Module 9 - October 24
Abstracts, introductions, and conclusions

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Overview

This week, we will focus on three specific sections of your analytical report: the abstract, introduction, and conclusion.

Essentially, the abstract is a summary or thumbnail of your report. It's often what your audience reads first to determine whether they want to read the rest of the report. While writing a summary sounds simple, it can be challenging to distill your entire report into one or two concise paragraphs.

Introductions and conclusions can be written many ways; however, for this assignment, you have specific criteria for these sections, which you will review shortly. 

By the end of this week, you should have aggregated a significant amount of material for your analytical report, as follows:

• References page started from the annotated bibliography

• Audience scenario from Assignment 2 - proposal

• Original visual from Assignment 3 - tables and figures

• Primary source from survey data developed from Discussion Board 7 (if you did the activity based on this report)

• Abstract from the Focus Worksheet

• Conclusion with summary and findings from this module from the "Conclusions and Recommendations for Analytical Report" worksheet

Your report is almost writing itself ...

Objectives

• Write an objective abstract

• Write an effective introduction that establishes context for the topic

• Write an effective conclusion with a summary and recommendations 

• Use an appropriate writing style for an abstract, introduction, and conclusion

Read/View

1. University of Berkeley's "How to Write an Abstract", a brief article with many sample abstracts (skim the samples)

2. Report introduction format (PDF) worksheet with information on required subsections for your analytical report

3. Conclusions and Recommendations worksheet

Do 

• Do Discussion Board activity

• Optional - Submit book project on McInerny's Being Logical: A Guide to Good Thinking for extra credit - must have prior approval 

Meet F2F

Wednesday - Discuss readings, do Focus Worksheet, review introductions, and do Conclusions and Recommendations worksheet