Government reports are available to the public in many areas related to the social sciences. For example, the Australian Bureau of Statistics publishes reports on a variety of topics informed by its data collection and analysis. These cover straight reporting of statistics (eg the Australian economy and population), as well as broader topics (eg the gap in health and education outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people versus the Australian population as a whole).

High-quality reports on social science topics:

• provide reliable and important data on topics that affect Australian life, and extrapolate qualitative conclusions from quantitative information; these reports are strongly grounded in quantitative data
• collect data from diverse sources and synthesise the data into a thematic whole to form new ideas
• contain careful definitions, including concrete terms (eg a child in need of protection, current partner) as well as abstract terms (eg fear, elder abuse)
• cite diverse references and sources for data, from the author’s own organisation, other organisations, academic studies and international sources
• describe the steps needed to deal with the issues identified by the report.

See Books and reports for more information on writing and structuring such publications. See also Journal publications and laboratory reports for information on structuring a document to report experimental findings. The format and presentation of laboratory reports to be written by psychology students are set by the American Psychological Association.