Tutor’s Toolkit: Application of Number

Interpreting Results and Presenting Findings

P3	Highlight the main points of your findings and describe your methods

Scope: 

Students need to be able to:
•	annotate calculations,
•	annotate charts, graphs, tables or diagrams,
•	use mathematical language to describe calculation methods.

What students need to know:

It is important to recognise that mathematicians use a specialist language. The symbols and vocabulary of mathematics is designed to make clear statements as efficiently and as accurately as possible. This has the disadvantage that, to the general reader, they can be very difficult to follow. Hence it is important to annotate mathematical work for two reasons:

1.	To make meanings clear to any reader.
2.	To make clear to any examiner of the work, that the student themselves understands what they have put.

Calculations are completed step-by-step. There must be a reason for one step following another – add a comment to explain the reason. It would be hard to add too many comments – mathematics can be very dense in meaning, with very few symbols or words. However, it is important to keep the calculation itself neat and concise.

Equally, diagrams, charts and graphs carry a lot of meaning essentially in one graphic. A few sentences after the graph should be added to describe such things as:

1.	Why a particular type of graph was used.
2.	Key features of the graph e.g. the scale used.
3.	Specific details of what the chart or graph shows.