Chapter-2

1
 What makes a good report?
 Clarity and Structure
 Figures and Tables (floats)
 Technical Issues
 Further reading
 Ethical issues
 Conclusions

2
 The report exists to provide the reader with
useful information
◦ Should this drug be licensed?
◦ How do we fit non-linear regressions?
 It succeeds if it effectively communicates the
information to the intended audience
 It fails otherwise!!

3
The report must be
◦ Clear
 Well structured, clear, concise, suitable for the
intended audience
◦ Professional
 statistically correct, correctly spelled, produced
with a decent word processor
◦ Well illustrated
 illustrations that aid understanding, integrated with
text

4
Often 3 different audiences

◦ The casual reader/big boss who wants the

main message as painlessly as possible

◦ The interested reader who wants more detail

but doesn’t want to grapple with all the gory
technical details

◦ The guru who wants the whole story

5
To address all 3 audiences effectively,

◦ Include an abstract for the big boss

◦ A main body for the interested non-specialist

◦ A technical appendix for the guru

Thus, a structure emerges!

6
 Good structure enhances and encourages
clarity
 Gives signposts
 implements the vital principle
◦ tell them what you are going to say
◦ Say it!
◦ tell them what you have said

7
A good report has the following parts
◦ Title
◦ Table of Contents
◦ Abstract/executive summary
◦ Introduction
◦ Main sections
◦ Conclusions
◦ References
◦ Technical appendix

8
Should be informative, “punchy”, can include
puns, humour
Good
◦ The perfidious polynomial (punchy, alliterative)
◦ Diagnosing diabetes mellitus: how to test, who to
test, when to test (dramatic, informative)
Bad
◦ Some bounds on the distribution of certain
quadratic forms in normal random variables
(boring, vague)
◦ Performing roundoff analyses of statistical
algorithms (boring, vague)

9
 Shows the structure of the document and lets
the reader navigate through the sections

 Include for documents more than a few pages

long.

10
Describes the problem and the solution in a
few sentences. It will be all the big boss
reads!

Remember the 2 rules

◦ Keep it short
◦ State problem and solution

11
 State the question, background the problem
 Describe similar work
 Outline the approach
 Describe the contents of the rest of the paper
◦ in Section 2 we ...
◦ in Section 3 we ...

12
 Describe
◦ Data
◦ Methods
◦ Analyses
◦ Findings
 Don’t include too much technical detail
 Divide up into sections, subsections

13
 Summarize what has been discovered

 Repeat the question

 Give the answer

14
 This is where the technical details go
 Be as technical as you like
 Document your analysis so it can be
reproduced by others
 Include the data set if feasible

15
 Always cite (i.e. give a reference) to other
related work or facts/opinions that you quote
 Never pass off the work of others as your own
– this is plagiarism and is a very big academic
crime!!

16
 In the text
Seber and Wild (1989) state that…..

 In the references
Seber, G.A.F and C.J. Wild. (1989). Nonlinear
Regression. New York: Wiley.

17
 Structure alone is not enough for clarity – you
must also write clear sentences.
 Rules:
◦ Write complete short sentences
◦ Avoid jargon and cliché, strive for simplicity
◦ One theme per paragraph
◦ If a sentence contains maths, it still must make
sense!

18
 He wrote
Although solitary under normal prevailing
circumstances, raccoons may congregate
simultaneously in certain situations of artificially
enhanced resource availability.
 He meant..
Raccoons live alone but come together to eat
bait.

19
 Good

From the equation y = ax + b it follows that

x = ( y − b) / a.
 Bad

y = ax + b x = ( y − b) / a
Golden rules for Figures and Tables:

 Describe float in text (integration), make

sure it matches description
 Place after the first mention in the text
 Make sure float conveys the desired
message clearly: keep it simple!
 Provide informative captions

21
 Always label and give a caption under the figure
 Be aware of good graphics principles: avoid
◦ chart junk
◦ low data/ink ratio
◦ unlabelled axes
◦ broken axes
◦ Misleading scales
 See Cleveland, “The Elements of Graphing Data”,
“Visualising Data”
 Using a good graphics package (R!) helps
enforce good practice

22
 African elephant
Asian elephant

8
Human

Giraffe
Horse
Chimpanzee
DonkeyCow
6
Gorilla

Rhesus monkeySheep Pig

log(Animals$brain)

Jaguar Brachiosaurus
Bad! Grey
Goatwolf
Potar monkey
Triceratops
Kangaroo
4

Dipliodocus

Cat

Rabbit
Mountain beaver
2

Guinea pig
Mole
Rat
Golden hamster
0

Mouse

0 5 10

log(Animals$body)
23
 African elephant
Asian elephant

8
Human
Giraffe Horse
Donkey
Chimpanzee Cow
6

Gorilla
Sheep
Log Brain weight (gm)

Rhesus monkey Pig

Jaguar Brachiosaurus
Better! Potar monkey
Goat
Grey wolf
Triceratops
Kangaroo
4

Dipliodocus

Cat

Rabbit
Mountain beaver
2

Guinea pig
Mole
Rat
0

Golden hamster

Mouse

0 5 10

Figure 1. Plot of log Brain weights (gm) versus

Log Body weight (kg)

log body weights (kg) for 28 species

24
 Always label and give a caption over the
table

 Be aware of rules for good tables:

◦ avoid vertical lines

◦ don’t have too many decimal places
◦ compare columns not rows

25
Multiple Prefix Symbol
1012 tera T
109 giga G Too busy
106 mega M
103 kilo K
10-1 deci d
Multiple Prefix Symbol
1012 tera T
Better
109 giga G
106 mega M
103 kilo K
10-1 deci d
26
Multiple 1012 109 106 103 10-1 Horizontal
Prefix tera giga mega kilo deci hard to read
Symbol T G M K d

Multiple Prefix Symbol

1012 tera T
Vertical
109 giga G
easier to read
106 mega M
103 kilo K
10-1 deci d
27
Number of
Time (secs)
Processors
Busy – too
1 28.35221
many DP’s
4 7.218812
8 3.634951
16 1.929347

Number of
Time (secs)
Processors
Better
1 28.35
4 7.21
8 3.63
16 1.92
28
 Sectioning
 Table of Contents
 Spelling and Grammar
 Choice of word processor

29
 Proper division of your work into sections and
subsections makes the structure clear and the
document easy to follow
 Use styles in word/ sectioning commands in
Latex
\begin{section}….\end{section}

30
 Provides “navigation aid”

 Make sure TOC agrees with main body of text

 If you use styles (Word) and sectioning

commands (Latex) this will happen
automatically

31
 Use a style manual/dictionary if in doubt
 Spell check!!!!
 Proofread!!!!
He meant…
◦ This technique can also be applied to the
analysis of golf balls
He typed….
◦ This technique cam also by applies to the
analysis or gold bills

32
 Word or Latex?
 My spin…..
◦ Use Word for a short document with few figures and
tables and little mathematics
◦ Use Latex for a longer document with many figures
and tables and lots of complicated maths.

33
Ethical Issues

34
 When providing information or persuading an
audience, always ensure that your writing is also
ethical: accurate, honest, and fair.

35
Unethical communication in the workplace is all too
common. Ethics are not always black and white, but
here are some unethical scenarios:
➢A person lands a great job by exaggerating his
credentials, experience, or expertise.
➢A marketing specialist for a chemical company
negotiates a huge bulk sale of its powerful new
pesticide by downplaying its carcinogenic
hazards.
➢A manager writes a strong recommendation to
get a friend promoted, while overlooking
someone more deserving.

36
Unethical communications are usually the
result of one of two factors:
➢Yielding to social pressure (looking the other
way)
➢Mistaking groupthink for teamwork (blindly
following the group)

37
Workplace communication influences the thinking,
actions, and welfare of numerous people—customers,
investors, coworkers, the public, policymakers, etc.
These people are victims of communication abuse
whenever we give them information that is less than
the truth as we know it, as in the following situations:
➢Suppressing knowledge the public needs
➢Hiding conflicts of interest

38
➢Exaggerating claims about technology
➢Falsifying or fabricating data
➢Using visual images that conceal the truth
➢Stealing or divulging proprietary information
➢Withholding information people need for their
jobs
➢Exploiting cultural differences

39
The ever-increasing amount of personal
information stored in digital formats requires
anyone working as part of a communication team
to consider digital ethical issues, such as:

➢Failing to safeguard the privacy of personal

information about a Web site visitor’s health,
finances, buying habits, or affiliations

40
➢Providing customers with little to no
information about how their personal data will
be used, either on a Web site or in any other
situation
➢Ignoring any data breaches that are observed
in the workplace
➢Offering inaccurate or unsubstantiated
medical advice online
➢Leaving out any cautions or warnings in an
FAQ or online help system about digital
information used by the product or company
41
➢Purposely using unclear language in a Web
site privacy statement, or making the privacy
information difficult to find (or leaving it out
altogether)
➢Publishing anonymous attacks, or smear
campaigns, against people, products, or
organizations

42
The best way to confront ethical dilemmas on the
job is to use your critical thinking skills. Keep in
mind reasonable criteria (standards that most
people consider acceptable). These criteria take on
three forms:
➢Obligations, the responsibilities you have to
everyone involved (yourself, clients and
customers, your company, your coworkers, the
community, society).
➢Ideals, the values that you believe in or stand
for (loyalty, friendship, compassion, dignity,
fairness).
43
➢Consequences, the beneficial or harmful
results of your actions, which may be
immediate or delayed, intentional or
unintentional, obvious or subtle.

44
45