Data.An. Need help with the following assig. *please read the case attached (world doc.) and review the excel file (attached). Jamie received 105 responses, which are given in the Excel file Drout Adv

A typical psych /social science paper orgainzed around “intro /methods /analysis /results /discussion” sections.

A research article in an academic journal.

An essay.

A lab report in a science class.

The overall structure of a data analysis report is simple: 1. Introduction 2. Body 3. Conclusion(s) /Discussion 4. Appendix /Appendices The data analysis report is written for several di erent audiences at the same time:

Primary audience: A primary collaborator or client. Reads theIntroduction and perhaps the Conclusion to nd out what you did and what your conclusions were, and the n perhaps shes/skims through the Body , stopping only for some additional details on the parts that he/she thought were interesting or eye-catching. Organize the paper around an agenda for a conversation you wa nt to have with this person about what you've learned about their d ata: e.g., from most general to most speci c, or from most important to least important, etc. Pro vide the main evidence from your analysis (tabular, graphical, or otherwise) in the Body to support each point or conclusion you reach, but save more detailed evidence, and other ancillary material, for t he Appendix .

Secondary Audience: An executive person. Probably only skims theIntroduction and perhaps the ul Conclusion to nd out what you did and what your conclusions are. Leave signposts in the Introduction , Body and Conclusion to make it easy for this person to swoop in, nd the “headlines ” of your work and conclusions, and swoop back out.

Secondary Audience: A technical supervisor. Reads theBody and then examines the Appendix for quality control: How good a job did you do in (raising and) answering the interesting questions?

How e cient were you? Did you reach reasonable conclusions by defe nsible statistical methods?

Etc. Make speci c cross-references between the Body and speci c parts of the Appendix so that this person can easily nd supporting and ancillary material rel ated to each main analysis you report in the Body. Add text to the technical material in the Appendix so that this person sees how and why you carried out the more detailed work shown in the Appendix .

1 The data analysis report has two very important features:

It is organized in a way that makes it easy for di erent audiences to skim / sh through it to nd the topics and the level of detail that are of interest to them.

The writing is as invisible /unremarkable as possible, so that the content of the analysi s is what the reader remembers, not distracting quirks or tics in the writ ing. Examples of distractions include:

– Extra sentences, overly formal or owery prose, or at the oth er extreme overly casual or overly brief prose.

– Grammatical and spelling errors.

– Placing the data analysis in too broad or too narrow a context for the questions of interest to your primary audience.

– Focusing on process rather than reporting procedures and ou tcomes.

– Getting bogged down in technical details, rather than prese nting what is necessary to properly understand your conclusions on substantive questions of in terest to the primary audience.

It is less important to worry about the latter two items in the Appendix which is expected to be more detailed and process-oriented. However, there should be en ough text annotating the technical material in the Appendix so that the reader can see how and why you carri ed out the more detailed work shown there.

The data analysis report isn't quite like a research paper or term paper in a class, nor like a research article in a journal. It is meant, primarily, to start an organized co nversation between you and your client/collaborator.

In that sense it is a kind of “internal” communication, sort o f like an extended memo. On the other hand it also has an “external” life, informing a boss or supervisor w hat you've been doing.

2 Now let's consider the basic outline of the data analysis report in more detail:

1. Introduction. Good features for the Introduction include:

Summary of the study and data, as well as any relevant substan tive context, background, or framing issues.

The “big questions” answered by your data analyses, and summ aries of your conclusions about these questions.

Brief outline of remainder of paper.

The above is a pretty good order to present this material in as well.

2. Body. The body can be organized in several ways. Here are two that of ten work well:

Traditional. Divide the body up into several sections at the same level as t he Introduction, with names like:

– Data – Methods – Analysis – Results This format is very familiar to those who have written psych r esearch papers. It often works well for a data analysis paper as well, though one problem wit h it is that the Methods section often sounds like a bit of a stretch: In a psych research paper the Methods section describes what you did to get your data. In a data analysis paper, you sho uld describe the analyses that you performed. Without the results as well, this can be prett y sterile sounding, so I often merge these “methods” pieces into the “Analysis” section when I wr ite.

Question-oriented. In this format there is a single Body section, usually called “Analysis”, and then there is a subsection for each question raised in the introduction, usually taken in the same order as in the introduction (general to speci c, decre asing order of importance, etc.).

Within each subsection, statistical method, analyses, and conclusion would be described (for each question). For example:

2. Analysis 2.1 Success Rate Methods Analysis Conclusions 2.2 Time to Relapse Methods Analysis Conclusions 3 2.3 E ect of Gender Methods Analysis Conclusions 2.4 Hospital E ects Methods Analysis Conclusions Etc. . .

Other organizational formats are possible too. Whatever th e format, it is useful to provide one or two well-chosen tables or graphs per question in the body of the report, for two reasons: First, graphical and tabular displays can convey your points more e ciently than words; and second, your “skimming” audiences will be more likely to have their eye caught by an in teresting graph or table than by running text. However, too much graphical /tabular material will break up the ow of the text and become distracting; so extras should be moved to the Appendix.

3. Conclusion(s) /Discussion. The conclusion should reprise the questions and conclusion s of the in- troduction, perhaps augmented by some additional observat ions or details gleaned from the analysis section. New questions, future work, etc., can also be raise d here.

4. Appendix /Appendices. One or more appendices are the place to out details and ancill ary materials.

These might include such items as Technical descriptions of (unusual) statistical procedur es Detailed tables or computer output Figures that were not central to the arguments presented in t he body of the report Computer code used to obtain results.

In all cases, and especially in the case of computer code, it i s a good idea to add some text sentences as comments or annotations, to make it easier for the uniniti ated reader to follow what you are doing.

It is often di cult to nd the right balance between what to put in the append ix and what to put in the body of the paper. Generally you should put just enough in the body to make the point, and refer the reader to speci c sections or page numbers in the appendi x for additional graphs, tables and other details.

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