How to write a Report?

Art of writing an Exclusive Report

A report is usually a formal document to provide concise information about a specific subject. Like the structure of business report, and lab report, a report structure is devised in such a way that it provides a clear understanding of the key points about a certain issue. However, you should always check with your lecturer on the structure you are expected to follow for your assignment. Some of the main purposes, we write reports are:

• To inform a well-decided audience.
• To make proposals or recommendations for change.
• To analyse or solve a problem.
• To present the findings of an investigation or a project.
• To demonstrate or record the progress of a project.

The key to report writing is providing authentic as well as objective information to the reader on all concerned issues. To maintain the objectivity, generally reports are written in third person. The important features of report writing are: a pre-defined structure, independent sections, and reaching unbiased objective conclusions.

Steps in writing a report:

You have to realize that writing report is an ongoing process writing and re-writing. Therefore, it is mostly advisable that don’t try to write the entire report as per its structure. Rather concentrate first on writing the body of the report and then go to the conclusion, and end with writing the introduction.

An effective writing process to write long reports:

• Organize the information.
• Begin with writing an outline.
• Then go about writing the first draft.
• Rewrite to improve the first draft.
• Edit and proofread.

Except the above mentioned point, you should remember the following features about reports while preparing for writing one.

Predefined structure of a report:

The predefined heading structure of a report can be distinguished fundamentally from the structure of an essay. Broadly, these headings, sections are defined as introduction, body and conclusion. However, within the main section making up the body, you have the liberty to create your own structure depending on the source literature, your development of ideas, and the purpose of the report.

Independent sections:

All the different sections of a report are written like a stand-alone piece. This enables the reader to select on relevant portions of the report, instead of reading through the report entirely.

Component of a report:

Title Page:

Along with the title and author details, title page should contain other university or organizational details.

Executive summary:

An executive summary or abstract of a report are extremely important. And often it is the only thing that is surely read in the report. So while writing an executive summary, you should be clear about how to approach it. You should be especially careful in not making executive summary a version of the introduction.

Introduction:

In this section you should provide a detailed background to set the context of the subject matter of the report. You can follow the funnel like structure of writing introduction to an essay for writing the introduction.

Body:

As already indicated, you have the liberty to organize body of the report and you can put different headings under it. The main purpose of this section is to conduct evaluations of various issues at hand. Generally four types of structure are used to write the body of a report.

• Flat structure: In this all the issues or sections are of equal importance, so no consideration is given on in what order these appear in the report.
• Hierarchical structure: In this the most important issue should be placed at the beginning and the least important one at the end.
• General-specific structure: In this a more general issue will appear first and in a nested format the specific issues will appear within the general one. Either flat or hierarchical structure can be used for organizing the specific issues within a general one.
• Relationship structure: In this type of structure, each issue is related to other issues. The pattern of the relationship can be either circular, or it can be like the intersections of different sets and subsets.

Conclusion:

In this section, provide a quick summary of the all the issues you have attended in the report. Along with it, conclusions from the evaluations carried out in the earlier sections are described in this section to provide a final consolidated set of conclusions.

Recommendation:

This is an integral part of a report. Generally, the policy recommendation is given in this section based on the evaluations of various issues, carried out in the report. Ensure that your policy recommendations are based strictly on the evaluations of various issues and the conclusion drawn from it.

Bibliography:

This section should contain all the references used in the report.

Final words:

Please remember report writing is an integral part of any academic program and thus you need to master the process of writing it.