Business systems data commentary

While data commentaries may be "stand-alone" pieces of writing, they generally occur in the Results or Discussion sections of a report or thesis. The main purposes of a data commentary are to present the results of research, interpret these results, and to discuss the significance and implications of the results. The data should be presented and analysed in a thorough and logical manner; in other words you are expected to analyse and evaluate the data, not just describe it.

To learn more about writing a data commentary, navigate your way through this tutorial using the menu on the left. You will find modules on report structure, paragraph structure, using tables and figures, how to write in an academic style, and how to reference. Each module of the tutorial is based on a sample data commentary from the subject Business Systems.

The sample data commentary contains a full introduction and conclusion, and an abbreviated version of the data analysis section of the report. Some of the paragraphs in the data analysis include only the first sentence - the topic sentence. All topic sentences are indicated in bold. Comments on the report can be read by clicking on the underlined footnote links. The comments will appear in a box within the report.