Writing Survey Reports

Here at Survey Methods, most of our focus is, naturally, on the survey itself. We're a survey research company and our goal is to help businesses and researchers by providing an easy to use survey tool to collect data and complete analysis. But the research process doesn't truly end once the data is collected and analyzed. The last step for nearly every researcher is to create a survey report.

For scientific researchers, the value of a report is obvious. It's not the data itself that gets you noticed, but the report you generate from it. Yet we submit that every company or researcher should create a report at the end of their project.

These reports are something that you can distribute – something that explains everything related to your survey data so that everyone from your employees to random strangers can easily understand your survey and what you found. While each business is different in terms how best to create a report, there are very standard, recommended ways to build a good, easy to read report.

All survey reports should be written with the utmost professionalism, including excellent grammar and spelling. Clarity is very important. A report that can't be read by anyone is a report that isn't written well enough.

Even those outside of your company need to be able to understand any survey report. Why? Because you never know when someone will need to read the report and confusion will render the report useless.

Remember that every survey report is not only a reporting tool, but also an extension of your company.

Survey reports should start with a background. This background should explain everything leading up to the launching of the survey. If you created any research beforehand, you should share the results of that research.

If you are testing any theories, you should write about where the theories arose and why you thought they were worth testing. From there, explain your objectives. Make sure you show what you were expecting to find before the survey began, or what you hoped to find in the event you had no idea what to expect.

You should also explain how you went about collecting that data (Survey Methods, wink wink) and what programs or methodologies you used in your research.