The efficient way to produce your final report

Unfortunately, some researchers do not always adhere to this advice. It is said that the brilliant medical scientist, Avicenna, read Aristotle’s "Metaphysics" more than forty times! Try as he might, Avicenna could not understand it.⁹

Keep your sentences and paragraphs short. Aim for roughly fifteen words per sentence (depending on your writing skill). Paragraphs should also not be longer than six lines or shorter than three. To avoid "cluttered" pages, spread the text out by using a line-spacing of greater than single.

Be careful with your choice of descriptive words. It is irritating when the same words are frequently repeated. Use Microsoft Word’s thesaurus to find the correct synonyms and avoid this problem.

Make sure that you use unambiguous statements that cannot be misinterpreted. Re-write anything that is unclear. It is not the reader’s job to try and puzzle out what you are trying to say. Your message must be immediately understood without having to read the sentence twice.

Try to keep the reader’s interest at all times. You might feel justified to include every last detail in your report, especially if you’re feeling particularly proud of your research. Please spare a thought for the poor person who has to wade through your babble. Start with a bang, move at high speed and end with a bang!

Ask your study leader, colleagues, friends or anyone else who is willing to read it through for suggestions to improve the readability of your manuscript. You will quickly get the message if it needs more revision.

c) Interpret your data: Present the relevant data and explain to the reader exactly how it resolves the problem in question. Your sponsor (or supervisor) will be especially interested in how you interpret your results. However, make sure that you only include the most important data in the main body of text.

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