Writing a useful empirical journal article

The impact of research depends on how well readers can understand and use published reports, yet as researchers we often fail to consider what our readers need. Instead, we structure reports to match a socially accepted, but often inappropriate, standard design – the “hourglass”. In this essay, I suggest that when writing a report, we should adjust our reporting style to suit our target readers. I outline four reporting templates for quantitative empirical studies that are suited to differing reader needs.