Introduction
Being able to write a solid data analysis report is often as important as your ability to analyze the data. The expectation of you as an IT professional will be that you can perform accurate data analysis and create readable and informative reports based on your analysis. Here is what you need to know and do to excel in this area.
[COP4709 Guidelines – All open assignments should use real data sources, these can be obtained from internet sources]
The Report Format
The format of nearly all data reports will be essentially the same and consists of these basic sections. You may add sections as needed, but these sections will be expected and should always be included.
- Introduction
- Body (Methodology)
- Conclusions and Discussions
- Appendices
We will look at each of these sections and go over what you need to include.
The Introduction Section
Writing a good introduction is actually quite easy. This section should contain 2 parts but may include more based on the requirements of the analysis. The first thing that must be addressed in the introduction is a simple summary of what problem you are solving or what question you are answering. This should be done here without embellishment. For example a simple statement such as “This analysis presents the most healthy and least healthy foods based on criteria that are described in the methodology section of the report” – simple and straight to the point. The second item in the introduction is a simple summary or description of what is in the paper. “A series of SQL queries are performed and the results described to answer this question”.
The Body (Methodology) Section
In this section we go over how we are going to answer the question. The question can be described in more detail here is necessary. In the COP4709 class the methodology is almost always going to involve importing data from an external source, formatting that data into a format for analysis, performing a series of queries, and analyzing the results of the query. In other situation this may not be the methodology so don’t get locked into this. The body does not contain the actual SQL queries – those go into the appendices. The body should contain a description of what the queries mean or do.
Conclusions and Discussion
Here you will present the results and describe what the results mean. You should not use straight screen captures, but should have nicely formatted and appealing tables. Most people will jump to this section and your ability to present results in an appealing manner is important. Simple output formatting is important – numbers should use appropriate decimal formatting, currency should be presented in currency format, table structures should be clean and appropriate column and row widths should be used. Graphs and plots may be used here.
COP4709 Guidelines – Do not use screen captures from SSMS for reporting results. The results can be copy/pasted and formatted in Word or other editor. Screen captures are OK in the appendices.
Appendices
Everything not presented above goes here. Biggest items here for these reports will be your raw SQL and Raw Output.
COP4709 Guidelines – All queries should be labeled and copy/pasted from SSMS. These should be included in the Appendices, not the body of the report.