Report Structure A good structure for a report would be as follows:

Title Page - showing the title of the report, the author, the person for whom the report is prepared, and the date of completion

Summary/Synopsis/Executive Summary (approx 10% of word count) - this will identify:
The purpose of the report

The plan gives your essay a clear structure for examiners to follow as they navigate their way through ideas and arguments that are unfamiliar to them. Without this you're likely to lose them, and if they can't see why your arguments are relevant, or they can't see what you're doing and why, they cannot give you marks, no matter how good your work might be.

Your search for relevant information for your essay will undoubtedly generate a mass of material and so it is essential that you develop concise note taking skills. A good place to start is to make a document on your computer just for source material, but divide it into the parts of your essay (for example, if you are writing a dissertation, you may wish to include sections such as introduction, background, methodology, literature review, evidence, conclusion and recommendations)

In this section we will introduce you to a selection of elicitation techniques that can be used to advance your thinking and develop your ideas. These techniques can be applied at different stages in the research process and might help you to:

identify the topic of your research (the research question)
plan a comprehensive search of the literature
structure and/or conceptualise your personal information collection.

The ability to critically evaluate information is an essential skill for postgraduate researchers. This skill is particularly pertinent to the production of literature reviews, where a critical appraisal or analysis of the literature is required. In this section, we suggest using 'PROMPT', a structured approach to critical evaluation of information (Provenance, Relevance, Objectivity, Method, Presentation, Timeliness).

Most universities will give you library access, which means you have a wealth of material available to you - your search should not be limited to books, but also may include journals/periodical collections, theses, videos, DVDs, e-books, e-journals, access to electronic resources and databases. With so much material available to you, translating your essay question into a search strategy or statement is an important first step in tracking down the information you need.

Appendices are used when the incorporation of material in the body of the work would make it poorly structured or too long and detailed. The appendix may be used for helpful, supporting or essential material that would otherwise clutter, break up or be distracting to the text. Other people's work will be referred to, not quoted, in the appendix. Appendices may include some of the following:

First you address the key areas of concern discussed in the article. After critiquing the article, provide a paragraph on a potential follow-up study. This follow-up study paragraph does not have to be an extensive description of a completely new study. Rather, it may adopt the basic design of the first study, only with some modifications to make it better.