Helpful Tips

USe Command Terms

You may find it useful to use some of these terms from the MYP Projects guide in your report.

How to plan, draft and edit your written project report

There is more to writing a report than simply sitting down at your computer and writing it off the top of your head. The most effective reports are those that have been thoroughly planned, drafted and edited.

PLANNING

Once you have read through the project report instructions, the next step is to gather your thoughts and ideas, information and evidence to allow you to begin planning your report. This step in the writing process may be developed in a variety of ways such as mind mapping, note taking and summarising.

Mind mapping is when you write a topic in the centre of a page and brainstorm possible ways to develop it. In this example, for instance, you could write the title of a report section (Investigating, for example) in the central oval, then the possible ways to elaborate on it in the surrounding ovals (these ovals would become your paragraphs). For each of these ovals, you would then find an example or evidence to place in the connected box (this information would also be included in that paragraph). By doing this, you would have organised the bulk of your report section in a very simple manner.

Note taking and summarising may be organised in a number of ways. You may choose to:

• Number your notes, fitting similar points together.
• Space your notes, listing points on a page and leaving space for other information to be added as your research continues.
• Collect your notes under main headings and sub headings (this is useful for lengthy/complex reports).

DRAFTING

Once you have completed the planning stage of the writing process, you are ready to write your first draft. This is sometimes referred to as a ‘rough copy’. During the drafting stage, you will sort through your ideas, decide on order and sequence, experiment with expression and organisation and re-read and re-write your work. The emphasis in this stage should be on the content of the work. Spelling, grammar and punctuation can be addressed in the editing stage.

EDITING

After you have written your draft, you need to edit it to ensure that it is technically accurate, clear and concise. The amount of time you spend editing your report will have a significant effect on its quality and on your marks. USING SPELL CHECK IS NOT AN OPTION! Spell check and grammar check do not pick up incorrect report structure, missing (or added) capital letters, run-on sentences, sentence fragments, calculation errors, inaccurate quotations – all the things that students lose marks on! Develop a thorough editing process and you will see the difference.

One effective method of editing is to use the self edit, peer edit and expert edit system.

Step 1: Self edit

Edit your work for spelling, grammar, punctuation and sense. Use the sections of this guide titled ‘Correct report writing language’ and ‘Words and phrases to avoid’ to help you do this. Now might also be a good time to check the assessment criteria.

Step 2: Peer edit

Get a peer (someone else in your class or year level) to edit your work for spelling, grammar, punctuation and sense. They also need to write you some constructive criticism (areas that need attention, areas that are really good or bad and ideas for improvement).

Step 3: Expert edit

Get a teacher, parent, older sibling or someone else who you know is good at English to do another check of your report BEFORE your supervisor reads it. Ask them to give you some constructive criticism to help you improve your essay further.

Step 4: Final copy

Write or word process your good copy, paying close attention to the corrections that have been made to your draft. When you’ve finished, read it through one last time to make sure you haven’t made any mistakes or missed any words out. Then do a final check of your title page, table of contents, appendices and bibliography and upload your final copy!

Words and phrases to avoid

• ‘This report is going to be about…’ or ‘In this report I…’ or ‘In the following paragraphs I will be discussing…’
• ‘Overall’ or ‘in conclusion.’
• Casual or colloquial language such as ‘yeah’, ‘stuff’ and ‘things.’
• The words ‘expressed’, ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ are used repeatedly in students’ writing. Use these words sparingly.
• Unless you are writing a report that has a large number of calculations or numbers in it, write out numbers in full. For example, write ‘twentieth century’ rather than ‘ 20^th century’.
• Using ‘that’ and ‘which’ instead of ‘who’ when you are writing about people. You should write ‘The children who went to the beach got sunburnt’ as opposed to ‘The children that went to the beach got sunburnt’.
• ‘Within’ instead of just ‘in.’
• ‘In which’ instead of just ‘which.’
• The difference between ‘fewer’ and ‘less’ is that you use ‘fewer’ for number and ‘less’ for quantity. For example, ‘There were fewer than thirty people there’ and ‘We have had less rain this year than last year’.
• The difference between ‘can’ and ‘may’ is that ‘can’ means ‘to be able to’ and ‘may’ means ‘to be allowed to’.
• The difference between ‘between’ and ‘among’ is that you use ‘between’ for two items and ‘among’ for more than two items. For example, ‘Rachel and Joel divided the sandwich between them’ and ‘The last of the water was divided among the group of hikers.’
• Students often suffer from wordiness and verbosity when writing. That is, they use more words than are necessary to make a point. When writing, ask yourself, ‘Is there a shorter way of writing this without losing the meaning?’ Use this table to help you avoid some of the ‘verbosity pitfalls’.