A Report on the Use of Model Reports for Academic Writing Instruction:

Focusing of the Use of Two 'Bad Report' Models

Abstract

In academic writing instruction for first year university students, the students have very little experience with report writing, so the authors created three model reports to make it easier for the students to understand. A 'good report' was provided to use as a good example. Two 'bad report' examples were made by compiling problems, such as citation and organization, from reports written in the previous year to see if the students could identify the problems. To clarify the problems, Bad Report 1 focused on problems with organization and Bad Report 2 focused on citation problems. This paper is a report of the results of using these three model reports in class.