Most rejected drafts in this lab are not rejected for the research. They are rejected because the reader cannot find the contribution — it is implied by the results section and stated nowhere. IMRAD is not a formatting convention; it is a contract about where a reader will look for each thing. A reader looking for your contribution will look in two places, and if it is in neither, they conclude there isn’t one.
The CCGA IMRAD libguide, already linked from Report Draft 1. It covers what belongs in each section. It does not cover the contribution claim, which is the mechanic and the only hard part.
None.
Before any section gets written, one sentence:
This paper shows that ______, which matters because ______.
Both blanks. The second is where most drafts fail — “which matters because it has not been done” is not a reason.
Then one topic sentence per section, written before the section. Each must visibly serve the claim. Then run the test that makes this worth doing:
If a section’s topic sentence does not serve the claim, either the section is wrong or the claim is. Decide which, in writing. Usually it is the claim, and discovering that now rather than after drafting twelve pages is the entire return on this exercise.
Overleaf link showing the claim sentence and the topic sentences, in the target template.
This replaces your writing entry for the week you do it. Submit it to that week’s WW assignment in Canvas — the same one you would have submitted anyway. It is not an extra piece of work on top of the log.
You do not submit anything to the milestone yet. When all five skills in M4 are done, submit the M4 — The Manuscript assignment, which is just an index saying which week each one went in.