Introduction

Assume that the process of research is approaching a conclusion. The research team has written the proposal, undertaken a critical review of the literature, put together the research question and the research team, the research results are available and have been analysed. But the research is not finished. Following previous discussions, the research is not complete until the results have been peer reviewed and published. This chapter describes the process of presenting research results for publication and for presentation in scientific and engineering research conferences.

The good news for the research team is that some of the work required for publication and presentation should be almost complete, as the background to the problem, the literature review and the research methods should have been completed when a research application was submitted. In addition the research application might have included some suggestions about how the results will be displayed graphically and what statistical methods were planned. Before writing the final report it is wise to check the published literature to see if there have been recent publications in the field. This chapter is about presenting the results in a concise, clear manner. The general format of a paper, thesis, abstract, presentation, etc should follow the same general form as illustrated in Figure 7.1.