WRITE A REPORT

Here are 8 guidelines for writing a report.

1.Know your purpose:

This is the major aim, the reason or purpose that you’re writing the report in the first place. This determines the kind of report you write and is an important first step.

Give yourself to think about it. Are you writing a factual, instructional or leading report? Remember:

• Factual reports aim to inform.
• Instructional reports aim to explain.
• Leading reports aim to persuade.

Once your major aim has been defined, your contributory aims will fall into place – you inform in order to explain, and inform & explain in order to persuade. This starting point gives you very important focus, and drives absolutely everything else.

2. Know your readers:

Before you start writing your report, think about its audience. In short, to be successful, a report must ensure that its target readers can:

• Read it without delay
• Understand everything in it with ease
• Accept the Reports’ facts, findings, conclusions and recommendations
• Decide to take the action as recommended in the Report

Accomplishing this, demands more than presenting the facts correctly. It also means that you must communicate well enough and clearly to the reader.

We can get a clearer picture of our reader by asking three questions:

• What does the reader know?
• What are the reader’s attitudes?
• What does the reader want?

Note: Sometimes it can be difficult to answer these questions, especially when writing for a varied readership. If this is the situation where readership is varied then aim for “the most important or primary reader”.

3. Know your objective

After matching the purpose to the reader(s), you are ready to set your objective. In other words, what do you want the reader to think and do after reading your report? (Often, you have to make it very plain and clear explicit. ‘Do this…!’)

An example of an objective: To persuade my Chairman to authorise a proposed system of flexible working hours

The words “persuade” and “authorize” are the important ones here. They show that you must produce a logical and dependable case: one that will encourage your Chairman to act. Also, once you’ve set the objective, you can foresee the likely problems in meeting them – like the fact that your Chairman likes to see all staff on their workstations at sharp 8:00 AM.

4. Choose an approach:

It is recommended for a top-down approach to writing a report. This starts with the thesis statement, following with the information-gathering and continues into three stages of in progress improvement.

• Thesis – the thesis of a report is a guiding statement used to define the scope of the research. This helps you to communicate your information clearly and to be selective when collecting the same.
• Info-gathering – there are a number of questions to ask at this stage:
  • What information do you need?
  • How much do you need?
  • Where will you find it?
  • How will you collect it?
• Improvement/Refinement – there are three stages in the refinement process:
  • Write the section-level outline.
  • Write the subsection-level outline.
  • Write the paragraph-level outline.

Tip: The paragraph-level outline is like a presentation with bulleted points. It includes the flow of ideas. Once you have the paragraph-level bullet points/flow of ideas, you can convert it into a full report by writing out the bullet points/flow of ideas in full sentences.

5. Decide on structure:

Presented here are 11 basic elements of a standard report. Please note this structure does not need to be rigidly adhered to. You may, bring your own circumstances, needs and creativity to the mix, and use whatever is suitable.

• Title page
• Index (or Contents)
• Thesis (or Terms of Reference or Abstract)
• Introduction (or Executive Summary)
• Background
• Procedure
• Implications (or Issues)
• Solutions (or Recommendations)
• Conclusion
• Appendices
• Bibliography (or References)

6. Use the right style

Use hard facts and figures, evidence and justification. Use efficient language, the best reports are simple and quick to read because the writer has interpreted the data and developed possible recommendations.

Here are some tips:

• Write as you speak
• Avoid empty words
• Use descending order of importance
• Use the active voice
• Keep sentences short
• Don’t try to impress; write to express.
• Get facts 100% right

7. Consider layout

Fonts: Remember that reports are often traditional and formal documents, so your font choices should appropriately formal and to be easy reading to the readers eyes. For the body of the document, you may choose a Serif font such as Times Roman or Cambria with a point size of 11 or 12. You may use a sans serif font such as Arial or Calibri for bolded headings to complement the body text.

Visuals: Spend time thinking about the pictures. Wherever necessary, explain all aspects of a visual and don’t leave the reader wondering about the connection between the figure and the text. Write good captions, and choose the type of visual with careful consideration.

8. Leave time to refine

No report is perfect and definitely not when it’s still in the initial Draft stage. Unfortunately, well-written reports are those that have gone through multiple times. Leave as much time as possible to check, re-check and double-check and then ask yourself:

• Overall, does the report fulfil its purpose?
• Does it do what I was asked to do?
• Does it do what I said I’d do in my introduction?
• And bottom line: Am I pleased with it?