Writing A Report (1962)

[Music] have you ever seen a n Ted caught one in the pond near his home and brought it to class no one in the class seemed to know very much about NES Miss Clark thought it would help everyone in the class if Ted would write a report on how NES live while they kept the n in the class aquarium Ted didn't know very much about NES but he knew something about writing a report the class had been studying report writing only a week ago everyone had learned the four steps for writing a good report choose a subject gather information organize the information and write the report the first step is choosing a subject Ted already had his subject he was going to write about the N writing about all animals that live in water would be too much information for anyone to include in one report but the N was not too big a subject after choosing a subject the next step is to gather information in the afternoon during the class study period Ted began gathering information for his report first he looked at the inside encyclopedias Ted selected the volume labeled N2 o starting with the encyclopedia is a good way to begin gathering information Ted soon found the article on the new from the picture Ted learned that The N he had caught was called a red spotted n as Ted read the article he knew that he wouldn't be able to remember all the facts he learned he didn't want to copy all the information from the encyclopedia so as you've probably done Ted took notes on what he read at the top of his note card Ted wrote the name of the encyclopedia and underlined it then he wrote the volume and page number his information came from on his note card Ted also wrote certain phrases such as related to salamanders and other short phrases to remind him of the important facts he had read now Ted had some idea of what he would put in his report but the encyclopedia is only one source of information it's always helpful to look for information in other books too after school Ted went to the library where he knew he could find information on almost any subject first Ted looked in the card catalog he knew that all the books in the library were listed here since the the cards are in alphabetical order Ted looked under n for his subject n the card for new said see salamander he had already learned from the encyclopedia that NES are a kind of salamander so he looked under s under the subject heading salamander Ted found books that might contain information on NES in the upper leftand corner the call number on each card told Ted where to look on the Shelf Ted found several books he thought he could use as Ted looked in each book he checked the table of contents here the chapter headings listed the main topics in the book at the back of the book he looked in the index to locate his particular subject NES were on pages 40 and 41 Ted made notes of the important facts he found in each book at the top of each note card Ted wrote the name of the author he underlined the title of the book and then wrote the page his information came from Ted included many facts in his notes he decided to copy one interesting fact exactly as it was written of course he used quotation marks after making his notes for the report Ted thought of something he remembered that when he wrote a report about the post office he had talked to Mr Moran the postmaster who was very helpful Ted decided to talk to someone who would know about NES so he went to see Mr Cain the director of the museum near the forest preserve where he had found the N Ted asked Mr Cain if it were true that NES leave the water to live on land for a while Mr Kain said he could answer this by showing Ted something in the museum it was a terrarium in it were NES that had left the water and were living on land Mr C pointed out that on land these NES changed to a reddish color not like the one that Ted had caught in the pond Mr Cain told Ted several things about NES that he had not found in his books and Ted took careful notes that night Ted looked over all the information he had collected the next step in writing a report is to organize the information into an outline Ted's main topics were a common animal born in water its life on land returns to water good aquarium pets under each main topic Ted wrote subtopics in each subtopic Ted included facts about the main topic he checked his notes to be sure he put all his facts down accurately some of his facts did not fit into the outline and he didn't use these for his report when Ted had finished his outline he checked it to see that the facts he had listed under each main topic belong to that topic later that evening Ted was ready for the last step to write the report as he wrote his report he followed the outline closely so his facts would all be in proper order he used a topic sentence for each paragraph near the end Ted put in the quotation from his notes he also made a footnote showing from which book the quotation had come when he had finished Ted checked his report to see if he had made any mistakes in spelling grammar and punctuation then he was ready to hand in his report the next morning Ted brought his report to Miss Clark and she asked him to read it to the class Ted felt sure of himself because he knew his material thoroughly and he felt sure that the class understood his report because it was well organized and Miss Clark was pleased because his report followed his outline Point by Point organizing the information into a good outline is one of the most important steps in writing a report do you remember the four steps Ted used Us in writing his report these four steps can help you too when you write your next [Music] report