Describes how to present your research.

1. Presenting your Research:
Writing your Report
Robert Croker
Fieldwork Research Methods
for Japan
Nanzan University

2. Sections of your Report
Opening illustrative story
Overview of your topic – a brief introduction to
the topic and your study
Readings – link your research to others’
Who you are – your introduction
Middle sections – present your claims and your
evidence together
Discussion – pull your claims together and state
them again clearly
References – list of references

3. Opening
Illustrative
Story

4. Opening Illustrative Story
Tell a brief story from your research which
captures the essence of your study.
Such stories involve the reader early on, ground
them in a concrete way into the subject matter,
convey some of the emotion of the setting, and
provide a feel for what it might have been like to
be there. Tie these stories directly to the study to
make it effective – tell readers why you are
telling it and how it is tied to your research topic.

5. Opening Illustrative Story
Place the reader in the story
Make it vivid – use visual and sound cues
Include your participants’ voices – this also
introduces the participants to the reader
Introduce the main theme

6. Opening Story - Example
The park was softly lit in the afternoon spring light. It was
cool in this little valley, much cooler than out on the
bustling, busy street only 50 feet away. The curtain of thick
trees and swaying bamboo lining the road kept the sounds
of urbanity out of this oasis, and I was startled to hear the
incessant pitch of cicadas mix with the cheerful singing of
birds and the deep love calls of frogs. “I come here every
morning, and I stay all day if I can,” remarked Toru, the
volunteer leader. “It refreshes me. And over one hundred
people come here every day.” Looking up at the bright
green hues of the spring leaves at the tops of the camphor
trees on the ridge, I immediately realized how important
this park was for the local people fighting to protect it from
development.

7. Overview
of your
Topic

8. Overview of Your Topic
On the first page, directly and succinctly tell the
reader what your study is about.
Provide some background information, to help
readers place your topic in their knowledge of Japan.
State the research methods – who your participants
were, how you created your data, and how you
analyzed it.
Summarize your main argument(s) – what you plan to
illustrate in your study.
Briefly explain the organization of your paper.

9. Readings

10. Readings
For larger research projects, readings are a
central part of your study.
For this project, as it is shorter and focused on
fieldwork, they are less central.
In your report, briefly summarize what other
researchers have written about your topic. You
can discuss theory or other studies – including
both what they found and how they found it
(substantive and methodological issues).

11. Readings - Formatting
Please use APA: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/02/
short quote:
According to Jones (1998), “Japan is a feudal
society” (p. 200).
longer quote:
Jones’s (1998) study found the following:
Japan is a feudal society. This is clear from the
relationships that people develop with each
other, and the feelings of hierarchy that are
evident in almost all interactions. (p. 200)

12. Your
Introduction

13. Your Introduction
Explain who you are:
ie your own identity, particularly with regard
to this topic
why you are interested in this topic
your own relationship and experience with
this topic and with your participants (ie if you
already knew them, or whether you had to get
to know them to do your fieldwork)

14. Your Introduction
Why do this?
to reveal who you are and so alert readers to
potential bias
to separate yourself from your topic
to show that you are aware of your own
subjectivity, and warns the reader to take that
into account

15. Your Voice in the Text
‘the researcher’ + passive voice:
The researcher interviewed three subjects.
Subjects were selected by random sampling.
‘I’ + active voice:
I interviewed three participants.
I selected the participants because of their
interest in _________.

16. Your Voice in the Text
‘the researcher’
suggests an objectivity that doesn’t really exist
ie the researcher is an individual with
particular points of view, who designed and
carried out the research, and this should be
reflected in the writing up

17. Your Voice in the Text
‘I’
Less pretentious than ‘the researcher’, which is
also often used to give the author a sense of
authority …
.. and more honest and direct.
So ‘I’ is more commonly used.

18. Your Participants
Unless your participants gave you
permission to do otherwise, change their
names and any identifying features about
them.
If you have many participants, you could list
up your participants in a table, giving their
pseudonyms and other relevant information
about them.

19. Their Voice in the Text
Quoting in English + include when and where
interview was conducted:
As Taku noted, “I live in Nagoya” (interview,
2014/10/16, Nagoya).
Quoting in Japanese, with translation +
include when and where interview was conducted:
As Taku noted, 「私は名古屋に住んでいます。」
(“I live in Nagoya.”) (interview, 2014/10/16,
Nagoya).

20. Middle
Sections

21. Middle Sections
This is the core of your report. Here, present your
claims and the evidence you have to support
them, using logical arguments.
A claim is a statement of what is true about the world.
Evidence is data that you use to illustrate and support that
claim.
Arguments are statements of logic which connect your
evidence to your claims, and one claim to another.

22. Two Types of Claims
a description of something
an explanation of something
with different levels of abstraction, from –
a statement only about a particular situation
…a more universal statement about a group
of people (eg Takarazuka fans, Japanese people)
…to a universal statement about all humans

23. Each Section
Introduction:
explain what this section is about
+ link it to your main argument
+ link this section to what came earlier
Middle:
the core – deliver what you promised
End:
summarize what you said in this section
+ link it again to your main argument
+ provide a transition to the next section(s)

24. Writing – two parts
“Here is what I’ve found”
= your claim
“and here are the data to support these claims”
= your evidence

25. Balance
You need to balance the general and the
specific ie your claims and your evidence
Your claims need to be:
clear, logical, consistent, reasonable
Your evidence needs to be:
relevant, illustrative, compelling, documented

26. Your task!
To convince readers of the plausibility of
your claims.
Quantitative research: formal conventions of
organization and presentation
Qualitative research: conventions differ
depending upon the approach, but generally
fewer formal conventions

27. Strategy One
Make a statement, then illustrate it with
several examples. At the end of such a
paragraph, add a final sentence to restate
your argument or to add another twist.
i.e. separate your claims from your evidence

28. Strategy One - Example
For most fans of Takarazuka, going to a performance is one of
the highlights of their social calendar, particularly for women
living in regional cities who only have the opportunity to see a
Takarazuka performance two or three times a year. Women
from Aichi explain their feelings about these performances:
“I can hardly sleep the night before, I am so excited!”
noted Mayumi, a slim woman in her mid-forties.
“My friend and I always get dressed up in our best clothes,
and go out to dinner afterwards to a nice cafe. It is almost the
only time I go out,” reflected Tamami, a housewife from Toyota.
“I love the performances! I live for them!” said Ai, smiling.
For these women, Takarazuka is a splash of color in their
otherwise quiet and rather repetitive lives.

29. Strategy Two
Make a statement, then illustrate it with one
longer example, using a colon:
i.e. again, separate your claims from your evidence

30. Strategy Two - Example
Further evidence of volunteers’ passion for the park and
its environment were clear in their questionnaire
responses. Toru, one of the older volunteers, wrote:
“I began coming to this park when I was a child. I can
remember fishing with my friends in the pond in the
northern part of the park. Then, the water was clean
and there were many fish and frogs. But after the
expressway was built upstream, the water became
dirty and the fish and frogs were no longer there. I
want my grandsons and their sons to be able to fish in
this pond. I feel that is my responsibility, my
contribution to the future. I will come here every day
to help.”

31. Strategy Three
Intertwine claims, evidence, and your
interpretations of that evidence to form a
flowing paragraph.
i.e. claims and evidence are mixed together.

32. Strategy Three - Example
For children who have learned to respect school
and to take their academic responsibilities
seriously, the experience of total immersion in a
foreign language environment can be
devastating. “I felt like a piece of wood,” says a
fifteen-year-old boy. Even the simplest question
was torture. “The teacher would ask me my name
and I was afraid to say it because I would say my
family name but she wanted me to say my first
name.” This from a 12-year-old girl from China.

33. Strategy Four
Combine your claims, evidence, and your
interpretations of that evidence into a
narrative, as though you are telling a story.
i.e. claims and evidence are mixed together. You are
much less distanced from the material that you’re
presenting. You put together the descriptions you gained
from observations and interviews together.

34. Strategy Four - Example
Bobbie Dijon was always the tallest girl in her class; only
a few boys were taller. Some of the children laughed at
her in elementary school, but by the time she was twelve
she was so strong and so big that nobody ever teased
her, for they feared that Bobbie would haul them off and
pound them with her fists, which she had been known to
do. It was not, her teachers said, that she was a tough girl,
a bad girl. There was a tough part of her, they all agreed,
but it was a small part that lived inside her, preferring not
to show itself unless it was seriously provoked. And then
it terrorized whoever had the audacity to have brought it
out. (adapted from Cottle, 1997, p. 1)

35. Middle Sections - Suggestions
You could use all four strategies, to make
your writing more interesting.
Do not include large sections of raw data
with no discussion or explanation for
including them. Data is not usually self-evident
– just presenting raw data or
quotes is really a cop out.

36. Discussion

37. Discussion
Incisively restate your main claims, and
explain the linkages and connections
between them.
Explain the significance of your research.
Remind readers that this is just a small-scale
research project, and explain other
limitations.
Suggested directions for future research.
You could finish with a final story.

38. References

39. References
Please use APA: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
Example - Book:
Robson, C., & Bernard, H. R. (2002). Real World
Research (5th ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.
Example - Book Chapter:
Knox, B., & O’Neil, J. M. (2010). The art of fandom.
In B. B. Wyte (Ed.), Fandom in Japan (pp. 101-123).
New York: Springer.
Example - Journal Article:
James, P. (2012). Fundamentals for preparing
reports. Journal of Comparative Writing, 55(1), 3-15.