PSY Forum Events

Quoting from her grandfather’s diary “Keep your sentences simple and short, that way, you avoid making grammatical errors”, Asst. Prof. Joan Rita O’Brien, Head of the Department of Sociology, St. Aloysius College, Mangaluru addressed a small group of budding psychologists with a penchant for writing at a webinar on ‘The Art of Reporting a Report' from 2:15 pm to 4:15 pm on 27th May 2021 via Google meet.

Draped in a newspaper print saree, Prof. Joan’s talk stood out like headlines with her activities on caption writing as well as writing a title for a report. She shared her rich experience in the field of publishing. She expressed that one should begin reporting with a short caption/title first to instil curiosity among the readers. Rough drafts are essential for every report that you write. An element of humour and a punch line of the speaker could be brought into the report which would be impactful. One must be clear about ‘for whom’ (target audience) and ‘why’ a report is written (knowledge or publicity). Also, a report could be like a story, adding anecdotes if possible.

Prof. Joan gave a few warnings:

• Never make mistakes when it comes to names of persons, their designations etc.
• Never write a report if one has not attended an event. You could edit it though.
• Avoid redundant expressions like “true facts”, ‘close proximity” etc.
• Always double-check your report for typos.

And finally, Prof. Joan’s warning was “Do not use Grammarly. It adds more commas and your report slips into a state of coma”.
With examples, the resource person explained about subject verb agreement, usage of tenses and stressed that a report must have zero errors and written with accuracy.

Asst. Prof. Roshini M. Goveas’s wish to be a student of the resource person was fulfilled as expressed at the start of the webinar while the latter was being introduced. Miss. Angel Roshni (I BA) gave a personal touch when she rendered the vote of thanks which was one of the dos pointed out during the webinar.

The webinar organized by the Department of Psychology had a dozen interested students and both faculty who learnt about reporting skills with a clear virtual message- ‘to stand out differently’.