Questions about an assignment should typically be directed to your lecturer. However, the Report writing guide created by Student Success (see link below) looks at the structure and format of a formal academic report and provides a brief definition:
A report is an informative piece of writing. It looks to present and analyse information uncovered via an investigation of a topic, problem, situation, experience or event. Ideally, reports do more than simply present findings. Rather, these findings should be discussed and analysed, with many reports offering recommendations that come from these findings.
Depending on your academic level or discipline, the two chapters Writing Reports (from Research Methods and Statistics for Public and Nonprofit Administrators) and Writing a Research Report: Organisation and Presentation (from Designing and Managing Your Research Project) may be useful. Search the Sage Research Methods database for more research level g
