The efficient way to produce your final report

Successfully interpreting your data will enable you to show that your discovery is sound as well as how it works. However, it may sometimes be very difficult to explain why your discovery works!

Edward Jenner, for example, could show through his experiments and observations how vaccination worked. However, throughout his life, he was saddened that that he could not explain why it worked.⁹ The same applied to Isaac Newton with his gravitation theory (i.e. forces at a distance).

d) General issues: For scientific research documents, it is generally preferred that you do not refer to yourself or use the first-person pronoun (e.g. I, we, us, etc.). Instead of "I found that…", rather use "It was found that…" (However, it is also true that well-known researchers such as Einstein used the first-person pronoun very successfully).³

Pay attention to your list of references. The reader should be able to find the specific sources (e.g. article, book, report, etc.) you point out without any difficulty. Each reference should therefore be as complete as possible. Vague references such as "personal communication" or simply giving an Internet address are not acceptable.

Finally, you should always endeavour to make the reading of your report as pleasurable as possible for the reader. Here, we quote from a review by Marcus Lown on a science book where he states¹³:

"No reader should have to work this hard. It is up to the author to get the story straight enough in his mind that it can be told in a linear fashion." (This was also the reason why we have discussed the research process in a linear fashion in this manual.)

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