Rules for Report Writing

Preparation and Planning

To fail to prepare is to prepare to fail. The importance of preparation and planning cannot be stressed
too highly. Often, however, writers simply ignore this aspect or dismiss it as too mechanical to be
worthwhile. As a result they plough too quickly into the writing process itself and end up failing to
realise their full potential. Anything you commit to paper before your overall plan has taken shape is
likely to be wasted; it will be like a bricklayer starting to build the wall of a house before the architect
has drawn up the plans.

Before you write a single word you must:

 Set your objective.

 Assess your readership.
 Decide what information you will need.
 Prepare your skeletal framework.
 Test and revise your skeletal framework.

Collectively these activities constitute the planning stage of report writing, and the amount of time and
thought you spend on them will make a vast  difference to the effectiveness of all the work that will
follow, by:

 continually reminding you of your overall objective

 making you constantly 'think readers'
 ensuring you know what information you will need to gather
 giving you clear guidelines to follow when writing each section
 enabling you to rise above the detail and obtain an overview of the entire report at any time.

Setting your Objective

It is vital to establish your precise objective. You must first be absolutely sure of the purpose of your
report. Only then can you even begin to think about what  you are going to write and how you are
going to write it.

A clearly defined objective has a number of important benefits:

 It helps you decide what information to include - and leave out.

 It helps you pitch the report at the right level.
 It makes it easier to write the report.

Assessing your Readership

The next stage is to identify and assess your readership. In many cases, you know who will be
reading your report and the detailed content, style and structure can then be matched to their level of
knowledge and expertise:

 Concentrate on points they will care about.

 Explain things they do not know.
 Address questions and concerns they would be likely to raise.

Deciding What Information you will Need

For some reports, you will need to collect very little information, while for others you will require a
great deal. You will need to think this through carefully, either on your own or with other people.
It is often useful to discuss this with the person who commissioned the report and with prospective
readers, particularly any key decision makers. Are there any specific areas they would like covered?
The very fact that people have been consulted at this early stage will involve them and,
psychologically, this will greatly increase the likelihood of them accepting your conclusions and any
recommendations you subsequently may make.

You are now in a position to think about the overall plan of your report. This is known as the skeletal
framework. It is like drawing up the plans for a new house. Not only will it show its
overall structure, it will also remind you of the materials (information) you will need to gather before
the process of construction can begin.

There are three stages involved in the preparation of a skeletal framework:

 Write a working title.

 Consider the overall structure of the report.
 Consider how information will be presented within the main body.

All reports have a number of commonly recognised components, including:

The Beginning

 Title page
 Foreword
 Preface
 Acknowledgements
 Contents page
 Summary or Abstract
 Introduction

The Middle

 Main body, including substructures

The End

 Conclusions
 Recommendations
 Appendixes
 References
 Bibliography
 Glossary
 Index.

Do not be concerned about the large number of components that may be used; no report ever uses all
of them. However, it is as well to know something about each of these components for two reasons:

 You can then choose the ones best suited to your report, and
 You may be asked to include one or more of them.

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Introduction

Report writing is a time consuming business so it is a great shame if, having devoted all
that time to writing your report, the quality is such that hardly anyone can be bothered
to read it. Quite frankly, most report readers do not actually read all the report; they are
too short of time. You might as well know it and accept it -- that is normal. They only
read the parts that interest them. Frequently these are the summary, the conclusions
and recommendations.

Of course, some readers do need all the details you so carefully included, they are
specialists, but most do not. Most readers just need two things: that the information
they want is where they expect it to be so they can find it, and that it is written clearly
so that they can understand it.

It is similar to reading a newspaper. You expect the news headlines to be on the front
page; the sports coverage to be at the back; the TV listings on page whatever and the
editorial comment in the middle. If what you want is not in its usual place then you have
to hunt for it and you may get irritated. So it is with a report.

There is a convention as to what goes where. Stick with the convention and please your
readers. Break the convention and people may get slightly irritated - and bin your
report.

So what is that convention, the standard format?

Standard Sections 

Title Section. In a short report this may simply be the front cover. In a long one it could
also include Terms of Reference, Table of Contents and so on.

Summary. Give a clear and very concise account of the main points, main conclusions
and main recommendations. Keep it very short, a few percent of the total length. Some
people, especially senior managers, may not read anything else so write as if it were a
stand-alone document. It isn't but for some people it might as well be. Keep it brief and
free from jargon so that anyone can understand it and get the main points. Write it last,
but do not copy and paste from the report itself; that rarely works well.

Introduction. This is the first part of the report proper. Use it to paint the background to
'the problem' and to show the reader why the report is important to them. Give your
terms of reference (if not in the Title Section) and explain how the details that follow are
arranged. Write it in plain English.

Main Body. This is the heart of your report, the facts. It will probably have several
sections or sub-sections each with its own subtitle. It is unique to your report and will
describe what you discovered about 'the problem'.

These sections are most likely to be read by experts so you can use some appropriate
jargon but explain it as you introduce it. Arrange the information logically, normally
putting things in order of priority -- most important first. In fact, follow that advice in
every section of your report.

You may choose to include a Discussion in which you explain the significance of your
findings.
Conclusions. Present the logical conclusions of your investigation of 'the problem'. Bring
it all together and maybe offer options for the way forward. Many people will read this
section. Write it in plain English. If you have included a discussion then this section may
be quite short.

Recommendations. What do you suggest should be done? Don't be shy; you did the
work so state your recommendations in order of priority, and in plain English.

Appendices. Put the heavy details here, the information that only specialists are likely to
want to see. As a guide, if some detail is essential to your argument then include it in
the main body, if it merely supports the argument then it could go in an appendix.

Conclusions and Recommendations

In conclusion, remember that readers expect certain information to be in certain places.

They do not expect to hunt for what they want and the harder you make it for them the
more likely they are to toss you report to one side and ignore it. So what should you do?

1. Follow the generally accepted format for a report: Summary, Introduction, Main Body,
Conclusions, Recommendations and Appendices. 
2. Organise your information in each section in a logical fashion with the reader in mind,
usually putting things in order of priority - most important first.

Good luck with your report writing!