Reports and other longer documents

This chapter primarily talks about all forms of reports and the basic problems we may face as report writers working in corporate world. The writers here concentrate on audience, importance of abstract, use of checklist, effective use of visual aids, different strategies needed to persuade.
Report is a generic term that can include writing from informative to persuasive and formal to informal. Formal letter has multi-part format with coverletter, abstract, table of contents, glossary, introduction, detailed discussion, conclusions and recommendations, and appendices. Whereas informal report is shorter and may include introduction, discussion, conclusions, and recommendations. The writer suggests to take a process approach to writing reports and tells us to plan from beginning, stick to our purpose, and attend to audience’s needs. Audience analysis is perhaps the most important aspect of report writing. We should be aware that audience can be different in different situations from layperson, to experts.
Mathes and Stevenson: audience analysis
Writers often miss the third element of communication situation: audience. They often make false assumptions:
a. Person addressed is the audience
b. Audience consists of specialists
c. Report has a shelf life
d. Static work/personnel situation
e. Audience has been kept up to speed/knows what you’re talking about
f. Audience is expecting your report and waiting breathlessly
g. Audience has time to read your report
To meet audience’s needs, we need to analyze them. There are three types of report audiences: horizontal, vertical, and external. Horizontal audience are on the same level. However, their background, political position, personality traits and goals make their needs different from each others. We normally address person’s organizational role. So, he is not individual. The vertical audience refers to audience from different organizational levels, up/down. Here the writer must design in accordance to its possible use. External audience refers to the ones from other organization. Here the report may represent the organization. In such case, we need to make a systematic audience analysis. For systematic analysis:
a. Prepare an egocentric organization chart
b. Characterize the individual report readers
c. Classify audiences in terms of how they will use your report
Richard W. Dodge: “What to Report”
Technical reports must fulfill the needs of the management. So, the writer needs to make an audience analysis. But it seems to have received much less attention than needed. Management seeks to find pertinent facts and competent opinions that help it in making decision. Manager want the information to be brief and meaningful and he want to find it in the beginning of the report. And the report’s summary should contain three things: what the report is about, the significance and implications of the work, and the action called for. Generally, a report summary should include definition of the problem, objectives, reasons for doing it, conclusion, and recommendations.
Managers mostly do not read body and appendices.

Management’s responsibilities:
1. Define the project
2. Provide proper perspective
3. See that effective reports are submitted on time
4. Se that reports are properly distributed
Four conferences at selected time can help him control the writing of the report:
1. At the beginning of the project
2. At the completion of the investigation
3. After the report is outlined
4. After the report is written
Christian K. Arnold “The Writing of Abstracts”
The writer shows the importance of abstract. There are two types of abstracts: descriptive and informative. Descriptive abstract gives an accurate indication of the subject matter and scope of the study where as informative abstract summarizes the results and conclusions and gives enough background information to make the results understandable.
Then the writer provides general rules to eliminate most of the problems of the abstracts:
1. enough specific info to satisfy “administrative needs” of executive
2. Complete in miniature form
3. Short: between 3% and 10% of report’s length and one page is psychologically advantageous
4. Fluent and easy to read prose: readers may not be the experts in subject matter. So, don’t use jargon; keep transitional devices
5. Maintain consistence in tone, emphases, and content with report (but not necessarily structure)
6. You can use abbreviations and numbers but not tables and illustrations
Vincent Vinci: “10 Report Writing Pitfalls: How to Avoid Them”
1. Ignoring the audience
2. Writing to impress
3. Having more than one aim
4. inconsistency
5. Overqualifying/ having more than one objective
6. Not defining
7. Misintroducing
8. Dazzling with data
9. Not highlighting
10. Not rewriting