What this handout is about.
This handout provides a general guide to writing reports about scientific research you’ve performed. In addition to describing the conventional rules about the format and content of a lab report, we’ll also attempt to convey why these rules exist, so you’ll get a clearer, more dependable idea of how to approach this writing situation. Readers of this handout may also find our handout on writing in the sciences useful.
Why do we write research reports.
You did an experiment or study for your science class, and now you have to write it up for your teacher to review. You feel that you understood the background sufficiently, designed and completed the study effectively, obtained useful data, and can use those data to draw conclusions about a scientific process or principle. But how exactly do you write all that? What is your teacher expecting to see?
To take some of the guesswork out of answering these questions, try to think beyond the classroom setting. In fact, you and your teacher are both part of a scientific community, and the people who participate in this community tend to share the same values. As long as you understand and respect these values, your writing will likely meet the expectations of your audience—including your teacher.
So why are you writing this research report? The practical answer is “Because the teacher assigned it,” but that’s classroom thinking. Generally speaking, people investigating some scientific hypothesis have a responsibility to the rest of the scientific world to report their findings, particularly if these findings add to or contradict previous ideas. The people reading such reports have two primary goals:
Your job as a writer, then, is to fulfill these two goals.
Good question. Here is the basic format scientists have designed for research reports:
This format, sometimes called “IMRAD,” may take slightly different shapes depending on the discipline or audience; some ask you to include an abstract or separate section for the hypothesis, or call the Discussion section “Conclusions,” or change the order of the sections (some professional and academic journals require the Methods section to appear last). Overall, however, the IMRAD format was devised to represent a textual version of the scientific method.
The scientific method, you’ll probably recall, involves developing a hypothesis, testing it, and deciding whether your findings support the hypothesis. In essence, the format for a research report in the sciences mirrors the scientific method but fleshes out the process a little. Below, you’ll find a table that shows how each written section fits into the scientific method and what additional information it offers the reader.
states your hypothesis | explains how you derived that hypothesis and how it connects to previous research; gives the purpose of the experiment/study | |
details how you tested your hypothesis | clarifies why you performed your study in that particular way | |
provides raw (i.e., uninterpreted) data collected | (perhaps) expresses the data in table form, as an easy-to-read figure, or as percentages/ratios | |
considers whether the data you obtained support the hypothesis | explores the implications of your finding and judges the potential limitations of your experimental design |
Thinking of your research report as based on the scientific method, but elaborated in the ways described above, may help you to meet your audience’s expectations successfully. We’re going to proceed by explicitly connecting each section of the lab report to the scientific method, then explaining why and how you need to elaborate that section.
Although this handout takes each section in the order in which it should be presented in the final report, you may for practical reasons decide to compose sections in another order. For example, many writers find that composing their Methods and Results before the other sections helps to clarify their idea of the experiment or study as a whole. You might consider using each assignment to practice different approaches to drafting the report, to find the order that works best for you.
The best way to prepare to write the lab report is to make sure that you fully understand everything you need to about the experiment. Obviously, if you don’t quite know what went on during the lab, you’re going to find it difficult to explain the lab satisfactorily to someone else. To make sure you know enough to write the report, complete the following steps:
Once you’ve completed these steps as you perform the experiment, you’ll be in a good position to draft an effective lab report.
How do i write a strong introduction.
For the purposes of this handout, we’ll consider the Introduction to contain four basic elements: the purpose, the scientific literature relevant to the subject, the hypothesis, and the reasons you believed your hypothesis viable. Let’s start by going through each element of the Introduction to clarify what it covers and why it’s important. Then we can formulate a logical organizational strategy for the section.
The inclusion of the purpose (sometimes called the objective) of the experiment often confuses writers. The biggest misconception is that the purpose is the same as the hypothesis. Not quite. We’ll get to hypotheses in a minute, but basically they provide some indication of what you expect the experiment to show. The purpose is broader, and deals more with what you expect to gain through the experiment. In a professional setting, the hypothesis might have something to do with how cells react to a certain kind of genetic manipulation, but the purpose of the experiment is to learn more about potential cancer treatments. Undergraduate reports don’t often have this wide-ranging a goal, but you should still try to maintain the distinction between your hypothesis and your purpose. In a solubility experiment, for example, your hypothesis might talk about the relationship between temperature and the rate of solubility, but the purpose is probably to learn more about some specific scientific principle underlying the process of solubility.
For starters, most people say that you should write out your working hypothesis before you perform the experiment or study. Many beginning science students neglect to do so and find themselves struggling to remember precisely which variables were involved in the process or in what way the researchers felt that they were related. Write your hypothesis down as you develop it—you’ll be glad you did.
As for the form a hypothesis should take, it’s best not to be too fancy or complicated; an inventive style isn’t nearly so important as clarity here. There’s nothing wrong with beginning your hypothesis with the phrase, “It was hypothesized that . . .” Be as specific as you can about the relationship between the different objects of your study. In other words, explain that when term A changes, term B changes in this particular way. Readers of scientific writing are rarely content with the idea that a relationship between two terms exists—they want to know what that relationship entails.
Not a hypothesis:
“It was hypothesized that there is a significant relationship between the temperature of a solvent and the rate at which a solute dissolves.”
Hypothesis:
“It was hypothesized that as the temperature of a solvent increases, the rate at which a solute will dissolve in that solvent increases.”
Put more technically, most hypotheses contain both an independent and a dependent variable. The independent variable is what you manipulate to test the reaction; the dependent variable is what changes as a result of your manipulation. In the example above, the independent variable is the temperature of the solvent, and the dependent variable is the rate of solubility. Be sure that your hypothesis includes both variables.
You need to do more than tell your readers what your hypothesis is; you also need to assure them that this hypothesis was reasonable, given the circumstances. In other words, use the Introduction to explain that you didn’t just pluck your hypothesis out of thin air. (If you did pluck it out of thin air, your problems with your report will probably extend beyond using the appropriate format.) If you posit that a particular relationship exists between the independent and the dependent variable, what led you to believe your “guess” might be supported by evidence?
Scientists often refer to this type of justification as “motivating” the hypothesis, in the sense that something propelled them to make that prediction. Often, motivation includes what we already know—or rather, what scientists generally accept as true (see “Background/previous research” below). But you can also motivate your hypothesis by relying on logic or on your own observations. If you’re trying to decide which solutes will dissolve more rapidly in a solvent at increased temperatures, you might remember that some solids are meant to dissolve in hot water (e.g., bouillon cubes) and some are used for a function precisely because they withstand higher temperatures (they make saucepans out of something). Or you can think about whether you’ve noticed sugar dissolving more rapidly in your glass of iced tea or in your cup of coffee. Even such basic, outside-the-lab observations can help you justify your hypothesis as reasonable.
This part of the Introduction demonstrates to the reader your awareness of how you’re building on other scientists’ work. If you think of the scientific community as engaging in a series of conversations about various topics, then you’ll recognize that the relevant background material will alert the reader to which conversation you want to enter.
Generally speaking, authors writing journal articles use the background for slightly different purposes than do students completing assignments. Because readers of academic journals tend to be professionals in the field, authors explain the background in order to permit readers to evaluate the study’s pertinence for their own work. You, on the other hand, write toward a much narrower audience—your peers in the course or your lab instructor—and so you must demonstrate that you understand the context for the (presumably assigned) experiment or study you’ve completed. For example, if your professor has been talking about polarity during lectures, and you’re doing a solubility experiment, you might try to connect the polarity of a solid to its relative solubility in certain solvents. In any event, both professional researchers and undergraduates need to connect the background material overtly to their own work.
Most of the time, writers begin by stating the purpose or objectives of their own work, which establishes for the reader’s benefit the “nature and scope of the problem investigated” (Day 1994). Once you have expressed your purpose, you should then find it easier to move from the general purpose, to relevant material on the subject, to your hypothesis. In abbreviated form, an Introduction section might look like this:
“The purpose of the experiment was to test conventional ideas about solubility in the laboratory [purpose] . . . According to Whitecoat and Labrat (1999), at higher temperatures the molecules of solvents move more quickly . . . We know from the class lecture that molecules moving at higher rates of speed collide with one another more often and thus break down more easily [background material/motivation] . . . Thus, it was hypothesized that as the temperature of a solvent increases, the rate at which a solute will dissolve in that solvent increases [hypothesis].”
Again—these are guidelines, not commandments. Some writers and readers prefer different structures for the Introduction. The one above merely illustrates a common approach to organizing material.
As with any piece of writing, your Methods section will succeed only if it fulfills its readers’ expectations, so you need to be clear in your own mind about the purpose of this section. Let’s review the purpose as we described it above: in this section, you want to describe in detail how you tested the hypothesis you developed and also to clarify the rationale for your procedure. In science, it’s not sufficient merely to design and carry out an experiment. Ultimately, others must be able to verify your findings, so your experiment must be reproducible, to the extent that other researchers can follow the same procedure and obtain the same (or similar) results.
Here’s a real-world example of the importance of reproducibility. In 1989, physicists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischman announced that they had discovered “cold fusion,” a way of producing excess heat and power without the nuclear radiation that accompanies “hot fusion.” Such a discovery could have great ramifications for the industrial production of energy, so these findings created a great deal of interest. When other scientists tried to duplicate the experiment, however, they didn’t achieve the same results, and as a result many wrote off the conclusions as unjustified (or worse, a hoax). To this day, the viability of cold fusion is debated within the scientific community, even though an increasing number of researchers believe it possible. So when you write your Methods section, keep in mind that you need to describe your experiment well enough to allow others to replicate it exactly.
With these goals in mind, let’s consider how to write an effective Methods section in terms of content, structure, and style.
Sometimes the hardest thing about writing this section isn’t what you should talk about, but what you shouldn’t talk about. Writers often want to include the results of their experiment, because they measured and recorded the results during the course of the experiment. But such data should be reserved for the Results section. In the Methods section, you can write that you recorded the results, or how you recorded the results (e.g., in a table), but you shouldn’t write what the results were—not yet. Here, you’re merely stating exactly how you went about testing your hypothesis. As you draft your Methods section, ask yourself the following questions:
Describe the control in the Methods section. Two things are especially important in writing about the control: identify the control as a control, and explain what you’re controlling for. Here is an example:
“As a control for the temperature change, we placed the same amount of solute in the same amount of solvent, and let the solution stand for five minutes without heating it.”
Organization is especially important in the Methods section of a lab report because readers must understand your experimental procedure completely. Many writers are surprised by the difficulty of conveying what they did during the experiment, since after all they’re only reporting an event, but it’s often tricky to present this information in a coherent way. There’s a fairly standard structure you can use to guide you, and following the conventions for style can help clarify your points.
Increasingly, especially in the social sciences, using first person and active voice is acceptable in scientific reports. Most readers find that this style of writing conveys information more clearly and concisely. This rhetorical choice thus brings two scientific values into conflict: objectivity versus clarity. Since the scientific community hasn’t reached a consensus about which style it prefers, you may want to ask your lab instructor.
Here’s a paradox for you. The Results section is often both the shortest (yay!) and most important (uh-oh!) part of your report. Your Materials and Methods section shows how you obtained the results, and your Discussion section explores the significance of the results, so clearly the Results section forms the backbone of the lab report. This section provides the most critical information about your experiment: the data that allow you to discuss how your hypothesis was or wasn’t supported. But it doesn’t provide anything else, which explains why this section is generally shorter than the others.
Before you write this section, look at all the data you collected to figure out what relates significantly to your hypothesis. You’ll want to highlight this material in your Results section. Resist the urge to include every bit of data you collected, since perhaps not all are relevant. Also, don’t try to draw conclusions about the results—save them for the Discussion section. In this section, you’re reporting facts. Nothing your readers can dispute should appear in the Results section.
Most Results sections feature three distinct parts: text, tables, and figures. Let’s consider each part one at a time.
This should be a short paragraph, generally just a few lines, that describes the results you obtained from your experiment. In a relatively simple experiment, one that doesn’t produce a lot of data for you to repeat, the text can represent the entire Results section. Don’t feel that you need to include lots of extraneous detail to compensate for a short (but effective) text; your readers appreciate discrimination more than your ability to recite facts. In a more complex experiment, you may want to use tables and/or figures to help guide your readers toward the most important information you gathered. In that event, you’ll need to refer to each table or figure directly, where appropriate:
“Table 1 lists the rates of solubility for each substance”
“Solubility increased as the temperature of the solution increased (see Figure 1).”
If you do use tables or figures, make sure that you don’t present the same material in both the text and the tables/figures, since in essence you’ll just repeat yourself, probably annoying your readers with the redundancy of your statements.
Feel free to describe trends that emerge as you examine the data. Although identifying trends requires some judgment on your part and so may not feel like factual reporting, no one can deny that these trends do exist, and so they properly belong in the Results section. Example:
“Heating the solution increased the rate of solubility of polar solids by 45% but had no effect on the rate of solubility in solutions containing non-polar solids.”
This point isn’t debatable—you’re just pointing out what the data show.
As in the Materials and Methods section, you want to refer to your data in the past tense, because the events you recorded have already occurred and have finished occurring. In the example above, note the use of “increased” and “had,” rather than “increases” and “has.” (You don’t know from your experiment that heating always increases the solubility of polar solids, but it did that time.)
You shouldn’t put information in the table that also appears in the text. You also shouldn’t use a table to present irrelevant data, just to show you did collect these data during the experiment. Tables are good for some purposes and situations, but not others, so whether and how you’ll use tables depends upon what you need them to accomplish.
Tables are useful ways to show variation in data, but not to present a great deal of unchanging measurements. If you’re dealing with a scientific phenomenon that occurs only within a certain range of temperatures, for example, you don’t need to use a table to show that the phenomenon didn’t occur at any of the other temperatures. How useful is this table?
As you can probably see, no solubility was observed until the trial temperature reached 50°C, a fact that the text part of the Results section could easily convey. The table could then be limited to what happened at 50°C and higher, thus better illustrating the differences in solubility rates when solubility did occur.
As a rule, try not to use a table to describe any experimental event you can cover in one sentence of text. Here’s an example of an unnecessary table from How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper , by Robert A. Day:
As Day notes, all the information in this table can be summarized in one sentence: “S. griseus, S. coelicolor, S. everycolor, and S. rainbowenski grew under aerobic conditions, whereas S. nocolor and S. greenicus required anaerobic conditions.” Most readers won’t find the table clearer than that one sentence.
When you do have reason to tabulate material, pay attention to the clarity and readability of the format you use. Here are a few tips:
It’s a little tough to see the trends that the author presumably wants to present in this table. Compare this table, in which the data appear vertically:
The second table shows how putting like elements in a vertical column makes for easier reading. In this case, the like elements are the measurements of length and height, over five trials–not, as in the first table, the length and height measurements for each trial.
1058 |
432 |
7 |
Although tables can be useful ways of showing trends in the results you obtained, figures (i.e., illustrations) can do an even better job of emphasizing such trends. Lab report writers often use graphic representations of the data they collected to provide their readers with a literal picture of how the experiment went.
Remember the circumstances under which you don’t need a table: when you don’t have a great deal of data or when the data you have don’t vary a lot. Under the same conditions, you would probably forgo the figure as well, since the figure would be unlikely to provide your readers with an additional perspective. Scientists really don’t like their time wasted, so they tend not to respond favorably to redundancy.
If you’re trying to decide between using a table and creating a figure to present your material, consider the following a rule of thumb. The strength of a table lies in its ability to supply large amounts of exact data, whereas the strength of a figure is its dramatic illustration of important trends within the experiment. If you feel that your readers won’t get the full impact of the results you obtained just by looking at the numbers, then a figure might be appropriate.
Of course, an undergraduate class may expect you to create a figure for your lab experiment, if only to make sure that you can do so effectively. If this is the case, then don’t worry about whether to use figures or not—concentrate instead on how best to accomplish your task.
Figures can include maps, photographs, pen-and-ink drawings, flow charts, bar graphs, and section graphs (“pie charts”). But the most common figure by far, especially for undergraduates, is the line graph, so we’ll focus on that type in this handout.
At the undergraduate level, you can often draw and label your graphs by hand, provided that the result is clear, legible, and drawn to scale. Computer technology has, however, made creating line graphs a lot easier. Most word-processing software has a number of functions for transferring data into graph form; many scientists have found Microsoft Excel, for example, a helpful tool in graphing results. If you plan on pursuing a career in the sciences, it may be well worth your while to learn to use a similar program.
Computers can’t, however, decide for you how your graph really works; you have to know how to design your graph to meet your readers’ expectations. Here are some of these expectations:
The discussion section is probably the least formalized part of the report, in that you can’t really apply the same structure to every type of experiment. In simple terms, here you tell your readers what to make of the Results you obtained. If you have done the Results part well, your readers should already recognize the trends in the data and have a fairly clear idea of whether your hypothesis was supported. Because the Results can seem so self-explanatory, many students find it difficult to know what material to add in this last section.
Basically, the Discussion contains several parts, in no particular order, but roughly moving from specific (i.e., related to your experiment only) to general (how your findings fit in the larger scientific community). In this section, you will, as a rule, need to:
Let’s look at some dos and don’ts for each of these objectives.
This statement is usually a good way to begin the Discussion, since you can’t effectively speak about the larger scientific value of your study until you’ve figured out the particulars of this experiment. You might begin this part of the Discussion by explicitly stating the relationships or correlations your data indicate between the independent and dependent variables. Then you can show more clearly why you believe your hypothesis was or was not supported. For example, if you tested solubility at various temperatures, you could start this section by noting that the rates of solubility increased as the temperature increased. If your initial hypothesis surmised that temperature change would not affect solubility, you would then say something like,
“The hypothesis that temperature change would not affect solubility was not supported by the data.”
Note: Students tend to view labs as practical tests of undeniable scientific truths. As a result, you may want to say that the hypothesis was “proved” or “disproved” or that it was “correct” or “incorrect.” These terms, however, reflect a degree of certainty that you as a scientist aren’t supposed to have. Remember, you’re testing a theory with a procedure that lasts only a few hours and relies on only a few trials, which severely compromises your ability to be sure about the “truth” you see. Words like “supported,” “indicated,” and “suggested” are more acceptable ways to evaluate your hypothesis.
Also, recognize that saying whether the data supported your hypothesis or not involves making a claim to be defended. As such, you need to show the readers that this claim is warranted by the evidence. Make sure that you’re very explicit about the relationship between the evidence and the conclusions you draw from it. This process is difficult for many writers because we don’t often justify conclusions in our regular lives. For example, you might nudge your friend at a party and whisper, “That guy’s drunk,” and once your friend lays eyes on the person in question, she might readily agree. In a scientific paper, by contrast, you would need to defend your claim more thoroughly by pointing to data such as slurred words, unsteady gait, and the lampshade-as-hat. In addition to pointing out these details, you would also need to show how (according to previous studies) these signs are consistent with inebriation, especially if they occur in conjunction with one another. To put it another way, tell your readers exactly how you got from point A (was the hypothesis supported?) to point B (yes/no).
You need to take these exceptions and divergences into account, so that you qualify your conclusions sufficiently. For obvious reasons, your readers will doubt your authority if you (deliberately or inadvertently) overlook a key piece of data that doesn’t square with your perspective on what occurred. In a more philosophical sense, once you’ve ignored evidence that contradicts your claims, you’ve departed from the scientific method. The urge to “tidy up” the experiment is often strong, but if you give in to it you’re no longer performing good science.
Sometimes after you’ve performed a study or experiment, you realize that some part of the methods you used to test your hypothesis was flawed. In that case, it’s OK to suggest that if you had the chance to conduct your test again, you might change the design in this or that specific way in order to avoid such and such a problem. The key to making this approach work, though, is to be very precise about the weakness in your experiment, why and how you think that weakness might have affected your data, and how you would alter your protocol to eliminate—or limit the effects of—that weakness. Often, inexperienced researchers and writers feel the need to account for “wrong” data (remember, there’s no such animal), and so they speculate wildly about what might have screwed things up. These speculations include such factors as the unusually hot temperature in the room, or the possibility that their lab partners read the meters wrong, or the potentially defective equipment. These explanations are what scientists call “cop-outs,” or “lame”; don’t indicate that the experiment had a weakness unless you’re fairly certain that a) it really occurred and b) you can explain reasonably well how that weakness affected your results.
If, for example, your hypothesis dealt with the changes in solubility at different temperatures, then try to figure out what you can rationally say about the process of solubility more generally. If you’re doing an undergraduate lab, chances are that the lab will connect in some way to the material you’ve been covering either in lecture or in your reading, so you might choose to return to these resources as a way to help you think clearly about the process as a whole.
This part of the Discussion section is another place where you need to make sure that you’re not overreaching. Again, nothing you’ve found in one study would remotely allow you to claim that you now “know” something, or that something isn’t “true,” or that your experiment “confirmed” some principle or other. Hesitate before you go out on a limb—it’s dangerous! Use less absolutely conclusive language, including such words as “suggest,” “indicate,” “correspond,” “possibly,” “challenge,” etc.
We’ve been talking about how to show that you belong in a particular community (such as biologists or anthropologists) by writing within conventions that they recognize and accept. Another is to try to identify a conversation going on among members of that community, and use your work to contribute to that conversation. In a larger philosophical sense, scientists can’t fully understand the value of their research unless they have some sense of the context that provoked and nourished it. That is, you have to recognize what’s new about your project (potentially, anyway) and how it benefits the wider body of scientific knowledge. On a more pragmatic level, especially for undergraduates, connecting your lab work to previous research will demonstrate to the TA that you see the big picture. You have an opportunity, in the Discussion section, to distinguish yourself from the students in your class who aren’t thinking beyond the barest facts of the study. Capitalize on this opportunity by putting your own work in context.
If you’re just beginning to work in the natural sciences (as a first-year biology or chemistry student, say), most likely the work you’ll be doing has already been performed and re-performed to a satisfactory degree. Hence, you could probably point to a similar experiment or study and compare/contrast your results and conclusions. More advanced work may deal with an issue that is somewhat less “resolved,” and so previous research may take the form of an ongoing debate, and you can use your own work to weigh in on that debate. If, for example, researchers are hotly disputing the value of herbal remedies for the common cold, and the results of your study suggest that Echinacea diminishes the symptoms but not the actual presence of the cold, then you might want to take some time in the Discussion section to recapitulate the specifics of the dispute as it relates to Echinacea as an herbal remedy. (Consider that you have probably already written in the Introduction about this debate as background research.)
This information is often the best way to end your Discussion (and, for all intents and purposes, the report). In argumentative writing generally, you want to use your closing words to convey the main point of your writing. This main point can be primarily theoretical (“Now that you understand this information, you’re in a better position to understand this larger issue”) or primarily practical (“You can use this information to take such and such an action”). In either case, the concluding statements help the reader to comprehend the significance of your project and your decision to write about it.
Since a lab report is argumentative—after all, you’re investigating a claim, and judging the legitimacy of that claim by generating and collecting evidence—it’s often a good idea to end your report with the same technique for establishing your main point. If you want to go the theoretical route, you might talk about the consequences your study has for the field or phenomenon you’re investigating. To return to the examples regarding solubility, you could end by reflecting on what your work on solubility as a function of temperature tells us (potentially) about solubility in general. (Some folks consider this type of exploration “pure” as opposed to “applied” science, although these labels can be problematic.) If you want to go the practical route, you could end by speculating about the medical, institutional, or commercial implications of your findings—in other words, answer the question, “What can this study help people to do?” In either case, you’re going to make your readers’ experience more satisfying, by helping them see why they spent their time learning what you had to teach them.
We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.
American Psychological Association. 2010. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association . 6th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Beall, Herbert, and John Trimbur. 2001. A Short Guide to Writing About Chemistry , 2nd ed. New York: Longman.
Blum, Deborah, and Mary Knudson. 1997. A Field Guide for Science Writers: The Official Guide of the National Association of Science Writers . New York: Oxford University Press.
Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams, Joseph Bizup, and William T. FitzGerald. 2016. The Craft of Research , 4th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Briscoe, Mary Helen. 1996. Preparing Scientific Illustrations: A Guide to Better Posters, Presentations, and Publications , 2nd ed. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Council of Science Editors. 2014. Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers , 8th ed. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press.
Davis, Martha. 2012. Scientific Papers and Presentations , 3rd ed. London: Academic Press.
Day, Robert A. 1994. How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper , 4th ed. Phoenix: Oryx Press.
Porush, David. 1995. A Short Guide to Writing About Science . New York: Longman.
Williams, Joseph, and Joseph Bizup. 2017. Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace , 12th ed. Boston: Pearson.
You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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This review covers the basic elements of a research report. This is a general guide for what you will see in journal articles or dissertations. This format assumes a mixed methods study, but you can leave out either quantitative or qualitative sections if you only used a single methodology.
This review is divided into sections for easy reference. There are five MAJOR parts of a Research Report:
1. Introduction 2. Review of Literature 3. Methods 4. Results 5. Discussion
As a general guide, the Introduction, Review of Literature, and Methods should be about 1/3 of your paper, Discussion 1/3, then Results 1/3.
Section 1 : Cover Sheet (APA format cover sheet) optional, if required.
Section 2: Abstract (a basic summary of the report, including sample, treatment, design, results, and implications) (≤ 150 words) optional, if required.
Section 3 : Introduction (1-3 paragraphs) • Basic introduction • Supportive statistics (can be from periodicals) • Statement of Purpose • Statement of Significance
Section 4 : Research question(s) or hypotheses • An overall research question (optional) • A quantitative-based (hypotheses) • A qualitative-based (research questions) Note: You will generally have more than one, especially if using hypotheses.
Section 5: Review of Literature ▪ Should be organized by subheadings ▪ Should adequately support your study using supporting, related, and/or refuting evidence ▪ Is a synthesis, not a collection of individual summaries
Section 6: Methods ▪ Procedure: Describe data gathering or participant recruitment, including IRB approval ▪ Sample: Describe the sample or dataset, including basic demographics ▪ Setting: Describe the setting, if applicable (generally only in qualitative designs) ▪ Treatment: If applicable, describe, in detail, how you implemented the treatment ▪ Instrument: Describe, in detail, how you implemented the instrument; Describe the reliability and validity associated with the instrument ▪ Data Analysis: Describe type of procedure (t-test, interviews, etc.) and software (if used)
Section 7: Results ▪ Restate Research Question 1 (Quantitative) ▪ Describe results ▪ Restate Research Question 2 (Qualitative) ▪ Describe results
Section 8: Discussion ▪ Restate Overall Research Question ▪ Describe how the results, when taken together, answer the overall question ▪ ***Describe how the results confirm or contrast the literature you reviewed
Section 9: Recommendations (if applicable, generally related to practice)
Section 10: Limitations ▪ Discuss, in several sentences, the limitations of this study. ▪ Research Design (overall, then info about the limitations of each separately) ▪ Sample ▪ Instrument/s ▪ Other limitations
Section 11: Conclusion (A brief closing summary)
Section 12: References (APA format)
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Table of contents:-, research report meaning, characteristics of good research report, key characteristics of research report, types of research report, stages in preparation of research report, characteristics of a good report.
A research report is a document that conveys the outcomes of a study or investigation. Its purpose is to communicate the research’s findings, conclusions, and implications to a particular audience. This report aims to offer a comprehensive and unbiased overview of the research process, methodology, and results.
Once the researcher has completed data collection , data processing, developing and testing hypotheses, and interpretation of responses, the next important phase in research is the preparation of the research report. A research report is essential for the communication of research findings to its potential users.
The research report must be free from personal bias, external influences, and subjective factors. i.e., it must be free from one’s liking and disliking. The research report must be prepared to meet impersonal needs.
According to Lancaster, “A report is a statement of collected and considered facts, so drawn-ups to give clear and concise information to persons who are not already in possession of the full facts of the subject matter of the report”.
When researchers communicate their results in writing, they create a research report. It includes the research methodology, approaches, data collection precautions, research findings, and recommendations for solving related problems. Managers can put this result into action for more effective decision making .
Generally, top management places a higher emphasis on obtaining the research outcome rather than delving into the research procedure. Hence, the research report acts as a presentation that highlights the procedure and methodology adopted by the researcher.
The research report presents the complete procedure in a comprehensive way that in turn helps the management in making crucial decisions. Creating a research report adheres to a specific format, sequence, and writing style.
Enhance the effectiveness of a research report by incorporating various charts, graphs, diagrams, tables, etc. By using different representation techniques, researchers can convince the audience as well as the management in an effective way.
Characteristics of a good research report are listed below:
The following paragraphs outline the characteristics of a good research report.
Report information must be accurate and based on facts, credible sources and data to establish reliability and trustworthiness. It should not be biased by the personal feelings of the writer. The information presented must be as precise as possible.
The language of a research report should be as simple as possible to ensure easy understanding. A good report communicates its message clearly and without ambiguity through its language.
It is a document of practical utility; therefore, it should be grammatically accurate, brief, and easily understood.
Jargon and technical words should be avoided when writing the report. Even in a technical report, there should be restricted use of technical terms if it is to be presented to laymen.
The report must be straightforward, lucid, and comprehensive in every aspect. Ambiguity should be avoided at all costs. Clarity is achieved through the strategic and practical organization of information. Report writers should divide their report into short paragraphs with headings and insert other suitable signposts to enhance clarity. They should:
A report should concisely convey the key points without unnecessary length, ensuring that the reader’s patience is not lost and ideas are not confused. Many times, people lack the time to read lengthy reports.
However, a report must also be complete. Sometimes, it is important to have a detailed discussion about the facts. A report is not an essay; therefore, points should be added to it.
A report requires a visually appealing presentation and, whenever feasible, should be attention-grabbing. An effective report depends on the arrangement, organization, format, layout, typography, printing quality, and paper choice. Big companies often produce very attractive and colourful Annual Reports to showcase their achievements and financial performance.
Reports should be clear and straightforward for easy understanding. The style of presentation and the choice of words should be attractive to readers. The writer must present the facts in elegant and grammatically correct English so that the reader is compelled to read the report from beginning to end.
Only then does a report serve its purpose. A report written by different individuals on the same subject matter can vary depending on the intended audience.
Reports should be reliable and should not create an erroneous impression in the minds of readers due to oversight or neglect. The facts presented in a report should be pertinent.
Every fact in a report must align with the central purpose, but it is also vital to ensure that all pertinent information is included.
Irrelevant facts can make a report confusing, and the exclusion of relevant facts can render it incomplete and likely to mislead.
Report writing should not incur unnecessary expenses. Cost-effective methods should be used to maintain a consistent level of quality when communicating the content.
Reports can be valuable and practical when they reach the readers promptly. Any delay in the submission of reports renders the preparation of reports futile and sometimes obsolete.
The points mentioned in a report should be arranged in a step-by-step logical sequence and not haphazardly. Distinctive points should have self-explanatory headings and sub-headings. The scientific accuracy of facts is very essential for a report.
Planning is necessary before a report is prepared, as reports invariably lead to decision-making, and inaccurate facts may result in unsuccessful decisions.
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A research report serves as a means of communicating research findings to the readers effectively.
A well-defined research report must define the what, why, who, whom, when, where, and how of the research study. It must help the readers to understand the focus of the information presented.
The report should strike a balance, being sufficiently brief and appropriately extended. It should cover the subject matter adequately while maintaining the reader’s interest.
The report should be written in an objective style, employing simple language. Correctness, precision, and clarity should be prioritized, avoiding wordiness, indirection, and pompous language.
An excellent report integrates clear thinking, logical organization, and sound interpretation of the research findings.
It should not be dull; instead, it should captivate and sustain the reader’s interest.
Accuracy is paramount. The report must present facts objectively, eschewing exaggerations and superlatives.
Presentation clarity is achieved through familiar words, unambiguous statements, and explicit definitions of new concepts or terms.
The logical flow of ideas and a coherent sequence of sentences contribute to a smooth continuity of thought.
Even technical reports should be easily understandable. Translate technicalities into reader-friendly language.
Follow best composition practices, ensuring readability through proper paragraphing, short sentences, and the use of illustrations, examples, section headings, charts, graphs, and diagrams.
Draw sound inferences and conclusions from statistical tables without repeating them in verbal form.
Footnote references should be correctly formatted, and the bibliography should be reasonably complete.
The report should be visually appealing, maintaining a neat and clean appearance, whether typed or printed.
The report should be free from all types of mistakes, including language, factual, spelling, and calculation errors.
In striving for these qualities, the researcher enhances the overall quality of the report.
Research reports are of the following types:
Technical reports are reports which contain detailed information about the research problem and its findings. These reports are typically subject to review by individuals interested in research methodology. Such reports include detailed descriptions of used methods for research design such as universe selection , sample preparation, designing questionnaire , identifying potential data sources, etc. These reports provide a complete description of every step, method, and tool used. When crafting technical reports, we assume that users possess knowledge of research methodology, which is why the language used in these reports is technical. Technical reports are valuable in situations where there is a need for statistical analysis of collected data. Researchers also employ it in conducting a series of research studies, where they can repetitively use the methodology.
When authors prepare a report with a particular layout or design for publishing in an academic or scientific journal, it becomes a “manuscript for journal articles”. Journal articles are a concise and complete presentation of a particular research study. While technical reports present a detailed description of all the activities in research, journal articles are known for presenting only a few critical areas or findings of a study. The readers or audience of journal articles include other researchers, management and executives, strategic analysts and the general public, interested in the topic.
In general, a manuscript for a journal article typically ranges from 10 to 30 pages in length. Sometimes there is a page or word limit for preparing the report. Authors primarily submit manuscripts for journal articles online, although they occasionally send paper copies through regular mail.
Students working towards a Master’s, PhD, or another higher degree generally produce a thesis or dissertation, which is a form of research report. Like other normal research reports, the thesis or dissertation usually describes the design, tools or methods and results of the student’s research in detail.
These reports typically include a detailed section called the literature review, which encompasses relevant literature and previous studies on the topic. Firstly, the work or research of the student is analysed by a professional researcher or an expert in that particular research field, and then the thesis is written under the guidance of a professional supervisor. Dissertations and theses usually span approximately 120 to 300 pages in length.
Generally, the university or institution decides the length of the dissertation or thesis. A distinctive feature of a thesis or a dissertation is that it is quite economical, as it requires few printed and bound copies of the report. Sometimes electronic copies are required to be submitted along with the hard copy of the thesis or dissertations. Compact discs (CDs) are used to generate the electronic copy.
Along with the above-mentioned types, there are some other types of research reports, which are as follows:
A popular report is prepared for the use of administrators, executives, or managers. It is simple and attractive in the form of a report. Clear and concise statements are used with less technical or statistical terms. Data representation is kept very simple through minimal use of graphs and charts. It has a different format than that of a technical one by liberally using margins and blank spaces. The style of writing a popular report is journalistic and precise. It is written to facilitate reading rapidly and comprehending quickly.
An interim report is a kind of report which is prepared to show the sponsors, the progress of research work before the final presentation of the report. It is prepared when there is a certain time gap between the data collection and presentation. In this scenario, the completed portion of data analysis along with its findings is described in a particular interim report.
This type of report is related to the interest of the general public. The findings of such a report are helpful for the decision making of general users. The language used for preparing a summary report is comprehensive and simple. The inclusion of numerous graphs and tables enhances the report’s overall clarity and comprehension. The main focus of this report is on the objectives, findings, and implications of the research issue.
The research abstract is a short presentation of the technical report. All the elements of a particular technical report, such as the research problem, objectives, sampling techniques, etc., are described in the research abstract but the description is concise and easy.
Research reports result from meticulous and deliberate work. Consequently, the preparation of the information can be delineated into the following key stages:
1) Logical Understanding and Subject Analysis: This stage involves a comprehensive grasp and analysis of the subject matter.
2) Planning/Designing the Final Outline: In this phase, the final outline of the report is meticulously planned and designed.
3) Write-Up/Preparation of Rough Draft: The report takes shape during this stage through the composition of a rough draft.
4) Polishing/Finalization of the Research Report: The final stage encompasses refining and polishing the report to achieve its ultimate form.
Logical understanding and subject analysis.
This initial stage focuses on the subject’s development, which can be achieved through two approaches:
Logical development relies on mental connections and associations between different aspects facilitated by rational analysis. Typically, this involves progressing from simple to complex elements. In contrast, chronological development follows a sequence of time or events, with instructions or descriptions often adhering to chronological order.
This marks the second stage in report writing. Once the subject matter is comprehended, the subsequent step involves structuring the report, arranging its components, and outlining them. This stage is also referred to as the planning and organization stage. While ideas may flow through the author’s mind, they must create a plan, sketch, or design. These are necessary for achieving a harmonious succession to become more accessible, and the author may be unsure where to commence or conclude. Effective communication of research results hinges not only on language but predominantly on the meticulous planning and organization of the report.
The third stage involves the writing and drafting of the report. This phase is pivotal for the researcher as they translate their research study into written form, articulating what they have accomplished and how they intend to convey it.
The clarity in communication and reporting during this stage is influenced by several factors, including the audience, the technical complexity of the problem, the researcher’s grasp of facts and techniques, their proficiency in the language (communication skills), the completeness of notes and documentation, and the availability of analyzed results.
Depending on these factors, some authors may produce the report with just one or two drafts. In contrast, others, with less command over language and a lack of clarity about the problem and subject matter, may require more time and multiple drafts (first draft, second draft, third draft, fourth draft, etc.).
This marks the last stage, potentially the most challenging phase in all formal writing. Constructing the structure is relatively easy, but refining and adding the finishing touches require considerable time. Consider, for instance, the construction of a house. The work progresses swiftly up to the roofing (structure) stage, but the final touches and completion demand a significant amount of time.
The rough draft, whether it is the second draft or the n th draft, must undergo rewriting and polishing to meet the requirements. The meticulous revision of the rough draft is what distinguishes a mediocre piece of writing from a good one. During the polishing and finalization phase, it is crucial to scrutinize the report for weaknesses in the logical development of the subject and the cohesion of its presentation. Additionally, attention should be given to the mechanics of writing, including language, usage, grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Good research possesses certain characteristics, which are as follows:
1. Empirical Basis: It implies that any conclusion drawn is grounded in hardcore evidence collected from real-life experiences and observations. This foundation provides external validity to research results.
2. Logical Approach: Good research is logical, guided by the rules of reasoning and analytical processes of induction (general to specific) and deduction (particular to the public). Logical reasoning is integral to making research feasible and meaningful in decision-making.
3. Systematic Nature: Good research is systematic, which adheres to a structured set of rules, following specific steps in a defined sequence. Systematic research encourages creative thinking while avoiding reliance on guesswork and intuition to reach conclusions.
4. Replicability: Scientific research designs, procedures, and results should be replicable. This ensures that anyone apart from the original researcher can assess their validity. Researchers can use or replicate results obtained by others, making the procedures and outcomes of the research both replicable and transmittable.
5. Validity and Verifiability: Good research involves precise observation and accurate description. The researcher selects reliable and valid instruments for data collection, employing statistical measures to portray results accurately. The conclusions drawn are correct and verifiable by both the researcher and others.
6. Theory and Principle Development: It contributes to formulating theories and principles, aiding accurate predictions about the variables under study. By making sound generalizations based on observed samples, researchers extend their findings beyond immediate situations, objects, or groups, formulating generalizations or theories about these factors.
1. What are the key characteristics of research report?
Scope of Business Research
Data Collection
Questionnaire
Difference between questionnaire and schedule
Measurement
Data Processing
Nature of Research
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The primary objective of a research report is to communicate the results of a research study to a wider audience, including other researchers, policymakers, and practitioners. Research reports play a crucial role in advancing knowledge and understanding in various fields of study. They provide a detailed and accurate account of the research process and outcomes, and they serve as a reference source for future research.
The structure of a research report typically follows a standard format. The introduction sets the context and background for the research and outlines the research questions or objectives. The literature review provides an overview of existing research on the topic and identifies gaps in the literature that the research aims to address. The methodology section describes the research design and methods used to collect and analyze data. The results section presents the findings of the study, often using tables, charts, and graphs. The discussion section interprets and contextualizes the findings and compares them to previous research. Finally, the conclusion summarizes the key findings and implications of the research, highlighting any limitations and recommendations for future research.
A research report can take various forms, depending on the field of study and the research question. For example, it may be a quantitative or qualitative report, a literature review report, or a case study report. A research report should be clear, concise, and objective regardless of the form.
Research reports are essential for various reasons. First, they provide a detailed and accurate account of the research process and outcomes, which can inform policy and practice in various settings. Second, research reports contribute to the development of knowledge and understanding in a particular field or discipline. They provide a reference source for other researchers in the field, and they can inspire new research questions and directions. Finally, research reports are a crucial component of academic and professional careers. They demonstrate research skills, expertise, and contributions to the field.
Writing a research report can be a challenging task, but it is a crucial component of academic and professional research. An excellent research report should be clear, concise, and well-structured, with a focus on presenting accurate and objective findings. Here are some tips for writing an excellent research report:
A research report is a vital tool in disseminating research results to academic, professional, and public audiences. It provides a detailed analysis of the research problem, research questions, methodology, findings, and conclusions. Research reports are crucial in advancing knowledge and understanding in various fields of study, informing policy and practice, and contributing to academic and professional careers.
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Section 1- Evidence-based practice (EBP)
Components of a research report.
Partido, B.B.
Elements of research report
Introduction | What is the issue? |
Methods | What methods have been used to investigate the issue? |
Results | What was found? |
Discussion | What are the implications of the findings? |
The research report contains four main areas:
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Understanding research reports, financial analyst research reports, research report impact, conflicts of interest.
James Chen, CMT is an expert trader, investment adviser, and global market strategist.
A research report is a document prepared by an analyst or strategist who is a part of the investment research team in a stock brokerage or investment bank . A research report may focus on a specific stock or industry sector, a currency, commodity or fixed-income instrument, or on a geographic region or country. Research reports generally, but not always, have actionable recommendations such as investment ideas that investors can act upon.
Research reports are produced by a variety of sources, ranging from market research firms to in-house departments at large organizations. When applied to the investment industry, the term usually refers to sell-side research, or investment research produced by brokerage houses.
Such research is disseminated to the institutional and retail clients of the brokerage that produces it. Research produced by the buy-side, which includes pension funds, mutual funds, and portfolio managers , is usually for internal use only and is not distributed to external parties.
Financial analysts may produce research reports for the purpose of supporting a particular recommendation, such as whether to buy or sell a particular security or whether a client should consider a particular financial product. For example, an analyst may create a report in regards to a new offering being proposed by a company. The report could include relevant metrics regarding the company itself, such as the number of years they have been in operation as well as the names of key stakeholders , along with statistics regarding the current state of the market in which the company participates. Information regarding overall profitability and the intended use of the funds can also be included.
Enthusiasts of the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) might insist that the value of professional analysts' research reports is suspect and that investors likely place too much confidence in the conclusions such analysts make. While a definitive conclusion about this topic is difficult to make because comparisons are not exact, some research papers do exist which claim empirical evidence supporting the value of such reports.
One such paper studied the market for India-based investments and analysts who cover them. The paper was published in the March 2014 edition of the International Research Journal of Business and Management. Its authors concluded that analyst recommendations do have an impact and are beneficial to investors at least in short-term decisions.
While some analysts are functionally unaffiliated, others may be directly or indirectly affiliated with the companies for which they produce reports. Unaffiliated analysts traditionally perform independent research to determine an appropriate recommendation and may have a limited concern regarding the outcome.
Affiliated analysts may feel best served by ensuring any research reports portray clients in a favorable light. Additionally, if an analyst is also an investor in the company on which the report is based, he may have a personal incentive to avoid topics that may result in a lowered valuation of the securities in which he has invested.
A research report is a concise document that summarizes the findings, methods, and conclusions of a research study or investigation. There are various types of research reports available for different purposes.
It typically includes details on the research question, methodology, data analysis, and results, providing a structured and informative account of the research process and outcomes.
Limitations, key highlights.
1. technical or scientific reports.
Technical and scientific reports communicate research findings to experts and professionals in a particular field.
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Characteristics:
Popular reports are designed for a general audience and aim to inform, educate, or entertain on a wide range of topics.
Survey reports include data collected through surveys and focus on presenting insights and opinions on specific issues or questions.
Market research reports provide insights into consumer behavior, market trends, and industry analysis.
Case study reports focus on an in-depth examination of a single entity, often to explore complex, real-life situations.
Analytical research reports involve a deep analysis of data to uncover patterns, trends, or relationships.
Literature review reports provide an overview of existing research on a specific topic, highlighting gaps and trends.
Experimental research reports involve controlled experiments to test hypotheses and determine if the results support or reject the hypothesis.
Descriptive research reports aim to provide a comprehensive picture of a phenomenon, group, or situation. They seek to answer the “what” and “how” questions.
Exploratory research reports are conducted when there is little prior knowledge about a subject. They aim to identify key variables and research questions.
Explanatory research reports seek to understand the relationships between variables and explain why certain phenomena occur.
Policy or white papers aim to inform policymakers, stakeholders, and the public about specific issues and recommend actions.
These are some common components you must know while writing different types of research reports.
1. Title Page:
2. Abstract: Add a concise summary of the research, including the research question or objective, methodology, key findings, and implications. Typically, it should be no more than 150-250 words.
3. Table of Contents: Include a list of sections and subsections with page numbers.
4. List of Figures and Tables: If your research includes numerical data, add all the statistics and tables along with their corresponding page numbers. It is similar to a table of contents for quantitative data.
5. List of Abbreviations and Symbols: Include any abbreviations or symbols you have used in the report and their meanings.
6. Introduction:
7. Literature Review:
8. Methodology:
9. Results:
10. Discussion:
11. Conclusion:
12. References: Include a list of all the sources cited in your report in a standardized citation style (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago).
Let us see an example of a research report.
Research Report: The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Labor Market
This research study explores the profound changes occurring in the labor market due to the increasing adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The study examines the potential benefits and challenges AI poses for the workforce, job displacement, and the skills required in the future job market.
Introduction, literature review, methodology.
The introduction section provides an overview of the research topic. It explains the significance of studying the impact of AI on the labor market, outlines the research questions, and previews the structure of the report.
The literature review section reviews existing research on the effects of AI on employment and the labor market. It discusses the different perspectives on whether AI will create new jobs or lead to job displacement. It also explores the skills and education required for the future workforce.
This section explains the research methods used, such as data collection methods, sources, and analytical techniques. It outlines how data on AI adoption, job displacement, and future job projections were gathered and analyzed.
The results section presents the key findings of the study. It includes data on the extent of AI adoption across industries, job displacement rates, and projections for AI-related occupations.
The discussion section interprets the results in the context of the research questions. It analyzes the potential benefits and challenges AI poses for the labor market, discusses policy implications, and explores the role of education and training in preparing the workforce for the AI era.
In conclusion, this research highlights the transformative impact of artificial intelligence on the labor market. While AI brings opportunities for innovation and efficiency, it also presents challenges related to job displacement and workforce adaptation. Preparing for this evolving job landscape is crucial for individuals and policymakers.
Given below are various types of research reports writing that researchers and organizations use to present findings, progress, and other information.
Outlines a plan for a project or research for approval or funding. | Research proposal submitted to study the impact of climate change on local ecosystems. | |
Generated at regular intervals to provide project updates. | Weekly sales reports summarizing product sales figures. | |
Detailed, structured reports often used in academic, scientific, or business settings. | Formal business report analyzing a company’s financial performance for the year. | |
Less structured reports for quick internal communication. | Email summarizing key takeaways from a team meeting. | |
Concise documents offering a brief overview of a specific topic. | A one-page summary of customer feedback from a product launch. | |
Comprehensive reports with in-depth analysis and information. | 100-page research report on the effects of a new drug on a medical condition. | |
Focus on data analysis and provide insights or recommendations. | Market research report analyzing consumer behavior trends and recommending marketing strategies. | |
Convey information without providing analysis or recommendations. | Report detailing the steps of a manufacturing process for new employees. | |
Flow within the organizational hierarchy, moving up or down. | Report from a department manager to the company’s vice president on department performance. | |
Sent between individuals or departments at the same organizational level. | Report from one project manager to another project manager in a different department. | |
Created and distributed within an organization for internal purposes. | Internal audit report examining the company’s financial records for compliance. | |
Prepared for external audiences, such as clients, investors, or regulators. | A publicly traded company publishes an annual report for shareholders and the general public. |
Here is why the different types of research reports are important.
Listed below are some limitations of different types of research reports.
Different types of research reports are important for sharing knowledge, making smart choices, and moving forward in different areas of study. It’s vital for both researchers and those who use research to grasp the different kinds of reports, what goes into them, and why they matter.
Q1. Are research reports the same as research papers? Answer: Research reports and research papers share similarities but have distinct purposes and structures. Research papers are often more academic and can vary in structure, while research reports are typically more structured and cater to a broader audience.
Q2. How do I choose the right type of research report for my study? Answer: The choice of research report type depends on your research goals, audience, and the nature of your study. Consider whether you are conducting scientific research, market analysis, academic research, or policy analysis, and select the format that aligns with your objectives.
Q3. Can research reports be used as references in other research reports? Answer: Yes, research reports can be cited and used as references in other research reports as long as they are credible sources. Citing previous research reports adds depth and credibility to your work.
This article lists all the types of research reports available for research methodologies. We have also included its format, example, and several report-writing methods. For similar articles, you can check the following articles,
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Methodology
Research methods are specific procedures for collecting and analyzing data. Developing your research methods is an integral part of your research design . When planning your methods, there are two key decisions you will make.
First, decide how you will collect data . Your methods depend on what type of data you need to answer your research question :
Second, decide how you will analyze the data .
Methods for collecting data, examples of data collection methods, methods for analyzing data, examples of data analysis methods, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about research methods.
Data is the information that you collect for the purposes of answering your research question . The type of data you need depends on the aims of your research.
Your choice of qualitative or quantitative data collection depends on the type of knowledge you want to develop.
For questions about ideas, experiences and meanings, or to study something that can’t be described numerically, collect qualitative data .
If you want to develop a more mechanistic understanding of a topic, or your research involves hypothesis testing , collect quantitative data .
Qualitative | to broader populations. . | |
---|---|---|
Quantitative | . |
You can also take a mixed methods approach , where you use both qualitative and quantitative research methods.
Primary research is any original data that you collect yourself for the purposes of answering your research question (e.g. through surveys , observations and experiments ). Secondary research is data that has already been collected by other researchers (e.g. in a government census or previous scientific studies).
If you are exploring a novel research question, you’ll probably need to collect primary data . But if you want to synthesize existing knowledge, analyze historical trends, or identify patterns on a large scale, secondary data might be a better choice.
Primary | . | methods. |
---|---|---|
Secondary |
In descriptive research , you collect data about your study subject without intervening. The validity of your research will depend on your sampling method .
In experimental research , you systematically intervene in a process and measure the outcome. The validity of your research will depend on your experimental design .
To conduct an experiment, you need to be able to vary your independent variable , precisely measure your dependent variable, and control for confounding variables . If it’s practically and ethically possible, this method is the best choice for answering questions about cause and effect.
Descriptive | . . | |
---|---|---|
Experimental |
Research method | Primary or secondary? | Qualitative or quantitative? | When to use |
---|---|---|---|
Primary | Quantitative | To test cause-and-effect relationships. | |
Primary | Quantitative | To understand general characteristics of a population. | |
Interview/focus group | Primary | Qualitative | To gain more in-depth understanding of a topic. |
Observation | Primary | Either | To understand how something occurs in its natural setting. |
Secondary | Either | To situate your research in an existing body of work, or to evaluate trends within a research topic. | |
Either | Either | To gain an in-depth understanding of a specific group or context, or when you don’t have the resources for a large study. |
Your data analysis methods will depend on the type of data you collect and how you prepare it for analysis.
Data can often be analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. For example, survey responses could be analyzed qualitatively by studying the meanings of responses or quantitatively by studying the frequencies of responses.
Qualitative analysis is used to understand words, ideas, and experiences. You can use it to interpret data that was collected:
Qualitative analysis tends to be quite flexible and relies on the researcher’s judgement, so you have to reflect carefully on your choices and assumptions and be careful to avoid research bias .
Quantitative analysis uses numbers and statistics to understand frequencies, averages and correlations (in descriptive studies) or cause-and-effect relationships (in experiments).
You can use quantitative analysis to interpret data that was collected either:
Because the data is collected and analyzed in a statistically valid way, the results of quantitative analysis can be easily standardized and shared among researchers.
Research method | Qualitative or quantitative? | When to use |
---|---|---|
Quantitative | To analyze data collected in a statistically valid manner (e.g. from experiments, surveys, and observations). | |
Meta-analysis | Quantitative | To statistically analyze the results of a large collection of studies. Can only be applied to studies that collected data in a statistically valid manner. |
Qualitative | To analyze data collected from interviews, , or textual sources. To understand general themes in the data and how they are communicated. | |
Either | To analyze large volumes of textual or visual data collected from surveys, literature reviews, or other sources. Can be quantitative (i.e. frequencies of words) or qualitative (i.e. meanings of words). |
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If you want to know more about statistics , methodology , or research bias , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.
Research bias
Quantitative research deals with numbers and statistics, while qualitative research deals with words and meanings.
Quantitative methods allow you to systematically measure variables and test hypotheses . Qualitative methods allow you to explore concepts and experiences in more detail.
In mixed methods research , you use both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis methods to answer your research question .
A sample is a subset of individuals from a larger population . Sampling means selecting the group that you will actually collect data from in your research. For example, if you are researching the opinions of students in your university, you could survey a sample of 100 students.
In statistics, sampling allows you to test a hypothesis about the characteristics of a population.
The research methods you use depend on the type of data you need to answer your research question .
Methodology refers to the overarching strategy and rationale of your research project . It involves studying the methods used in your field and the theories or principles behind them, in order to develop an approach that matches your objectives.
Methods are the specific tools and procedures you use to collect and analyze data (for example, experiments, surveys , and statistical tests ).
In shorter scientific papers, where the aim is to report the findings of a specific study, you might simply describe what you did in a methods section .
In a longer or more complex research project, such as a thesis or dissertation , you will probably include a methodology section , where you explain your approach to answering the research questions and cite relevant sources to support your choice of methods.
Other students also liked, writing strong research questions | criteria & examples.
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There is nothing more embarrassing for a marketer than to hear a client say “…this doesn’t quite address the business questions that we need to answer.” And unfortunately, this is a rather common occurrence in market research reporting that most marketers would care to admit.
So, why do most market research reports fail to meet client expectations? Well, in most cases, because there is more emphasis on methodology and analytic techniques used to craft the report rather than relying on data visualization, creative story-telling, and outlining actionable direction/steps.
Now, our next big question is, how do you avoid your client’s dreaded deer-in-the-headlights reaction when presenting such a report? This blog post will answer this and much more, as we go through the following:
Why is market research important, differences between primary and secondary market research, types of market research, market research reports advantages and disadvantages, how to do market research, how to prepare a market research report: 5 steps, marketing research report templates, marketing research reports best practices, bring your market research reports a step further with databox.
The purpose of creating a market research report is to make calculated decisions about business ideas. Market research is done to evaluate the feasibility of a new product or service, through research conducted with potential consumers. The information obtained from conducting market research is then documented in a formal report that should contain the following details:
Every business aims to provide the best possible product or service at the lowest cost possible. Simply said, market research is important because it helps you understand your customers and determine whether the product or service that you are about to launch is worth the effort.
Here is an example of a customer complaint that may result in more detailed market research:
Suppose you sell widgets, and you want your widget business to succeed over the long term. Over the years, you have developed many different ways of making widgets. But a couple of years ago, a customer complained that your widgets were made of a cheap kind of foam that fell apart after six months. You didn’t think at the time that this was a major problem, but now you know it.
The customer is someone you really want to keep. So, you decide to research this complaint. You set up a focus group of people who use widgets and ask them what they think about the specific problem. After the conducted survey you’ll get a better picture of customer opinions, so you can either decide to make the changes regarding widget design or just let it go.
Like most marketers and marketing managers, you want to know how well your efforts are translating into results each month. How much traffic and new contact conversions do you get? How many new contacts do you get from organic sessions? How are your email campaigns performing? How well are your landing pages converting? You might have to scramble to put all of this together in a single report, but now you can have it all at your fingertips in a single Databox dashboard.
Our Marketing Overview Dashboard includes data from Google Analytics 4 and HubSpot Marketing with key performance metrics like:
Now you can benefit from the experience of our Google Analytics and HubSpot Marketing experts, who have put together a plug-and-play Databox template that contains all the essential metrics for monitoring your leads. It’s simple to implement and start using as a standalone dashboard or in marketing reports, and best of all, it’s free!
You can easily set it up in just a few clicks – no coding required.
To set up the dashboard, follow these 3 simple steps:
Step 1: Get the template
Step 2: Connect your HubSpot and Google Analytics 4 accounts with Databox.
Step 3: Watch your dashboard populate in seconds.
Marketing research requires both primary and secondary market research. But what does that mean and what are the main differences?
Primary market research takes in information directly from customers, usually as participants in surveys. Usually, it is consisted of:
Secondary market research collects information from other sources such as databases, trend reports, market or government statistics, industry content, etc. We can divide secondary market research into 3 categories:
In general, primary research is more reliable than secondary research, because researchers have to interview people directly. But primary research is expensive and time-consuming. Secondary research can be quicker and less expensive.
There are plenty of ways to conduct marketing research reports. Mostly, the type of research done will depend on your goals. Here are some types of market research often conducted by marketers.
Product/service use research, observation-based research, buyer persona research, market segmentation research, pricing research, competitive analysis research, customer satisfaction and loyalty research, brand awareness research, campaign research.
An interview is an interactive process of asking and answering questions and observing your respondent’s responses. Interviews are one of the most commonly used tools in market research . An interview allows an organization to observe, in detail, how its consumers interact with its products and services. It also allows an organization to address specific questions.
A focus group is a group of people who get together to discuss a particular topic. A moderator leads the discussion and takes notes. The main benefit of focus groups is that they are quick and easy to conduct. You can gather a group of carefully-selected people, give them a product to try out, and get their feedback within a few hours/days.
Product or service use research helps you obtain useful information about your product or service such as:
Observation-based research helps you to observe your target audience interacting with your product or service. You will see the interactions and which aspects work well and which could be improved. The main point is to directly experience the feedback from your target audience’s point of view.
Personas are an essential sales tool. By knowing your buyers’ pain points and the challenges they face, you can create better content, target messaging, and campaigns for them. Buyer persona research is based on market research, and it’s built around data that describes your customers’ demographics, behaviors, motivations, and concerns. Sales reporting software can significantly help you develop buyer personas when you gain insights after you collected all information.
Market segmentation research is carried out to better understand existing and potential market segments. The objective is to determine how to target different market segments and how they differ from each other. The three most important steps in writing a market segmentation research report are:
Related : 9 Customer Segmentation Tips to Personalize Ecommerce Marketing and Drive More Sales
A price that is too high, or too low, can kill a business. And without good market research, you don’t really know what is a good price for your product. Pricing research helps you define your pricing strategy.
In a competitive analysis, you define your “competition” as any other entity that competes with you in your market, whether you’re selling a widget or a piece of real estate. With competitive analysis research, you can find out things like:
Related : How to Do an SEO Competitive Analysis: A Step-by-Step Guide
In today’s marketplace, companies are increasingly focused on customer loyalty. What your customers want is your product, but, more importantly, they want it delivered with a service that exceeds their expectations. Successful companies listen to their customers and respond accordingly. That’s why customer satisfaction and loyalty research is a critical component of that basic equation.
Related : 11 Tactics for Effectively Measuring Your Customer Service ROI
Who you are, what you stand for, what you offer, what you believe in, and what your audience thinks of you is all wrapped up in brand. Brand awareness research tells what your target audience knows about your brand and what’s their experience like.
A campaign research report is a detailed account of how your marketing campaign performed. It includes all the elements that went into creating the campaign: planning, implementation, and measurement.
Here are some of the top advantages and disadvantages of doing market research and crafting market research reports.
Here are the essential steps you need to take when doing market research:
Identify a persona group to engage, prepare research questions for your market research participants, list your primary competitors, summarize your findings.
The job of a marketing persona is to describe your ideal customer and to tell you what they want, what motivates them, what frustrates them, and what limits them. Finding out these things means you have a better chance of designing your products, services, marketing messages, and brand around real customers. There is no one right way to create a buyer persona, though.
For example, if you’re in an industry focused on education, you could include things like:
It’s recommended that you create 3-5 buyer personas for your products, based on your ideal customer.
This should be a representative sample of your target customers so you can better understand their behavior. You want to find people who fit both your target personas and who represent the broader demographic of your market. People who recently made a purchase or purposefully decided not to make one are a good sample to start with.
The questions you use determine the quality of your results. Of course, the quality of your results also depends on the quality of your participants.
Don’t ask questions that imply a yes or no answer. Instead, use open questions. For example, if you are researching customers about yogurt products, you could ask them: „ What have you heard about yogurt ?” or “ What do you think of yogurt ?“.
Avoid questions that use numbers, such as “ How many times a week do you eat yogurt ?”
Avoid questions that suggest a set of mutually exclusive answers, such as “ Do you like yogurt for breakfast, lunch, or dinner ?”
Avoid questions that imply a scale, such as “ Do you like chocolate-flavored yogurt ?”
Market researchers sometimes call one company the top competitor, another middle competitor, and the third one small competitor. However you classify them, you want to identify at least three companies in each category. Now, for each business on your list, list its key characteristics. For example, if your business sells running shoes, a key characteristic might be the product’s quality.
Next, make a list of your small business’s competitive advantages. These include the unique qualities or features of your business that make it the best choice of customers for the products or services it offers. Make a list of these competitive advantages and list them next to the key characteristics you listed for your business.
You have just finished writing your marketing research report. Everything is out there quantified or qualified. You just have to sum it up and focus on the most important details that are going to make a big impact on your decisions. Clear summary leads to a winning strategy!
Related : How to Prepare a Complete Marketing Report: The KPIs, Analysis, & Action Plan You Need
Here’s how to prepare a market research report in 5 simple steps:
Step 2: prepare an outline, step 3: mention the research methods, step 4: include visuals with narrative explanations, step 5: conclude the report with recommendations.
Your first step is to cluster all the available information into a manageable set. Clustering is the process of grouping information together in a way that emphasizes commonalities and minimizes differences. So, in market research, this will help to organize all the information you have about a product, service, or target market and identify your focus areas.
A marketing research report should be written so that other people can understand it:
The market research methodology section includes details on the type of research, sample size, any limitations of the studies, research design, sample selection, data collection procedures, and statistical analyses used.
Visuals are an essential part of the presentation. Even the best-written text can be difficult to understand. Charts and graphs are easier to understand than text alone, and they help the reader see how the numbers fit the bigger picture.
But visuals are not the whole story. They are only one part of the presentation. Visuals are a cue for the reader. The narrative gives the story, not just the numbers.
Recommendations tend to follow logically from conclusions and are a response to a certain problem. The recommendation should always be relevant to the research rationale, that is, the recommendation should be based on the results of the research reported in the body of the report.
Now, let’s take a look at some dashboard reporting templates you could use to enhance your market research:
Sales pipeline performance report, customer success overview report, stripe (mrr & churn) report, semrush (position tracking) report template.
This free SEMRush dashboard template will help you monitor how your website’s search visibility on search engines evolves on a monthly basis. This dashboard contains all of the information you need to make changes and improve the ranking results of your business in Google Search.
This Brand Awareness Report will help you to get a sense of your brand awareness performance in Google Analytics, Google Organic Search, and Facebook. Use this dashboard to track brand awareness the same way you track other marketing campaigns.
Are your sales and marketing funnel healthy and growing? How is your sales and marketing funnel performing? What are the key conversion rates between your lifecycle stages? With a pipeline performance dashboard , you’ll get all of the answers quickly.
This Customer Success Overview Dashboard allows you to analyze how your customer service team’s responsiveness impacts your business. Use this dashboard to assess the correlation between your customer service performance and churn rate.
This Stripe dashboard tracks your churn rate and MRR growth in real-time and shows you which customers (and how many of them) you have at any given point in time. All you have to do to get started is to connect your Stripe account.
As we said earlier, there are no strict rules when it comes to writing marketing research reports. On the other hand, you must find your focus if you want to write a report that will make a difference. Here are some best practices you should keep in mind when writing a research report.
Market research reports are all about presenting your data in an easy-to-understand way and making calculated decisions about business ideas. But this is something easier said than done.
When busy stakeholders and executives grab a report, they need something that will give them an idea of the results – the big picture that addresses company wide-business goals.
Can a PowerPoint presentation or a PDF report meet those expectations? Most likely not. But a dashboard can.
Keep in mind that even with the best market analysis in the world, your market research report won’t be actionable if you don’t present the data efficiently and in a way that everyone understands what the next steps are. Databox is your key ally in the matter.
Databox dashboards are designed to help you present your market research data with clarity – from identifying what is influencing your business, and understanding where your brand is situated in the market, to gauging the temperature of your niche or industry before a new product/service launch.
Present your research results with efficient, interactive dashboards now by signing up for a free trial .
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Grew up as a Copywriter. Evolved into the Content creator. Somewhere in between, I fell in love with numbers that can portray the world as well as words or pictures. A naive thinker who believes that the creative economy is the most powerful force in the world!
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Learn what research misconduct is, how allegations are handled, and find resources to address misconduct.
NIH aims to enable scientific discovery while assuring honesty, transparency, integrity, fair merit-based competition, and protection of intellectual capital and proprietary information. As the largest public funder of biomedical research, NIH sets the standard for innovation and scientific discovery. We promote the highest levels of scientific integrity and public accountability in the conduct of science.
The scientific research enterprise is built on a deep foundation of trust and shared values. As the National Academies wrote in their 2019 On Being a Scientist report, "this trust will endure only if the scientific community devotes itself to exemplifying and transmitting the values associated with ethical scientific conduct" Falsifying, fabricating, or plagiarizing data—all forms of research misconduct—are contrary to these values and ethical conduct.
Failing to uphold research integrity undermines the public’s confidence and trust in the outcomes of NIH supported research. Research integrity includes:
This page last updated on: July 15, 2024
Welcome to Turnitin’s new website for guidance!
In 2024, we migrated our comprehensive library of guidance from https://help.turnitin.com to this site, guides.turnitin.com. During this process we have taken the opportunity to take a holistic look at our content and how we structure our guides.
This page is here to help you orientate yourself with these changes and update your resources
We have restructured the content to help you navigate it more efficiently.
We are consolidating numerous pages to make our individual guides more valuable as well as removing duplicated content.
For example, our Similarity Report guidance on help.turnitin is repeated in numerous places to cater for each individual integration and license type. On guides.turnitin this content will exist in a single place to allow for users of all integrations and licenses to find it easily. We have made slight modifications to these guides to help you understand which guides are pertinent to you and your institution.
Our guidance search has greatly improved
As a result of our content restructure, the search functionality for guides.turnitin has improved. Use the search bar at the top of any page to locate the guidance you’re searching for.
Dedicated student and administrator guidance hubs
Visit the Student hub area to locate student guidance. For students who access Turnitin via an LMS or VLE, check out the subsection Submitting to Turnitin .
Visiting the Administrator hub area to locate administrator guidance and release notes.
iThenticate and Crossref Similarity Check guidance is now located on a separate site
To improve the experience for our iThenticate and Crossref Similiarity Check customers we have move their help content onto a separate help site, guides.ithenticate.com . This will improve the search for all users.
We have also created an orientation page for this site to help users become acclimatised.
Some guidance is no longer grouped within the LMS umbrella
Some guidance which was previously provided under each LMS has been moved to sections that reflect those workflows’ outcomes. Use the table below as a cheatsheet to quickly locate guidance.
Student guidance | |
LMS guidance for administrators and instructors | |
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A small investment in learning about women's needs can yield great rewards..
Posted July 15, 2024 | Reviewed by Monica Vilhauer
For most of history, women have been told how to behave, how to dress, how to think (or not think), and what they could do professionally and at home. Women have also been told how to act during sex and how to enjoy or tolerate sex.
What sex researchers and health advocates have promoted is that women need to openly talk about their differing needs and arousal patterns. In fact, recent research indicates that not only do women differ from men in how they experience arousal and orgasm , but women also differ from other women, and that’s just fine. [i]
One thing that researching women’s sexual health has taught me is that women experience sex across a wide range of possibilities. I, in no way, speak for all women. I am simply aware of some general trends in my research and others’ research. So, with the understanding that women have a wide range of experience let’s talk about a few overarching realities of women’s sexual experience.
We don’t want to be and should not be prodded to be like men. Women do not evaluate sex in the same way that men do, and this needs to be acknowledged and valued. Nearly every study that ever was shows that men’s sexual desire for penetrative sex is significantly higher than women’s. [ii] That’s not a fact we need to debate. However, sexual desire for penetrative sex is not the only marker of sexual desire. The sexual desire to feel desired, cuddle, feel emotionally connected, and feel arousal for arousal’s sake are also markers that need to be evaluated and valued. Women’s desire in those categories are generally higher than men’s. Both need attention . Research has shown that men and women have a range of sexual arousal patterns and, despite the differing patterns, nearly all lead to satisfaction if shame is not involved. [iii]
There is the occasional nod in movies that a great lover takes time to make sure their wife or partner experiences pleasure. However, women’s sexual needs go far beyond whether they orgasm. Societal pressure for women to be like men also contributes to the problem. Some women feel pressure to have the same level of orgasm consistency as their partner or to experience arousal at the same pace as their partner. Unfortunately, this even leads to women faking orgasms to shorten an unrewarding sexual experience or avoid making their partner feel like an inadequate lover.
One of the main problems is that society has only valued sexual desire that results in intercourse or oral sex AND culminates in orgasm. Women often experience sexual desire but want to connect emotionally in an environment of comfort, safety, and vulnerability. They may want to sit in arousal and not drive toward orgasm. They may want to orgasm many times. The point is, women have a wide range of what satisfies them, and good lovers will take the time to talk about this and enthusiastically find ways that meet both partners’ needs. Do women want to orgasm—YES! But most women are still highly satisfied if they orgasm most of the time and not necessarily every time. [iv]
Women need to experience an increase of oxytocin to feel heightened arousal and orgasm. Too often the sexual experience is hurried and not as emotionally connected as women need. Talking about emotions and creating an environment of safety and vulnerability are essential for women’s bodies to be able to move through the process of arousal. Heightened oxytocin (sometimes called the cuddle hormone ) is necessary for women’s body to respond to arousal cues and reach an orgasm threshold. Being a good lover often means taking time to emotionally connect first and create a comfortable, warm, emotional environment and taking longer during foreplay and the sexual activity. [v] Jumping into touching genitals right away is off-putting for most women.
Being a thoughtful lover requires that you first learn about yourself and then openly share that with your partner to create a sense of curiosity and healthy risk-taking . Slow down the process to be aware of more detail. Generally, couples who take longer in their lovemaking learn more about one another and create more passion and eroticism.
[i] Leavitt, C. E., Lefkowitz, E. S., & Waterman, E. A. (2019). The role of sexual mindfulness in sexual wellbeing, Relational wellbeing, and self-esteem. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy , 45 (6), 497-509.
[ii] Baumeister, R. F., Catanese, K. R., & Vohs, K. D. (2001). Is there a gender difference in strength of sex drive? Theoretical views, conceptual distinctions, and a review of relevant evidence. Personality and Social Psychology Review , 5 (3), 242-273.
[iii] Leavitt, C. E., Leonhardt, N. D., & Busby, D. M. (2019). Different ways to get there: Evidence of a variable female sexual response cycle. The Journal of Sex Research .
[iv] Leavitt, C. E., Leonhardt, N. D., Busby, D. M., & Clarke, R. W. (2021). When is enough enough? Orgasm’s curvilinear association with relational and sexual satisfaction. The Journal of Sexual Medicine , 18 (1), 167-178.
[v] Weiss, P., & Brody, S. (2009). ORIGINAL RESEARCH–PSYCHOLOGY: Women's Partnered Orgasm Consistency Is Associated with Greater Duration of Penile–Vaginal Intercourse but Not of Foreplay. The Journal of Sexual Medicine , 6 (1), 135-141.
[vi] Leavitt, C. E., Leonhardt, N. D., & Busby, D. M. (2019). Different ways to get there: Evidence of a variable female sexual response cycle. The Journal of Sex Research .
[vii] Leavitt, C. E., Maurer, T. F., Clyde, T. L., Clarke, R. W., Busby, D. M., Yorgason, J. B., ... & James, S. (2021). Linking sexual mindfulness to mixed-sex couples’ relational flourishing, sexual harmony, and orgasm. Archives of Sexual Behavior , 50 (6), 2589-2602.
Chelom E. Leavitt, J.D., Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University.
Sticking up for yourself is no easy task. But there are concrete skills you can use to hone your assertiveness and advocate for yourself.
Frequently asked questions (faq), how interest rates affect the stock market, how to invest in stocks: a step-by-step guide for beginners.
Paid non-client promotion: Affiliate links for the products on this page are from partners that compensate us (see our advertiser disclosure with our list of partners for more details). However, our opinions are our own. See how we rate investing products to write unbiased product reviews.
Looking to maximize your money and beat the cost of inflation ? You want to invest in the stock market to get higher returns than your average savings account. But learning how to invest in stocks can be daunting for someone just getting started.
When you invest in stocks , you're purchasing a share of a company. They're basically a slice of ownership in a company that can yield returns if it's successful. There are various ways to invest and leverage your money. But there's a lot to know before you get started investing in stocks.
It's important to know what your fundamental goals are and why you want to start investing in the first place. Knowing this will help you to set clear goals to work toward. This is a crucial first step to take when you're looking to create an investing strategy later on.
If you're unsure of your goals, first review your financial situation, such as how much debt you have, your after-tax income, and your expected retirement goal date. Knowing when you plan to retire can let you know your overall time horizon — or how much time you plan to hold onto your investments to reach your financial goal.
Based on that information, you can start figuring out your investing goals. Do you want to invest for the short or long term? Are you saving for a down payment on a house? Or are you trying to build your nest egg for retirement? All of these situations will affect how much — and how aggressively — to invest.
Finally, investing, like life, is inherently risky And you can lose money as easily as you can earn it. For your financial and mental well-being, you want to consider your appetite for risk. This is typically referred to as "risk tolerance" or how much risk you can reasonably take on given your financial situation and feelings about risk.
Once you've got some solid goals set, it's time to review your budget. Here are some things to consider:
All of these are key ingredients that can help you determine your budget.
One last thing to consider: when you expect to retire. For example, if you have 30 years to save for retirement, you can use a retirement calculator to assess how much you might need and how much you should save each month. When setting a budget, make sure you can afford it and that it is helping you reach your goals.
Now it's time to start doing research on what to invest in. There are different ways to invest in the stock market and there's a lot to know so doing your research is well worth your time. As a regular person who is investing (not a professional trader, accredited trader, or institution), you're what's called a "retail investor."
Stocks are a good option to consider if you want to invest in specific companies. Just keep in mind that you should look into the company itself and how it's performing over time:
"If you're going to pick a stock, look at the [company's] financial statements and select the stock based on the "bucket" you're trying to fill in your portfolio. For example, are you looking for a dividend stock? Look at the dividend history. Are you looking for a growth stock? Look at the earnings per share : Is it showing consistent growth? [Consider] how these indicators measure against [its] peer group," says Amy Irvine, a CFP® professional at Rooted Planning Group.
So you want to take steps to look at your income and expense balance sheets and make sure you're hitting the right bucket — which refers to the grouping of related assets or categories — for your investing needs. For example, investing in small-cap, mid-cap, or large-cap stocks, are a way to invest in different-sized companies with varying market capitalizations and degrees of risk.
If you're looking to go the DIY route or want the option to have your securities professionally managed, you can consider ETFs, mutual funds, or index funds:
You want to get familiar with the various types of investing vehicles and understand the risks and rewards of each type of security. For example, stocks can be lucrative but also very risky. As we mentioned before, mutual funds are actively managed, whereas index-based ETFs and index funds are passively managed.
This is important to keep in mind because your costs and responsibilities vary depending on an active versus passive approach. Mutual funds are professionally managed and may have higher fees. With ETFs and index funds, you can purchase them yourself and may have lower fees. Having a diverse portfolio can help you prepare for the risk and not have all of your eggs in one basket.
"You can choose to invest in individual stocks, a stock mutual fund, or an ETF. ETFs are somewhat similar to mutual funds in that they invest in many stocks, but trade more similarly to an individual stock," explains Kenny Senour, CFP® professional at Millennial Wealth Management. "For example, let's say you open a brokerage account with $1,000. You can use that money to purchase a certain number of shares in ABC Company, the underlying price of which fluctuates while the stock market is open. Or you could choose to invest it in a stock mutual fund, which invests in many different stocks and is priced at the close of each market at the end of the day."
The main things to consider when defining your investment strategy are your time horizon, your financial goals, risk tolerance, tax bracket, and your time constraints. Based on this information, there are two main approaches to investing.
After choosing your investment strategy, you want to choose an investing account that can help you get started. Decide if you want to do it yourself or get a professional to help out.
If you want to be a passive investor and DIY, you can look into:
If you want to get started with active investing, you can use:
When considering active versus passive investing and if you should DIY it or get a professional, you want to consider several factors. Look at total fees, the time commitment involved and any account minimums as well.
The easiest way for many people to get started with investing is to utilize their employer-sponsored 401(k). Talk to your employer about getting started and see if they'll match part of your contributions.
The key is to choose an investment account that fits with your budget and investment strategy, open an account, and then submit an initial deposit. Just know that when you submit money, it's in a cash settlement account and not yet actively invested (I made this mistake when I first started investing!)
Now it's time to start managing your portfolio. So that means buying stocks, ETFs, or index funds with their appropriate codes from your account. That is when your money is actually invested.
But it doesn't stop there — you also want to continue to add to your portfolio so consider setting up auto-deposits each month. You can also re-invest any earnings or dividends to help build growth over time.
Diversify your portfolio by investing in different types of investment vehicles and industries. A buy-and-hold approach is typically better for beginner investors. It can be tempting to try out day trading, but that can be very risky.
Lastly, you'll want to rebalance your portfolio at least once a year. As your portfolio grows and dips, your asset allocation — or how much you've invested in stocks, bonds, and cash — will have shifted. Rebalancing is basically resetting that to the proportion you want.
"Rebalancing is the practice of periodically selling and buying investments in your underlying portfolio to make sure certain target weights are stable over time. For example, let's say you are an aggressive investor with 90% of your portfolio in stocks and 10% of your portfolio in bonds. Over time, as stocks and bonds perform differently, those weights will drift," explains Senour.
"Without periodic rebalancing, your portfolio could become 95% stocks and 5% bonds which may not be in line with your intended financial goals for the account. There's no "perfect" time frame for rebalancing as some financial professionals suggest doing so every quarter, but conventional wisdom says at a minimum rebalancing at least once per year can make sense."
Continuing to invest money and rebalance your portfolio periodically will help you keep your investments in good shape.
Choosing stocks can be overwhelming for beginners — but you don't have to just invest in individual stocks. It can be less risky (and good for diversifying your portfolio) to invest in funds.
You may choose to invest in an index fund, which is a group of assets that tracks an index such as the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Investing in individual stocks can be useful. However, you should thoroughly research the company before doing so. And as a beginner, you'll probably want to seek advice from an expert like a financial advisor .
Learning how to invest in stocks can be overwhelming, especially if you're just getting started. Figuring out your goals and determining a budget are the first steps to take.
After that, get acquainted with various investment vehicles and choose the right ones for your financial goals and risk tolerance.
The key is to get started and be consistent. The best investment strategy is the one you'll stick with. Just be aware all investing comes with risk and do your research on any related fees.
Investments come in many forms. If you want to start investing, understanding the main types of investments is helpful.
You may hear the breakdown of investment types as asset classes. Here's a look at some of the most common types of investments.
Over time, inflation can erode the purchasing power of your dollar, and also chip away at your investment returns. But with some foresight and planning, it's possible to protect your money. The solution is investing for inflation — choosing investments that will give you a return greater than the current rate of inflation — or at least keep up with it.
Several asset classes in particular lend themselves to inflation-oriented investing.
Growth stocks are shares of companies that are expected to experience high growth rates in both their revenue and returns to investors. Growth stocks are those that investors believe will have higher-than-average returns in the short term, while value stocks are those that investors feel are overlooked by the market at large. They are more volatile than value stocks, but they also have the potential to generate higher returns.
Value stocks, on the other hand, are shares of companies that trade at a lower price relative to the company's financial performance. They are measured and defined by their financial performance, such as sales, earnings, and select financial ratios.
Another way of looking at the difference between the two: Growth stocks would be the expensive designer jacket, value stocks would be the jacket at the thrift store.
The Fed meets eight times per year to discuss the federal funds rate, and investors tend to react to what occurs once the notes of the meeting have been released. During these meetings, the Fed uses economic data like the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the unemployment rate, and more to determine what the Fed Funds rate should be.
The stock market reacts to the changes in the interest rates because it generally signals whether or not the economy is strong. It could also have an impact on a company's cost to doing business, thus changing how investors may value a company. This is because of the impact that interest rates have on the stock market.
Here are the ways interest rates affect the stock market:
1. When rates rise, stocks tend to fall — when rates fall, stocks rise
"When interest rates are low, companies can assume debt at a low cost, which they may use to add team members or expand into new ventures," says Harrison. "When rates rise, it's harder for companies to borrow and more costly to manage what debt they already have, which impacts their ability to grow," he adds. These higher costs may result in lower revenues, thus negatively impacting the value of the company.
Also keep in mind that as rates fall on savings accounts and certificates of deposit, investors generally seek out higher paying investments like stocks and are generally seen as a catalyst for growth in the market; in a rising rate environment investors tend to shift away from stock to places with less risk and safer returns.
2. The rates impacts bonds
Most traditional bonds pay a fixed interest rate through maturity. For example, if you own a 10 year bond paying 3% per year, the 3% annual payment will not fluctuate. However, if interest rates are cut during the life of the bond, the value of the bond rises. This is because as new bonds are issued, it is unlikely that they will be as attractive financially. The opposite is true in a rising rate environment.
3. Investor expectations can cause volatility
In some cases, how investors feel about the prospects of an interest rate hike or cut can cause the market to swing. Due to announcements by the Fed and other economic data, investors may anticipate a threat of rising rates and begin selling causing short term volatility. This was the case at various points in 2018 and 2021. Investors can do the same and expect a drop in interest rates. In either case, the market can react simply to these expectations of a change in rates without the Fed actually making a move.
Trading and investing are two different ways of approaching the stock market. With trading, you're hoping to earn quick returns based on short-term fluctuations in the market. Long-term investors, in contrast, tend to build diversified portfolios of assets and stay in them through the ups and downs of the market.
Trading can be a thrilling way to earn quick cash. However, like with gambling, it can also quickly lead to big losses. Investing usually means smaller short-term wins, but also fewer severe losses.
If you're comfortable with the risks, trading with a portion of your money can be enjoyable and could lead to profits. If reducing risk and exposure to volatility are your main goals, you'll want to stick with long-term investing. But if you're saving for a financial goal you hope to reach by a specific time, a slow-and-steady investing approach is usually best.
The first step is choosing a brokerage account. It may be important to you to use a large, widely recognized company like Charles Schwab or Vanguard. Or you might prefer a robo-advisor, like Wealthfront or Betterment. You'll also want to look at which types of assets you can invest in with a brokerage, and how much each of your top options charges in fees.
Once you've chosen your brokerage, you should be able to apply online. Open the account, deposit money into it, then invest that money in stocks or other assets.
Investing as a beginner can be safe if you do your due diligence. Funds, rather than individual stocks, tend to be safer investments. You can also use a robo-advisor or in-person advisor for a fee to help you decide how to invest. It's important to look at the best financial advisors to ensure you're making wise decisions with your investments.
Yes, it can be worth it. More and more brokerages are starting to offer fractional shares. Let's say a share of a stock costs $100, but you only have $20. With a fractional share, you can buy $20 worth of that share.
Investing in the stock market always comes with risks — it's possible to lose any money you put in. But there's also a chance that your money will grow. If you invest a small amount now, that amount might not be so tiny later.
Investing is the process of putting your money to work for you. Investors buy an asset with the hopes of making money from it either from increases in the price or through regular interest or other income. While investing comes with risks, it offers an opportunity to grow your funds.
Investors purchase an asset with the hopes that it will appreciate in value or generate income. Appreciation happens when an asset, like a share of stock, grows in value over time. Many investors purchase assets with the goal of creating an income stream, like a property to producing rental income or securities that make regular payments to the holders. Investors interested in income generation might be drawn to stocks that pay dividends or fixed-income assets like bonds that make regular interest payments.
Also known as ordinary stock, common stock is a type of investment asset or security. Each share of stock represents a tiny portion of ownership of a company. Although you can own shares in any sort of company or investment enterprise, the term "common stock" mainly refers to stock in a publicly traded company, as opposed to a privately held one.
Preferred stock is a type of equity (ownership) security issued by companies to raise money. Preferred stocks pay a higher, fixed dividend than common stock, but their share prices don't appreciate as much as common shares do. Preferreds are best for institutional investors or sophisticated individuals who want them for tax reasons and can weather the risk of the shares being recalled.
A shareholder is an individual or entity — such as a company or organization — that owns stocks in a particular company. If you invest in the stock market, you're already considered a shareholder, or what is also referred to as a stockholder. Shareholders, as part owners of a company, also have the right to vote in some cases regarding matters of the company and can receive dividend payouts when the company is doing well financially.
Impact investing is buying shares in a company that's designed to have a positive effect on society. These companies have a "double bottom line," focused both on turning a financial profit and making a measurable, positive impact on a social need in the process. This could be through generating renewable energy, making only eco-friendly and sustainably produced products, or financially empowering workers in emerging economies.
Passive investing, also known as passive management, says that, while the stock market does experience drops and bumps, it inevitably rises over the long haul. So, rather than try to outsmart it, the best course is to mirror the market in your portfolio — usually with investments based on indexes of stocks — and then sit back and enjoy the ride. Simple to understand and easy to execute, passive investing has become the go-to approach for many investors.
Editorial Note: Any opinions, analyses, reviews, or recommendations expressed in this article are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any card issuer. Read our editorial standards .
Please note: While the offers mentioned above are accurate at the time of publication, they're subject to change at any time and may have changed, or may no longer be available.
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Mabel Felix , Laurie Sobel , and Alina Salganicoff Published: Jun 06, 2024
Note: Originally published in May 2023, this brief has been updated and expanded to address ongoing litigation in many states that is underway to challenge exceptions laws.
Abortion is currently banned in 14 states and many other states have attempted to ban or severely restrict access to abortion. All of these bans have an exception to prevent the death of the pregnant person and some bans include other exceptions that fall into three categories: when there is risk to the health of the pregnant person, when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, and when there is a lethal fetal anomaly.
Since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade , state abortion bans and the exceptions they contain – or lack – have garnered significant attention. The Supreme Court is considering a case this term about whether the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), a federal law requiring hospitals to provide stabilizing treatment to patients who present to their emergency rooms, preempts state abortion laws and requires hospitals to provide abortion care when it is necessary to stabilize a patient, even when the abortion does not qualify foris not including in an exception to the state’s abortion ban. Discussions about exceptions to state abortion bans often obscure the reality that many of these exceptions can be unworkable in practice. There are reports of people being unable to obtain abortions, despite the fact that their pregnancies fall into these broad exception categories. While there is no accurate estimate of the number of people seeking abortion care in circumstances that qualify for an exception in states than ban abortion, the number of people who have received abortion care post- Dobbs in states that have banned abortion is very low . Many of the exceptions included in these bans use definitions that are vague, narrow, and non-clinical, and effectively remove the ability of health care providers to best manage the care of pregnant people, instead leaving that decision to the state or the clinician’s home institution. Further complicating matters, several states have multiple bans in effect, often with contradicting definitions, requirements, exceptions, and standards, creating ambiguity for clinicians and their patients. This brief analyzes the exceptions to abortion bans and discusses how their purported aims to provide life-saving care may not be achieved in practice.
To prevent the death of the pregnant person.
All state abortion bans currently in effect contain exceptions to “prevent the death” or “preserve the life” of the pregnant person. As explained in further detail in the section below, these exceptions may create difficulties for physicians, as it is unclear how much risk of death or how close to death a pregnant patient may need to be for the exception to apply and the determination is not up to the physician treating the pregnant patient.
Most states with bans that contain a health exception permit abortion care when there is a serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function. These exceptions are limited by the lack of specific clinical definitions of the conditions qualifying for the exception. Only the Arizona 15-week LMP (last menstrual period) limit explicitly defines the bodily functions that may be considered “major.” The other states that use this language in their bans do not define what constitutes a “major bodily function,” nor what constitutes a “substantial impairment” to a major bodily function. This vague language puts physicians providing care to pregnant people in a difficult situation should their patients need an abortion to treat a condition jeopardizing their health and can leave the determination of whether an abortion can be legally provided to lawyers for the institution in which the clinician practices. For instance, in South Carolina where the 6-week LMP abortion limit has a health exception, the law lists a couple of conditions that may fall under this exception, such as severe pre-eclampsia and uterine rupture, but with no further detail. Using this language as guidance, it would be difficult for physicians to know if a significant health issue would fall under the exception. The difficulties presented by the simultaneous vagueness and narrowness of the exceptions are exacerbated by the lack of deference given to clinicians’ medical judgment under these bans.
However, even if the terms in the exceptions were defined more clearly, they would still exclude many health conditions pregnant people face. In Georgia , for example, providers challenging the ban note that the exceptions do not permit abortion care when it is needed to prevent: “(1) substantial but reversible physical impairment of a major bodily function, (2) less than ‘substantial’ but irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function, or (3) substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a bodily function that is not ‘major.’” A medical condition may still be a significant health event, yet not qualify under the exceptions, even if their limits were more clearly defined.
Mental health conditions account for over 20% of pregnancy-related deaths in the US, yet almost all states with health exceptions limit them to conditions affecting physical health, with some going further and explicitly precluding emotional or psychological health conditions. Alabama , the only state that includes mental health concerns in its health exception, requires a psychiatrist to diagnose the pregnant person with a “serious mental illness” and document it is likely the person will engage in behavior that could result in their death or the death of the fetus that due to their mental health condition. The law does not define “serious mental illness” and does not allow physicians to determine what serious mental illnesses qualify for the exception. In addition, abortion bans and restrictions in Georgia, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wyoming explicitly exclude mental/emotional health. Several other states (Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, the remaining Kentucky ban, and one of Arkansas’ total bans) limit their life and/or health exceptions to physical conditions, without explicitly calling out mental/emotional health exceptions.
Some states’ abortion laws specify that care for ectopic pregnancies and pregnancy loss is not criminalized in its statutes. Most states with these provisions in their bans allow for the removal of a dead fetus or embryo, but not for miscarriage care, generally. This means that pregnant people who are actively miscarrying may be denied care if there is still detectable fetal cardiac activity. There have already been reports of such situations in Texas and Louisiana . In Louisiana, for example, a pregnant woman went to the hospital after experiencing sharp pain and bleeding. She was informed her fetus had likely stopped growing a few weeks prior, as its size did not correspond to the length of her pregnancy, and that it had very faint cardiac activity. Despite the pain and the blood loss she was experiencing, she could not receive the regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol commonly prescribed to pregnant patients who are miscarrying to ensure that the pregnancy is safely expelled from the body completely in a timely manner, thereby decreasing the risk of sepsis and infection. Instead, she had to wait for the miscarriage to progress without medical intervention, which would have expedited the process and reduced her medical risk. In states where the abortion bans do not clarify that miscarriage care is not criminalized – even when there is still detectable cardiac activity – pregnant people may not be able to receive care to manage their pregnancy loss unless and until it becomes a medical emergency.
In deciding whether or not to provide abortion care to preserve the health of a pregnant patient, physicians now face the risk of a jury or the state disagreeing with their judgment about the gravity of the health risk the pregnant person was experiencing, and as a result, face prison time, monetary fines, and loss of professional license. Before the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs , the decision to have an abortion pre-viability when facing a health risk was made by the pregnant person in consultation with medical professionals in consideration of the needs and overall health history of the pregnant patient. In states with abortion bans, when deciding whether or not to provide abortion care to preserve the health of a pregnant patient, physicians now face the risk of prosecution, prison time, monetary fines, and loss of professional license.
In state court challenges against the bans, providers have argued that the vagueness of the bans is unconstitutional, since it places them in a situation where it is unclear how they might follow the law. As a result, physicians may be more reluctant to provide abortion care when pregnant patients present with serious medical conditions and may deny abortion care to pregnant people with conditions that threaten their health until their condition deteriorates and the narrow exceptions inarguably apply. This delay in care, however, creates greater and avoidable risks to the health of the pregnant person. Additionally, many conditions that threaten the health of pregnant people are not included in all or most health exceptions.
The difficulties these bans and their unclear exceptions create may additionally deter physicians from practicing medicine in states that ban abortion. There have already been reports of physicians expressing reluctance or refusing to relocate to these states, as well as physicians leaving these states due to their restrictive laws and fewer medical school graduates applying for residencies in these states. A substantial portion of these states’ residents already live in maternity deserts – areas where there are no obstetric providers or birth centers – and studies have shown that maternal mortality rates are higher in states that restrict abortion. Physicians being deterred from practicing in states with restrictive abortion laws may exacerbate these disparities in access to obstetric care and health outcomes.
Zurawski v. State of Texas
Five women who were denied abortion care in Texas - despite facing dangerous pregnancy complications – and two OB-GYNs filed a lawsuit in Texas state court asking the court to clarify the scope of the medical emergency exceptions in the state’s three abortion bans. Plaintiffs specifically asked the court to clarify that:
Plaintiffs argued the misapplication of the health exceptions violates state constitutional guarantees to fundamental and equal rights. In August 2023, a County District Court judge issued an order blocking enforcement of Texas’ ban in situations where, in a physician’s good faith judgment, an abortion is needed due to an emergent medical situation. An appeal from the state to the Texas Supreme Court automatically blocked the lower court’s order. On May 31, 2024, the Texas Supreme Court issued its decision in this case , stating that the state’s abortion ban only contains exceptions when, in a physician’s reasonable medical judgment, there is a life-threatening physical condition.
Enacted in 1986, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) requires Medicare-enrolled hospitals to perform an appropriate medical screening examination to any patient who presents to their dedicated emergency department. If a patient is identified as having an emergency medical condition, the hospital must provide stabilizing treatment within the hospital’s capability or transfer the patient to another medical facility.
As states were starting to implement abortion bans after the Dobbs decision, in July 2022, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued guidance regarding the enforcement of EMTALA that clarifies hospitals and physicians have obligations to provide stabilizing care, including abortion in medically appropriate circumstances, when a patient presenting at an emergency department is experiencing an emergency medical condition.
After HHS issued this guidance, two lawsuits were filed. HHS sued the State of Idaho to block enforcement of Idaho’s abortion ban to the extent it conflicts with EMTALA, and the State of Texas sued to block enforcement of the HHS guidance in Texas. The Supreme Court is considering the case from Idaho and a decision is pending.
At stake in this case is whether EMTALA preempts state abortion laws and requires hospitals to provide abortion care when it is necessary to stabilize a patient’s condition, even when this abortion care violates state law. While all state abortion bans have an exception for pregnancies that jeopardize the life of a pregnant person, some do not have an exception that would allow an abortion to preserve the health of the pregnant person. Even in states with health exceptions, the exception might be very narrow and not well defined, leaving significant gaps in emergency medical care for pregnant people. EMTALA, however, requires hospitals to provide stabilizing care to patients with emergency medical conditions, including conditions that may harm their health. According to the HHS guidance issued in the wake of the Dobbs decision, EMTALA requires hospitals to provide abortion care to pregnant patients with emergency medical conditions when abortion is necessary to stabilize the patient’s condition. However, Idaho contends that EMTALA does not require hospitals to provide treatment that violates state law. The Court’s decision in this case could impact access to abortion in emergency situations across the country and potentially lay the foundation for future challenges involving state laws granting fetal personhood.
Exception vs. Affirmative Defense
Some state abortion bans lack exceptions but identify situations that may be used as an affirmative defense in court – among these are Tennessee’s 6-week LMP ban, Kentucky’s 15-week ban (but not the state’s earlier gestational bans), Texas’ total bans, and all of Missouri’s bans. An “affirmative defense” allows someone charged with a crime to show in court that their conduct was permissible even though the action itself is illegal. An affirmative defense does not make it legal to provide abortion care in the situations delineated in the law and means that a clinician who provided abortion care is open to prosecution – regardless of the reason they provided an abortion – and would bear the burden of proof to demonstrate that they provided care according to the conditions delineated as possible affirmative defenses in the abortion ban. Bans that rely on an affirmative defense leave physicians more vulnerable to criminal prosecution and they make it even riskier for physicians to provide abortion care in situations where the life or health of the pregnant person is at risk.
A few of the state abortion bans contain exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, generally requiring that the sexual assault be reported to law enforcement. Some states allow for a Child Protective Services (CPS) report in lieu of a law enforcement report for minors who are survivors of sexual assault or incest.
It is well documented that survivors are often afraid to report sexual violence to the police due to fear of retaliation and the belief that law enforcement would not or could not do anything to help. It is estimated that only 21% of sexual assaults are reported to law enforcement. Even for survivors who do report to law enforcement, state abortion bans do not make clear exactly what information needs to be given to a provider to make it clear that the abortion would be legal in that state. Reporting requirements place barriers in the way of survivors seeking abortion care in these states.
Among the few sexual assault exceptions, some have specific gestational limits. For instance, the total ban currently in effect in West Virginia contains an exception for cases of rape or incest, but it is limited to 8 weeks from the last menstrual period (LMP) for adults and 14 weeks LMP for minors.
Although sexual assault exceptions are intended to protect survivors, experts agree that they rarely work. There is anecdotal evidence of survivors in states with rape exceptions and who have compiled the necessary documentation, but still not being able to access abortion because they couldn’t find any abortion providers in their state.
Hyde Amendment
The Hyde Amendment is a policy that restricts the use of federal funds to cover abortion, except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the pregnant person is endangered (Hyde Exceptions). The policy is not a permanent law, but rather has been attached as a temporary “rider” to the Congressional appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and has been renewed annually by Congress. In the past, federal courts have interpreted the Hyde provisions to require states to pay for abortions that fall into the Hyde Exceptions and have blocked enforcement of state statutes that prohibit coverage for these cases. However, the enforceability of these requirements has been unclear since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs . Although all bans currently in effect contain exceptions to safeguard the life of the pregnant person, most states with abortion bans do not have exceptions for cases of rape or incest, and therefore, would not allow for the provision or coverage of those services to Medicaid recipients, contrary to previous court orders. To date, no court or federal agency has issued orders or guidance on states’ obligation to provide coverage for Hyde Exceptions when their bans prohibit the provision of abortion in cases of rape or incest.
Bans in several states contain exceptions for lethal fetal anomalies, usually limited to those anomalies that would result in the death of the baby at birth or soon after. As with health exceptions, lethal fetal anomaly exceptions are poorly defined and limited in statutes. The only state with this kind of exception that has a comprehensive list of conditions that fall under this category is Louisiana , but since the state has multiple abortion bans in effect (one of which does not include exceptions for fatal fetal anomalies), the applicability of this exception is still unclear. Other states, like Indiana , provide some general criteria, such as how long after birth the baby can be expected to live for a pregnancy to fall under the fetal anomaly. Any condition that would result in a life expectancy shorter than three months fits under the exception. The religious freedom lawsuit against the state’s ban – Anonymous Plaintiffs v. Medical Licensing Board of Indiana — specifically challenges the narrow limits of the exception, arguing that other common conditions, such as Tay-Sachs disease would result in the death very early in childhood.
In many states there is more than one abortion ban in the books, and in some of those states, the exception provisions in the bans are at odds with each other. In Louisiana , two bans and a 15-week LMP limit are in effect, but only one of the total bans and the 15-week limit have the same exceptions; the remaining total ban does not. One of the total criminal bans in the state has exceptions to prevent the death or substantial risk of death, of the pregnant person and to prevent “serious, permanent impairment of a life-sustaining organ”. The state’s other total ban and the 15-week limit have exceptions for these same cases and additionally in cases of fatal fetal anomalies, and clarify that the bans’ prohibitions do not apply for ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages. The conflicting exceptions in the bans result in a situation where the only real exceptions in the state are for cases where an abortion is necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant person or to prevent serious, permanent impairment of a life-sustaining organ. Providing abortion care under any other exception in the states’ other total ban or 15-week limit would open physicians to criminal penalties and loss of license.
Mississippi is another state with multiple bans in effect that contain contradicting exceptions. The state’s total ban only has exceptions for cases when an abortion is necessary to preserve the life of the pregnant person or when the pregnancy was caused by rape (there is no exception for incest in the state). However, the state’s 15-week LMP ban contains exceptions for fatal fetal abnormalities and serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function, along with a life exception. In situations where there is more than one ban in effect, it might seem that the easiest way to follow the law would be to adhere to the abortion ban with the strictest gestational limit. This would not suffice in Mississippi, however, since the total ban contains an exception for pregnancies caused by rape, but the state’s 15-week LMP ban does not contain such an exception. Therefore, following any one of the state’s abortion bans would not remove the legal risk of providing abortion care in the state. Instead, providers must assess how the abortion bans and their exceptions work in conjunction.
Although a lot of attention has been devoted to debates about exceptions in abortion bans, many of these exceptions are not workable in practice. Outside of testimony from providers, it is difficult to assess how many people who qualify for abortion care under the exceptions are actually able to do so, since states underreport or do not report this information. However, it is apparent these bans create barriers to accessing abortion care, even in situations where the exceptions they outline should apply. Most importantly, these bans place the health and lives of pregnant people at risk by potentially preventing physicians from providing medically appropriate care. The Supreme Court’s decision in Idaho v. United States will determine whether EMTALA preempts state laws and requires hospitals to provide abortion care to stabilize pregnant patients when “necessary to assure that no material deterioration of the condition is likely to occur.” If the Court rules in favor of Idaho, the inability to provide evidence-based care may additionally make physicians reluctant to practice medicine in restrictive states, amplifying already-existing discrepancies in ability to access obstetric care and adverse maternal and fetal outcomes.
In this current era of competing priorities and endless disruption and uncertainty, we know that innovation remains a must-have , not just a nice-to-have, when capital is readily available. 1 Matt Banholzer, Michael Birshan, Rebecca Doherty, and Laura LaBerge, “ Innovation: Your solution for weathering uncertainty ,” McKinsey, January 10, 2023. We also know that making a conscious choice to grow and supporting that choice with the right mindsets, development pathways, and capabilities can yield superior shareholder returns. 2 “ Choosing to grow: The leader’s blueprint ,” McKinsey, July 7, 2022. But what is the role of innovation in growth and vice versa?
To find out, we identified and analyzed about 650 of the largest public companies that achieved profitable growth relative to their industry between 2016 and 2021 while also excelling in the essential capabilities associated with innovation . 3 Our assessment is based on McKinsey’s proprietary database of about 12,000 companies and their relative mastery of capabilities along four innovation categories: aspire/choose, discover/evolve, accelerate/scale, and extend/mobilize. Using machine learning, natural-language processing, and sentiment analysis of employee reviews, we created a score that served as a reliable proxy for innovation capabilities across these categories. We then reviewed companies that grew faster than their industry while delivering positive economic profit between 2016 and 2021. Some of these companies outgrew their peers, others were more innovative than competitors, but 53 companies managed to do both. The 50-plus “innovative growers,” as we call them, are a diverse group, spread across four continents and ten industries. They include renowned brands with a trillion-dollar market capitalization as well as smaller companies that are just starting to make a name for themselves, some as young as three years old (see sidebar, “Where do innovative growers come from?”).
For all their diversity, these companies consistently excel in both growth and innovation—and they share a number of best practices that other companies can learn from.
In a word, yes.
Most of our innovative growers achieved total shareholder returns (TSR) above their industry median between 2012 and 2022 (Exhibit 1). The median excess annual shareholder return among these 50-plus companies was 11 points higher than that for Global 2000 companies. What’s more, two-thirds of the innovative growers were in the top quintile of the economic-profit power curve , which represents the distribution of economic profit among Global 2000 companies. 4 Chris Bradley, Martin Hirt, and Sven Smit, “ Strategy to beat the odds ,” McKinsey Quarterly , February 13, 2018. Their presence on the high end of the curve is not surprising: McKinsey research on the power curve points to the importance of making big innovative moves to beat the market, including programmatic M&A , dynamic reallocation of resources, and differentiating product and process improvements. In fact, the research suggests making no moves is a dangerous strategy—one that brings stagnation and underperformance.
The numbers speak for themselves, but when we examined how innovative growers were achieving such a high level of performance, we observed that all demonstrate a mastery of the eight essentials of innovation , which our past research shows are correlated with strong financial performance.
Specifically, they build innovation into their overall strategy aspirations. They activate critical growth pathways within their core businesses and enter only those adjacent markets where they have the strongest competitive advantage . They pursue excellence in execution and invest in key innovation capabilities. And they use M&A, particularly programmatic M&A, to extend their innovation reach.
According to our research, innovative growers unfailingly put innovation at the center of strategic and financial discussions, thereby signaling its importance to the growth and health of the organization. For instance, our review of the innovative growers’ earnings calls reveals that they talk about innovation twice as much as their peers 5 We analyzed a lexicon of innovation keywords across earnings calls across our sample set and determined the relative frequency of usage and discussion of innovation topics versus the overall management discussion. and, in those conversations, emphasize innovation as a means to create profitable and sustainable growth . This is consistent with our previous research on “ courageous growers ” and the importance of cultivating an innovation mindset among employees. 6 “ Courageous growth: Six strategies for continuous growth outperformance ,” McKinsey, October 23, 2023. Innovative growers communicate to employees achievable aspirations and clear targets to reduce fears of failure, criticism, and negative career impact that often hold back innovation. Innovative growers share frequent progress updates and success stories to inspire and motivate teams and investors. What’s more, innovative growers frequently voice their commitment to investing more resources in talent and digital capabilities, and they are almost three times more likely than their fast-growing but not innovative peers to frame their efforts as a “transformation.”
High digital aspirations. Digital transformation was the impetus for innovation at one leading retailer among our innovative growers: the company sought to increase its online sales by introducing new features such as faster mobile checkout and an app with augmented reality built into it so customers could visualize how the retailer’s products might look in their homes. The CEO and other C-suite executives reinforced the importance of “transformation through innovation” in town hall meetings with employees, during earnings calls, in public interviews, and in press releases. The leaders’ words and investments sent a clear message to customers, employees, and other stakeholders about the importance of innovation in the retailer’s ability to transform and grow. And the efforts paid off: over time, as the new features were launched, the company’s online sales grew 80 percent, with digital sales accounting for 60 percent of overall revenue.
Our research shows that innovative growers deliver market-leading revenue growth in both their core businesses and when entering adjacent customer segments, industries, or geographies. In their core businesses, for instance, innovative growers tend to generate twice as much excess growth, even relative to other companies that outperform on growth. And when diversifying into adjacent segments, innovative growers achieve at least double the revenue growth compared with other firms (Exhibit 2).
They do this by entering adjacent business areas where they can connect to one or more clear opportunities to create value, such as customer-driven growth, capability-driven growth, value chain–driven growth, or business model innovation in areas such as digital and sustainability. For instance, a recent McKinsey analysis shows that chemical players with low-carbon product portfolios or high exposure to end markets supporting sustainability grew their shareholder returns at more than double the rate of sustainability laggards between 2016 and 2021. 7 “ The triple play: Growth, profit, and sustainability ,” McKinsey, August 9, 2023.
In fact, our data indicate that innovative growers combine two or more of the previously mentioned value propositions in more than 70 percent of the adjacencies they enter (compared with less than 25 percent among peers). They seem to prioritize growth in those adjacencies where there is some similarity among portfolios and an obvious “right to win.” And make no mistake, portfolio similarity matters: consider General Mills’ purchase of Pillsbury, a company that shared many of the same competencies and assets. This move allowed General Mills to reduce its purchasing, manufacturing, and distribution costs and raise its operating profit by about 70 percent. 8 Chris Bradley, Rebecca Doherty, Nicholas Northcote, and Tido Röder, “ The ten rules of growth ,” McKinsey, August 12, 2022.
Additionally, innovative growers are using advanced analytics and other digital tools to identify hidden growth opportunities, and then they are going through a rigorous process of selecting the just-right operating model and governance structure for the new business and appointing senior leaders with the competencies most needed in the new business. 9 Chris Bradley, Rebecca Doherty, Anna Koivuniemi, and Nicholas Northcote, “ Igniting your next growth business ,” McKinsey, July 23, 2021.
Game, set, and match. A leading technology company with deep expertise in hardware design, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing acquired a gaming company with the goal of using its own capabilities to improve the gaming company’s offerings. The pathway to growth here was relatively clear and unencumbered; although they were in slightly different segments of the technology market, the companies boasted similar product portfolios, and once the technical capabilities were integrated, the joint venture was able to go to market with several special releases of legacy games and one-off “special event” gaming offerings, all of which were well received.
Our research shows that innovative growers invest productively in a range of critical innovation capabilities—including R&D, resourcing, and operational agility—leading to strong business outcomes. In fact, they delivered more than five points of additional excess gross margin versus other Global 2000 firms, which is a key indicator of product differentiation . 10 “ Strategy to beat the odds ,” February 2018.
R&D. Innovative growers tend to deliver more tangible outcomes from their R&D investments than their peers. In our research, they generated, on average, 100-plus more patents than their peers but also delivered more strong patents—or patents with broad applicability and lots of citations to other patents. In fact, over the past two decades, innovative growers were awarded three times as many strong patents compared with industry peers (Exhibit 3). And the presence of strong patents often indicates higher value creation potential.
Resourcing and operations. Innovative growers are also more likely than peers to have adopted agile operating models and implemented rigorous and dynamic resource allocation processes. They also tend to invest more in digital and analytics and other new technologies compared with peers: our research shows innovative growers have 30 percent more digital and analytics personnel on staff compared with industry peers. And in McKinsey’s recent digital strategy survey of more than 1,000 companies, there was a clear link between organizations with strong innovation cultures and operating models and their ability to increase value through new technologies, including generative AI. 11 Matt Banholzer, Ben Fletcher, Laura LaBerge, and Jon McClain, “ Companies with innovative cultures have a big edge with generative AI ,” McKinsey, August 31, 2023. Even in the current uncertain business climate, almost 90 percent of the survey respondents said they are still looking for new growth. Over the past two years, they have been allocating resources to a range of growth pathways—expanding the core, innovating in adjacent areas, or igniting breakout businesses (Exhibit 4). 12 “ Companies with innovative cultures have a big edge with generative AI ,” August 31, 2023.
Smart resourcing, smart growth. Combining strong innovation capabilities with appropriate levels of resourcing can result in significant value creation opportunities. Senior management at one medical-technology company wanted to build a new line of surgical robotics offerings and, to that end, increased the amount of resources allocated to the company’s R&D function. Over time, that R&D team generated a flood of new patents, averaging about 750 more patents than its medtech peers and delivering one and a half times the total shareholder return. Similarly, a global technology company invested upward of $3 billion to adapt its existing hardware products to support applications in the fast-growing AI and data-processing spaces, more than tripling its annual capital expenditure between 2017 and 2022. This bold move has resulted in 20 percent annual revenue growth at the company over the past five years.
In our experience, innovative growers also distinguish themselves through their dealmaking—and specifically, in their ability to cultivate a strong M&A capability (alongside strong capabilities in R&D, finance, operations). To be clear, there are many “nondigital” technologies (new molecules, for instance). However, looking at digital M&A provides one illustrative lens. For instance, our research shows that innovative growers complete three times more digital M&A deals 13 Digital M&A deals are those that target assets or capabilities in the digital, analytics, or technology spaces. compared with peers, demonstrating a desire to acquire promising technical capabilities and intellectual property (IP) and a willingness to embrace new technologies and methods to stay ahead of the competition. 14 “ Are you chasing the right digital assets? ,” McKinsey, December 22, 2021. Additionally, innovative growers routinely define their growth and M&A objectives up front , and leaders come to a shared understanding of the types of deals they want to target, which allows innovative growers to act with speed and purpose when M&A opportunities come up. What’s more, innovative growers are 50 percent more likely than peers to follow a programmatic approach to M&A, 15 A programmatic approach to M&A involves creating value by choreographing a series of deals (two or more) around a specific business case or M&A theme rather than pursuing singular “big bang” transactions. which McKinsey has repeatedly reaffirmed is far more likely than other M&A approaches to lead to stronger performance and less risk. 16 “ How one approach to M&A is more likely to create value than all others ,” McKinsey Quarterly , October 13, 2021.
Forging an ecosystem through programmatic M&A. One technology company pursued a series of midsize acquisitions to bolster its product offerings and exploit cross-product synergies to create an ecosystem for “home security” products. Over a two-year period, the company acquired a wireless security camera player, a home security company, and a DIY home security system provider. These acquisitions came with associated patents, such as the smart doorbell, and allowed the company to expand its reach and to innovate new products (combining the acquired IP with the company’s own hardware and software products).
Innovative growers are delivering profitable growth relative to their industry while also excelling in the essential capabilities associated with innovation. Our research reveals the degree to which their focus on both is helping these organizations create lasting value. It also suggests that other companies, too, can join this small but diverse set of outperformers by putting innovation at the center of all decision making and supporting it with the right mindsets, pursuing multiple pathways to growth and innovation, and establishing the right capabilities across R&D, digital, analytics, and M&A.
The path may be steep, and the transformation will likely take time and dedicated management attention, but the companies that seek to emulate the innovative growers may eventually achieve a profitable balance between today’s growth objectives and tomorrow’s innovation potential.
Matt Banholzer is a partner in McKinsey’s Chicago office, Rebecca Doherty is a partner in the Bay Area office, Alex Morris is a partner in the Toronto office, and Scott Schwaitzberg is an associate partner in the New York office.
The authors wish to thank Guillermo Domínguez, Gopal Galgali, Brooke Harvey, Tim Koller, Laura LaBerge, Karin Löffler, Karthik Ramesh, Werner Rehm, Tido Röder, Erik Roth, Eshita Sangal, and Jill Zucker for their contributions to this article.
This article was edited by Roberta Fusaro, an editorial director in the Waltham, Massachusetts, office.
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1. the partisanship and ideology of american voters, table of contents.
The partisan identification of registered voters is now evenly split between the two major parties: 49% of registered voters are Democrats or lean to the Democratic Party, and a nearly identical share – 48% – are Republicans or lean to the Republican Party.
The partisan balance has tightened in recent years following a clear edge in Democratic Party affiliation during the last administration.
The share of voters who are in the Democratic coalition reached 55% in 2008. For much of the last three decades of Pew Research Center surveys, the partisan composition of registered voters has been more closely divided.
About two-thirds of registered voters identify as a partisan, and they are roughly evenly split between those who say they are Republicans (32% of voters) and those who say they are Democrats (33%). Roughly a third instead say they are independents or something else (35%), with most of these voters leaning toward one of the parties. Partisan leaners often share the same political views and behaviors as those who directly identify with the party they favor.
The share of voters who identify as independent or something else is somewhat higher than in the late 1990s and early 2000s. As a result, there are more “leaners” today than in the past. Currently, 15% of voters lean toward the Republican Party and 16% lean toward the Democratic Party. By comparison, in 1994, 27% of voters leaned toward either the GOP (15%) or the Democratic Party (12%).
While the electorate overall is nearly equally divided between those who align with the Republican and Democratic parties, a greater share of registered voters say they are both ideologically conservative and associate with the Republican Party (33%) than say they are liberal and align with the Democratic Party (23%).
A quarter of voters associate with the Democratic Party and describe their views as either conservative or moderate, and 14% identify as moderates or liberals and are Republicans or Republican leaners.
The partisan and ideological composition of voters is relatively unchanged over the last five years.
(As a result of significant mode differences in measures of ideology between telephone and online surveys, there is not directly comparable data on ideology prior to 2019.)
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Research reports are recorded data prepared by researchers or statisticians after analyzing the information gathered by conducting organized research, typically in the form of surveys or qualitative methods. A research report is a reliable source to recount details about a conducted research. It is most often considered to be a true testimony ...
Research Report. Definition: Research Report is a written document that presents the results of a research project or study, including the research question, methodology, results, and conclusions, in a clear and objective manner.
A research report is a well-crafted document that outlines the processes, data, and findings of a systematic investigation. It is an important document that serves as a first-hand account of the research process, and it is typically considered an objective and accurate source of information.
A research report is a collection of contextual data, gathered through organized research, that provides new insights into a particular challenge (which, for this article, is business-related). Research reports are a time-tested method for distilling large amounts of data into a narrow band of focus.
Research Report Definition. According to C. A. Brown, "A report is a communication from someone who has information to someone who wants to use that information.". According to Goode and Hatt, "The preparation of report is the final stage of research, and it's purpose is to convey to the interested persons the whole result of the study, in sufficient detail and so arranged as to enable ...
Research report. A research report is a publication that reports on the findings of a research project. [1] Research reports are produced by many sectors including industry, education, government and non-government organizations and may be disseminated internally, or made public (i.e. published) however they are not usually available from ...
An outline of the research questions and hypotheses; the assumptions or propositions that your research will test. Literature Review. Not all research reports have a separate literature review section. In shorter research reports, the review is usually part of the Introduction. A literature review is a critical survey of recent relevant ...
What this handout is about. This handout provides a general guide to writing reports about scientific research you've performed. In addition to describing the conventional rules about the format and content of a lab report, we'll also attempt to convey why these rules exist, so you'll get a clearer, more dependable idea of how to approach ...
.pdf version of this page This review covers the basic elements of a research report. This is a general guide for what you will see in journal articles or dissertations. This format assumes a mixed methods study, but you can leave out either quantitative or qualitative sections if you only used a single methodology. This…
Use the section headings (outlined above) to assist with your rough plan. Write a thesis statement that clarifies the overall purpose of your report. Jot down anything you already know about the topic in the relevant sections. 3 Do the Research. Steps 1 and 2 will guide your research for this report.
Research Report Meaning. A research report is a document that conveys the outcomes of a study or investigation. Its purpose is to communicate the research's findings, conclusions, and implications to a particular audience. This report aims to offer a comprehensive and unbiased overview of the research process, methodology, and results.
This format is often used for lab reports as well as for reporting any planned, systematic research in the social sciences, natural sciences, or engineering and computer sciences. Introduction - Make a case for your research. The introduction explains why this research is important or necessary or important. Begin by describing the problem or ...
Abstract. This guide for writers of research reports consists of practical suggestions for writing a report that is clear, concise, readable, and understandable. It includes suggestions for terminology and notation and for writing each section of the report—introduction, method, results, and discussion. Much of the guide consists of ...
A research report is a vital tool in disseminating research results to academic, professional, and public audiences. It provides a detailed analysis of the research problem, research questions, methodology, findings, and conclusions. Research reports are crucial in advancing knowledge and understanding in various fields of study, informing ...
The research report contains four main areas: Introduction- What is the issue? What is known? What is not known? What are you trying to find out? This sections ends with the purpose and specific aims of the study. Methods- The recipe for the study. If someone wanted to perform the same study, what information would they need?
Simply, a research paper/report is a systematic write up. on the findings of the study including methodologies, discussion, conclusions etc. following a definite. style. T he resea rch report ...
Research Reports. Research reports present the results of formal investigations into the properties, behavior, structures, and principles of material and conceptual entities. Almost any physical phenomenon or concept may be investigated in a research framework. ... Problem definition: the rigorous reduction of the inquiry to a narrow question ...
THE RESEARCH REPORT. This chapter gives attention to two primary topics, both of which present information about research reports. The first part deals with the many valuable things that can be found in research reports beyond the obvious—the results. In the second part we discuss what a research report is and what it is not.
Research Report: A research report is a document prepared by an analyst or strategist who is a part of the investment research team in a stock brokerage or investment bank . A research report may ...
Comprehensive reports with in-depth analysis and information. 100-page research report on the effects of a new drug on a medical condition. Analytical. Focus on data analysis and provide insights or recommendations. Market research report analyzing consumer behavior trends and recommending marketing strategies.
Research methods are specific procedures for collecting and analyzing data. Developing your research methods is an integral part of your research design. When planning your methods, there are two key decisions you will make. First, decide how you will collect data. Your methods depend on what type of data you need to answer your research question:
Market segmentation research is carried out to better understand existing and potential market segments. The objective is to determine how to target different market segments and how they differ from each other. The three most important steps in writing a market segmentation research report are: Defining the problem.
Research reports are documents that provide important information regarding a given security and help make buy or sell decisions. The information that is usually contained in a research report ...
Research integrity includes: the use of honest and verifiable methods in proposing, performing, and evaluating research reporting research results with particular attention to adherence to rules, regulations, and guidelines following commonly accepted professional codes or norms; Shared values in scientific research
For example, our Similarity Report guidance on help.turnitin is repeated in numerous places to cater for each individual integration and license type. On guides.turnitin this content will exist in a single place to allow for users of all integrations and licenses to find it easily. We have made slight modifications to these guides to help you ...
Research shows that women differ from men in how they experience arousal and orgasm—and that's just fine! Women have a range of sexual arousal patterns and nearly all lead to satisfaction, if ...
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This issue brief examines the varying exceptions (for life, health, rape/incest, and fatal fetal anomalies) in state abortion bans and restrictions and the complications that arise when pregnant ...
Our research shows that innovative growers deliver market-leading revenue growth in both their core businesses and when entering adjacent customer segments, industries, or geographies. In their core businesses, for instance, innovative growers tend to generate twice as much excess growth, even relative to other companies that outperform on ...
The partisan identification of registered voters is now evenly split between the two major parties: 49% of registered voters are Democrats or lean to the Democratic Party, and a nearly identical share - 48% - are Republicans or lean to the Republican Party. The partisan balance has tightened in recent years following a clear edge in Democratic Party affiliation during the last administration.