and brave.

In your own report, irrelevant sentences may not be quite so clear.

So be careful when polishing and refining.

Let's take a look now at writing section titles.

Section titles need to be short phrases without a verb,

that describes a section clearly.

They should include key words and not include any unnecessary phrases.

Section and

sub section titles can be numbered particularly in professional reports.

If in doubt about what section should be in your report, check the question and

also the conventions in your academic field.

This also applies to formatting, although usually, the general formatting rules

regarding font, font size, paragraphs, and line spaces still apply.

And we will address those in lesson 4.4A.

Let's now look at some of our section titles from our Kurosawa Film case study.

Can you find any issues?

Again, feel free to post the video.

You may have noticed that the third title has the verb were.

It makes sense as a sentence but it doesn't work as a title.

If we simple delete the first two words, like so.

It becomes much more brief and direct.

This works better the section titles.

Along with section titles,

many reports also include some kind of summary at the beginning of their report.

As with section titles,

these are generally written towards the end of your writing process.

For research reports, the summary is called an abstract.

And it serves to help other researchers to decide if your report

is worth reading in more depth.

According to Swales and Feak, abstracts can either be a simple summary

of your report, or have a more particular focus on results.

For a summary abstract, one or two sentences per section should suffice.

With a results-driven abstract, more weight will be given to the result and

discussion, and less given to earlier sections of the report.

For some kinds of professional reports,

you'll need an executive summary at the start of the text instead of an abstract.

This is designed to help time poor managers and

colleagues get the jest of your report without having to read the entire text.

To begin with, provide an overall summary of the reports purpose.

Follow this with one or two sentences summarizing each main section.

Although if you are presenting recommendations,

these might be presented as a separate summary section at the beginning.

If in doubt, again, check with your lectures, check the criteria or

have a look at similar text in your field.

Let's turn again to our Kurosawa Film case study report to see how different

sections of a report can become a summary.

You'll find a list of report section titles on the left and

executive summary on the right.

Can you account which sentences in the summary match with each report section?

Take a moment to read it through.

Again, feel free to pause the video.

In this example, we can see that the first sentence provides the overall summary of

the report's purpose.

Following this,

there is one sentence in the summary that matches with eight section.

Sentence number 2 summarizes Kurosawa Film's competition in

Asian markets 1995- 2005.

Sentence 3 summarizes five factors in Kurosawa Film's recovery.

Sentence 4 goes with future challenges, and

then the last sentence summarizes the main recommendations.

As the conclusion simply restates the main points of the report,

it's not been included in the executive summary.

We hope that these tips can help focus and improve polishing and

refining your report.

To finish, it's important to allow sufficient time for this polishing and

possibly redrafting stage.

Leaving only enough time to write a first draft before a due date is risky and

quite often results in lower quality writing, and lower marks as a result.

The polishing and refining stage of the writing process is a crucial one.

So give it due time and you will really reap rewards.

[MUSIC]

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