Analytical Report Outline : Formal Analytical Report Outline
What Is An Analytical Report?
An analytical report is a report that contains information, data, explanation, analysis, and recommendations on a given issue, topic or complex problems.
The process of writing an analytical report includes collecting credible research, evaluating and interpreting it and then concluding and recommending a course of action
So, how do you prepare a quality analytical report?
The following is an analytical report outline:
Analytical Report Outline
A. Title Page
Your title should be as specific as possible. It should either highlight a specific problem, method or a solution. In addition to the title, include the following details on the title page:
- Author’s name
- Project supervisor
- Names of group members
- Course and section number
- Date.
B. Abstract
An abstract is a brief summary of a report and should appear as a single paragraph. It should be 250-350 words long and single-spaced. An abstract should include the following:
- A problem statement.
- What was done?
- How it was done.
- Significant results
- A conclusion that includes a brief evaluation or recommendation.
C. Table of Contents
You should adhere to the following when creating a table of contents:
- Notice how pages are numbered. Do not number the title page and number all pages before the introduction page in lower case roman numerals.
- If your analytical report is long, include a list of figures and tables on their own separate pages.
D. Introduction.
In your introduction section:
- State the context of your study.
- Explain the need for your study.
- Clearly define the issue that you are investigating.
- Outline the approach that you are going to take.
- End with a brief explanation of the rest of your report.
E. Theoretical Analysis
This part should include your assumptions, model and your justification for the model. You will have to translate the problem you are analyzing into math and diagrams. You can organize your content into the following parts:
Develop governing equations:
- State your assumptions and support them quantitatively.
- Describe the model development. Give major equations but leave detailed algebra to the appendix.
- Tell your readers what your equations mean in the context of your model.
- Use figures to show relationships among the parts of your model.
- Explain computer simulation
- Describe the algorithm for getting your answers from your equations and the numerical scheme used.
- Discuss numerical parameters.
- Specify boundary conditions.
F. Validating the Model
Describe the experiments you did for testing in this section. Write it in following sub-sections:
Experimental methods
- Explain the overall operation and provide a schematic diagram.
- Describe how you conducted the experiment.
Experimental results
- See if theoretical results produce the same features as the direct observations of the experiment.
- Compare qualitatively/quantitatively the theoretical predictions and the experimental values when the parameters are changed.
- Plot a theoretical curve on the same graph as experimental points.
- Account for and explain discrepancies.
G. Discussion
Show your understanding of the model that you have developed and interpret it for the reader. Include the following in this section:
- Discuss assumptions used in the development of the model and how they affect the theoretical predictions.
- Explain what your graphs mean.
- Be quantitative when discussing sources of errors in experimental measurement.
H. Conclusion
In your conclusion, you should:
- Briefly state the problem, your approach and the results.
- Evaluate your model.
- State the implications of your final evaluation.
- Suggest how the model might be improved and make recommendations for further work.
I. References
J. Appendices