Report Writing for International Students

There seem to be differences between how reports are written in the UK and in other countries. In the UK, you need to follow the instructions precisely. For example:

If you are asked to write an XML file, your answer should look something like this:

<movies>
  <movie id="1">
    <title>The Quest</title>
    <actor>Tom Smith</actor>
    <year>2007</year>
  </movie>
  <movie id="2">
    <title>Summer</title>
    <year>1998</year>
    <actor>Susie Black</actor>
    <actor>Paul White</actor>
  </movie>
</movies>

You will get 0 marks for this:

The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a general-purpose specification for creating custom markup languages. It is classified as an extensible language, because it allows the user to define the mark-up elements. XML's purpose is to aid information systems in sharing structured data, especially via the Internet, to encode documents, and to serialize data; in the last context, it compares with text-based serialization languages such as JSON and YAML. ...

(This would also be plagiarism because it is a direct quote from Wikipedia without a reference in the text.)

If you are asked to give a brief explanation of how you are using Javascript in your code, your answer should look something like this (with the "..." filled in):

In my code, Javascript is used to achieve ... and to ... . In the first case, my code ... . For example, .... . This was especially helpful because ....

In the second case, I implemented the ... functionality. This overcame the problem of ... . It also facilitated ... . A code example is ...

In summary, ...

You will get 0 marks for this:

JavaScript is a scripting language widely used for client-side web development. It was the originating dialect of the ECMAScript standard. It is a dynamic, weakly typed, prototype-based language with first-class functions. JavaScript was influenced by many languages and was designed to look like Java, but be easier for non-programmers to work with. ...

(This would also be plagiarism because it is a direct quote from Wikipedia without a reference in the text.)

If you are asked to write a critical analysis, your answer should look something like this (with the "..." filled in):

The major challenges for this topic are ...

On the positive side, the main points are ... First, ... Second, ... This is in contrast to ...

On the negative side, the major drawbacks are ... First, ... Second, ... Overall this explains why ...

In conclusion, ...

You will get 0 marks for this:

Analysis is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts to gain a better understanding of it. The technique has been applied in the study of mathematics and logic since before Aristotle, though analysis as a formal concept is a relatively recent development. ...

(This would also be plagiarism because it is a direct quote from Wikipedia without a reference in the text.)

Other points about UK courseworks: