WRITING OF REPORTS
 

In the following you find some guidelines that may be useful when writing reports. The guidelines are mainly taken from: Harald Kristiansen (ed.), "Rapportskriving, Rettningslinjer for utarbeidelse av skriftelige rapporter", Universitetsforlaget, December 1970.
 

Suggested structure of a report

The structure of a thesis or project may be as follows:

  1. Cover page
  2. Front page (Title, abstract, key words, etc.)
  3. Preface (use Roman numbers and page it as page I)
  4. Table of contents
  5. Nomenclature
  6. Introduction (paged as page 1)
 
Preface

The preface should contain information about:

  1. The purpose of the report
  2. The pre-history of the project
  3. Funding (if any)
  4. Major contents of the report
  5. Co-workers
The preface should:
  1. Contain thanks to co-workers
  2. Contain thanks to other that have assisted and contributed
  3. Link co-workers and their contribution.
  4. Be dated
  5. Be signed
  6. Be paged as first page with a Roman number
 
Abstract

The abstract should contain:

  1. A briefing on the purpose of the work
  2. Information about the limits of the examinations
  3. A briefing of the methods that are used
  4. Information about the quality/certainty of the given information
  5. The most important results
  6. Major findings and conclusions
  7. Recommendations for further work
 

General comments:

Every report should contain an informative abstract where the most important results are summed up. The abstract is the most read part of the report and should therefore be composed carefully. Even if it is read first, the abstract should be the last that is written to ensure that it is in complete accordance with the contents in the report.
 

Moments for consideration:

 

Introduction

The introduction should comprise:

  1. A short historical review
  2. A brief description of the methods
  3. The limitations of the report
  4. Information on accuracy of the given data
  5. Structure of the report.
 General comments:

A good introduction gives a clear formulation of the task, it gives the background for the work and the authors methods. In this part of the report the author should explain the significance of the accomplished work and how the work is cohering with former investigations. He should introduce the reader to the subject and refer to former investigations of immediate importance for his own work. A comprehensive survey of the former investigations should be avoided since it may be an obstacle for the interested reader. Highlight the major items.

 The major items:

 
References

References can be written in many ways. Preferably use the following guidelines:

  1. Refer with authors name and year
  2. If more than two authors, use et al.
  3. The list is arranged alphabetically
Examples on how to refer:

In the text the reference may be written in the following way:

In the reference this cited literature should appear with the following format: